[Bob Cole]

Thanks! Great idea.

[Bob Cole]

[Mark Suszko] “At least consider adding a diffuser and a short arm to offset it by a foot or two.”

Great idea. If you have to be mobile and keep the light on the camera, you may want to visit your local professional-photographer store, and try to rig your video camera like a wedding photographer rigs her flash — off to one side and above the eyeline/lens. Use one of those offset brackets that attach either to the baseplate or the hot shoe. It might be a bit ungainly but your advisors here are right about the look being much better with a little bit of offset.

One caution, though. I haven’t actually tried what I just suggested, and if you are shooting handheld in an active situation, it may be a bit weird to have the offset light. If you are just trying for “fill” light, an on-camera light might actually be subtler and better.

I’ve used a light mounted right on top of the camera plenty of times (including yesterday) and it can work as a subtle fill. Yesterday I had to deal with a very “toppy” convention hall, and a little bit of on-camera light helped take the curse off some very hot noses. It also allows you to make the foreground person pop out of her environment, by using a diffused and filtered-warm on-camera light, and balancing for the background.

Try the wedding-photographer bracket and that little light you found.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Erik Anschicks] “use ND gel or black hairspray or something akin.”

Black hairspray?

[Bob Cole]

[Mark Suszko] “the one that actually seems to capture the essence and overall “flavor” of the Old Carson show at its best, was IMO actually Jimmy Kimmel’s show,”

True! I enjoy Colbert a lot, but I had a similar reaction, but more about the nature of the host. For that time of day, mellowness has its charms. Colbert is like caffeine.

So, you didn’t think the guest chair lighting was stinky, huh?

bob

[Bob Cole]

Thanks, Todd. Great article.

The “missing link” was After Effects CC (12). Whenever I searched for (12), the Adobe website kept sending me to AE CC (2015).

It took some doing, but through a third-party website I found the Adobe web page with CC (12) – only to discover that it won’t run under Yosemite. In case this helps anyone else, I found the links to AE CC (12) through a table at the bottom of prodesigntools dot com slash adobe-cc-direct-download-links dot html.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

“exposure… but not too much.”

Way to go! You have a bright future.

[Bob Cole]

So Shane, tell us a joke about filming yourself.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I wonder whether there are some other tricks. Perhaps eyedrops to make the eyes even more reflective? Contacts?

The ringlights that John mentioned made me wonder, too, about the size of the eyelight. Larger source -> larger eyelight area.

re Kirk and the “synths” in Humans: intense eyelight seems to connote extreme emotion. Perhaps we associate extra-luminous eyes with eyes full of tears?

[Bob Cole]

Maybe there’s something I am not understanding here, but why wouldn’t you just use less light for the subject, thereby requiring a wider aperture, which would make the background whiter?

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Rick, you may also want to look at the Shadowmaker from Magic Gadgets – especially if you can find it as a rental, because it’s rather expensive. But it’s very cool – has programmable settings for various kinds of lighting effects. I suspect DS has used one, and I’m curious as to whether he liked it.

https://www.magicgadgets.com/product/shadowmaker/

BC