Wheres the best spot for the hair light when trying to avoid reflections?

[Patrick Bronte]

You’re a good man Todd! I really appreciate all the advice you’ve been giving me! Thanks Erik for joining in. Your recent post has given me food for thought.

From what you’re both saying I get the idea that you think its a better idea to go natural rather than the black screen?? Well I think thats they way I’ll go. This will mean that I will have to use Todds technique of having the rim/hair light off to the side for if I have it placed directly above the talents head then the light stand will be in the frame.

If I have a window behind the person being interviewed, thats when I use the backlight. Does this still apply when the cams on full manual?

I’ve seen a number of docos that have a crisp focused image of the talent and the BG is blurred out. Can this be done with my camera (Canon XF-100). Digieffects has a plugin that allows you to do this in post but it looks like a very drawn out, arduous task.

Erik, my arsenal of lighting is:
My key light: https://www.photowarehouse.co.nz/falcon-lhd-b928fs-ob8-fluoro-9x-bulb-light-incl-softbox/
Plus, I have been using a 300 LED light on a standard light stand as the rim/hair light. I’ve also got a reflector to help act as a fill light that I can hold up with a reflector stand.

Please keep that advice coming. You are teaching me a lot.

Thanks guys.

[Todd Terry]

Patrick…

I was on a shoot this morning and had to do a setup very similar to what you’ve been talking about, so I pulled a couple of screen grabs and took a couple of cell phone pics of the setup.

We are having to shoot interviews with SIXTY different business owners in our community for a Chamber of Commerce job, and we are having to do these really fast… so we have tried to come up with something where we can zip in to an interviewee’s place, shoot, and be packed and out within 20-30 minutes or so. For us this has meant a lot of available light, and daylight LED instruments that we can throw up quickly and run off batteries. We’re not even taking C-stands, due to weight… just collapsible Matthews stands. Also, I almost always shoot primes, but in this case I’m using a 37-140mm Foton zoom to avoid having to change lenses and to be able to change focal lengths on the fly. There’s not even time to take the “dead cat” windjammer off the mic, which we would usually do for interiors.

It’s not a perfect look by any stretch, but as you can see it is perfectly acceptable. And this is an example of a “natural” setting, as opposed to putting talent in front of a neutral or limbo background. The grabs are uncorrected and ungraded, straight from the camera from a shoot abut an hour ago…

The four at the very bottom are other business guys in this series, all with the same exactly lighting plot…

That also shows the backlight position that was discussed earlier… lower and to the side opposite the key. You can see how it gives a bit of highlight splash to the right side of her face, and mimics what you might see from a practical window for a fairly natural look.

As I said, not perfect lighting by any means, and more controllable instruments would be nice… but with this setup the actual DP work took less than three minutes, and on this gig every minute counts.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rick Wise]

Fabulous run-‘n-gun setup Todd.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Todd Terry]

Thanks Rick…

Then you might get a laugh out of the extremely ridiculous (but workable) travel system we came up with for these 60 back-to-back interview shoots…

I took all the usual stuff we usually travel with, and pared it down to the absolutely positively can-do-without-it “must haves”… not just losing the jibs and dollys and sliders and butterflies and such, but the real “must haves.” I probably excluded a good four-fifths of what we usually travel with, or probably more.

Then I dug out an old smaller case that wasn’t doing anything, and figured out how to puzzle-piece everything we needed in it, and in such a way that it was easily grabbable/accessible. I tricked the case out with these plywood “sideboards” and put lots of hooks, posts and PVC tubes on it.

It definitely looks like Rube Goldberg meets Frankenstein (meets Roto Rooter), but I can pretty much instantly grab anything we need…

That carries C300 body, plates/rails, matte box, follow focus, filters, four primes and one zoom, handheld rig, camera batteries, three LED lights and batteries, three Matthews stands, two umbrellas, sticks/head, spider dolly, mic/boom/blimp/windjammer, headset, reflectors, and some other stuff I can’t even remember.

The last of these shoots is tomorrow. I can’t wait to get back to “full-gear” mode where I don’t have to worry about whether I’ve got something (and can get C-stands back, along with frames and silks and stuff I thought I couldn’t do without). But… part of me likes traveling light, so I’m going to keep this setup around for the down-n-dirty shoots.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rick Wise]

That case must weigh a ton with all that gear.

Which LED lights did you chose?

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Todd Terry]

[Rick Wise] “That case must weigh a ton with all that gear. “

Not too bad, and it’s fairly maneuverable. I think it weighs less than our regular camera case (when traveling with full gear), which is a bit larger. The only “ugggh” grunting moment comes when lifting it in and out of the truck. I find that is a convenient time to take an emergency phone call or answer an urgent email, and leave it to my guys.

[Rick Wise] “Which LED lights did you chose?”

I’m almost embarrassed to tell you, Rick… because I always harp on buying great gear and avoiding junk. However, I’d never owned or really used any LED lights before, so I bought some really cheap ones just to test the water… and I got really lucky with them. We bought a couple of these “Aura” instruments made by “Proaim.” Who knows who really makes them… they are some Chinese or Indian made instruments. They are kinda knockoffs of the LEDZ Brutes, with 24 of the bigger LEDs instead of a thousand little ones. We paid almost nothing for them, on eBay. They came with stands that I immediately threw away… ha.

I did, however, get VERY lucky with them. Turns out, they are great. Quite well built, very bright and punchy, fully dimmable, and will run about 6-8 hours on a battery. Color is great, no green spikes at all… right at about 56K° or maybe slightly higher.

I did do a few mods… firstly I cracked them open and did some wiring so I could add a AntonBauer goldmount to the back of each. I also added an umbrella mount to the top (hacked some eBay parts I bought), and drilled holes in the filter frames to allow use of softbox rods without a speedring….

I have a third small LED instrument I travel with that’s more “legit,” the Switronix TorchLED. It’s small, actually built as an on-camera light but we almost always use it on a stand… it’s a convenient back or hair light. Bi-color, fully dimmable, runs for probably about three hours on its battery. Highly recommended.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Patrick Bronte]

Cheers for that Todd! That looks like how I’m going to do my set up when going to the talents home. What would you do if you went to someones home and the only room available was a lot smaller and doesn’t have the depth to it like that in the photo? The only thing I think I’d add would be a white reflector on a stand to catch some of the key light in order to offer some soft light to the opposite side of the talents face. What do you reckon? I wIll use your set-up as a reference and start experimenting to try and get a similar look to the images you’ve posted. I think the only issue I’m going to encounter is that I’m not going to be able to achieve that look of having the talent in sharp focus and the background being blurred out because I’m not using the same class of camera.

With those shots were there is a window in the background, did you have to turn on the cameras backlight?

You have your mic above the talent, I have it on a stand the ends up having the mic up around chest height with an arm the points the mic in the direction of the talents face.

Thanks again Todd. These pics are a big help.

[Rick Wise]

Todd, in addition to being a master cinematographer you are also a master at DIY rigging. Most impressive. Those lights seem to be from India, a rival of Chinese sources. Indeed eBay is where to find them: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xproaim+aura&_nkw=proaim+aura&_sacat=0&_from=R40

I have also been intrigued by the round 9 and 14 Genaray lights and the way they come with plumbing for umbrellas. You can find them at B&H.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Todd Terry]

Yep Rick, those are the exact lights. I will tell ya though I paid a lot less than that for them (I don’t remember who the particular seller was).

They were listed for about that same price for a pair but with the “make me an offer” option. I think I offered something ridiculous like $325 and they countered with something like $380.

I figured at that price, even if they lasted two shoots they’d be worth it… but they’ve been going strong for a year or so. So, for anyone interested in those, they certainly can be had for a lot less.

And, master… no. Maybe loose-canon jack of all trades, but master of absolutely none. I’m ok with that.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rick Wise]

Todd, you wear your modesty well. I know a master when I see one. Possibly my own hubris, but I think not.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com