Lighting for me in front of a chalkboard?

[Stan Welks]

I will be using an HVX200 and Kinos.

[Mark Suszko]

Will you actually turn to face the board and write on it, or is it more like a projection screen that is over your shoulder, and you never look back at it or touch it?

Consider how your shadow will or won’t fall on it. If you need to be close to it and physically touch it, to point at stuff or write or draw, then I think you need big, soft lights from far left and right sides to keep from throwing a hard shadow. If this is more like a changing billboard over your shoulder, having enough distance separating you from the board in depth should keep shadows cast by the body from being an issue, and you can be more artful keylighting the body.

Maybe you want a *little* shadow on the board to sell that the writing is really on it, maybe not.

[Stan Welks]

I do not think I will ever need to write on it or touch it. I might turn to face it though. It will be more of a projection screen displaying images and text related to what I am talking about.

How far do you think I should be from the board and the lights should be from me and the board?

Thanks.

[Mark Suszko]

At least your body height plus a foot, is my general rule.

[Stan Welks]

“At least your body height plus a foot, is my general rule.”

Are you referring to the distance I should be from the board OR the distance I should be from the lights, OR both?

Thanks.

[John Sharaf]

The further away the better; to eliminate your shadow and to minimize green spill on foreground character.

JS

[Stan Welks]

I’m not actually going to use green screen.

[Mark Suszko]

If it is a real green chalkboard, it will also reflect green onto the guy, though maybe not enough to be significant. Still, I was referring to a distance from the background to prevent shadow-casting onto it.