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Lighting for B-roll where you don’t have power
We shoot case study videos for clients who sell computer and networking gear. Their customers are typically very large enterprises. We usually are not allowed to shoot inside the data center for security reasons, but sometimes we can.
But, when we can there are a always several restrictions:
1. Now power available
2. They are antsy and want us in and out as fast as possible
3. We are shooting in tight spots
4. The gear we are shooting is sometimes inside the rack mount and thus shadowed.
5. The ambient light is harsh and uneven florescentFor example:
Is there a create way to light with battery powered lights in this kind of environment?
Neil Myers
Connect Public Relations
CS4 Master Suite, 3DS -
4 Replies
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Small, LED based battery-powered lights for this, add lots of diffusion to it for lighting up the inside of the racks, to kill the harshness of shadows. For stand-up speeches next to the racks, a large but foldable foil-covered bounce board or a foldigng “flex-fill” will bounce the existing overhead light back onto the talent at a more flatering angle, and costs no energy, just a warnm body to hold/aim it.
I’m surprised you can get useable audio in a server room with all the fan noise.
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Thanks, I’ll research those type of lights. We aren’t going for any audio … this is just b-roll to cut away to.
Neil Myers
Connect Public Relations
CS4 Master Suite, 3DS -
Something like this maybe:
https://www.digitaljuice.com/djtv/detail.asp?sid=451&sortby=&page=2&rpid=0&rvid=0&swid=0&searchid=0
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The short answer is, there are always creative ways to light, regardless of what powers the light — bounced, AC, DC. The considerable advantage of LED lights is that they are very light and consume very little power so that running them off batteries is a decent option.
Here’s a list of them that run ad/dc, from low to high: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?ci=12248&Ns=p_PRICE_2|0&N=4294551085+4289308679+4289308678/BI/6544/KBID/7158
No matter where the power comes from, the last place you want the light, except for a little eye-twinkle, is on or near the camera. That means you need at lest one other person to hold the light(s). Sometimes you can press one of your “handlers” into becoming a brief human light stand….
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com
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