Author: Pieter de Vries

These are always tricky lighting situations and the best approach is to keep it simple. I would suggest using a fluorescent light, a Lowel CaseLite or a Kino Flo Deva to provide the fill to even out the “toppy” overhead light from the existing flouros. A single light on a stand should not be too disruptive.

To add some punch to the sequence, shoot using the tele end of the zoom lens shots to bring the depth and the scope of the room into the sequence and rely on your light to take care of the close-up shots. The long telephoto shots will deliver the business of the room which surely is what the client would prefer. It's important to cut as much light from the LCD computer screens as you can, so a black cutter on a lighting stand may be helpful. This may not work as your impact will be bigger and it may impede the operation of the office. To get a nicer balance, turn down the brightness of the computer LCD screens. With LCD screens you will not have to deal with roll bar issues .

Tracking shots will do justice to the sequence and the office. The repetitive set-up of many office cubicles and work stations is appealing so don't attempt to light these shots.

It's best to not over complicate however a gentle fill from a flourescent light may be needed. Use your fill light at a low output setting or move it away from the subject to find the right balance. Daylight tubes should be fitted in this situation.

If a light on a lighting stand is not practical then a Lite-Panel LED battery operated camera light is the next step. The dimmer on the panel will allow you to set just enough fill to clean up the toppiness from the overhead house lights. Check first that you have a reasonable colour match with the existing lights. Add a sheet of Rosco Half Plus Green to the Lite Panel or the CaseLight add green in order match the green colour cast in the overheads; make it everything greenish – remove this overall cast in your NLE and the colour will look quite normal again. Some testing would be good if you have the time.

In summary, use gentle light fill for faces and use your flouro to back-light mouse and keyboard shots. Rely on long lens to create busy foregrounds, and dolly shots: a Wally Dolly or even someone pushing you on a rolling office chair.

Frame faces with the computer screens breaking up the frame. Half face – half back of the screen and organise lots of stuff hopefully moving through the foreground.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS

Is it possible I have a non-zoom through lenses. If so how do you tell the difference?

They come in two flavours. If it is not a zoom-through-lens adaptor, you will know as soon as you made your first zoom in – the image would beginning to look out of focus as you zoom in. Make certain that the adaptor is one that is designed to hold focus through the entire zoom range.

There are times when wider shots look flat and one dimensional.video cameras record impressive high resolution images however this clarity can also be a disadvantage.

In contrast to the telephoto lens, the wide-angle end of a zoom lens shows everything in the frame in sharp focus. Why is that?

It's helpful to know the best way to work with what nature dishes out – sunshine or cloudy days. Click here to read how

You should always be aware of the background when you set up an interview. If the area behind the subject is relevant and appealing, you might wish to take in as much of it as you can. On the other hand, if it’s unsightly, distracting, or bears no connection to the topic of the discussion, you may wish to exclude much of background. In this case, a narrow field-of-view will hide a world of nasties. How can you do that?

The zoom lens is a very nifty inclusion on a digital video camera and there is a direct connection between the focal length used (the degree of magnification) and the resulting field-of-view. Framing your subject where you use the telephoto end of the zoom lens is the best way to get a narrow field-of-view. 

Place the tripod further away from the subject so that you make use of the telephoto end of the zoom. In the viewfinder, the size of the subject would be the same as would be the case on the wide angle end of the zoom, however, what is included in the background will be greatly reduced. 

A once distracting background will also now be beautifully diffused mainly due to the fall off in focus that accompanies a greater magnification by the lens.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS

As an on-camera light, the Lite-Panel LED is hard to go past. The ability to trim the brightness for any given lighting situation is important and this light allows you to do that. The daylight balanced 50 degree model works best as an on-camera light in my experience.

Use a piece of CTO correction gel for the tungsten lighting situations but you will loose some output as you'd expect. It's perfect for a night shoot inside a car and the wider beam of the two is more versatile.

Rosco LitePads also work nicely and have the ability to fix any lighting holes; those places where you find hard hide a light. Interior scenes in vehicles at night are nicely taken care of with LitePads along with so many other potentially tricky situations. These are my favourite light because of the different shapes and sizes that are available.

The great thing is that when you use it, nothing feels lit. It just appears like you've gotten lucky with soft natural available light every where you point the camera and we all know life's not really like that. It's the balance of light's output on the subject compared to the background that's the key to making it work.

As long as you can get the light reasonably close to your subject, remembering that if it’s a daytime exterior interview it’s a little harder to fill; the ambient daylight level will probably be quite high in the first place. The small on-camera light panel is even good used as a key light in low ambient light situations. It’s in the great sunny outdoors that you find there is not sufficient output.

I’d go for the wider beam version. It performs better as an all round camera light, but you'll have to power it from a separate battery (9v to 19v) in say a waist bag, as the battery provided clips onto the back of the light and makes the camera far too top heavy. It's no Sun-Gun, but a beautifully subtle lighting tool for video.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS

The green screen should be set at around 3 meters from the subject and the larger the screen the better. Try to not compromise on this distance from the subject, even if it means choosing another location. 

This gives you separation from the screen and reduces the amount of green reflecting off the screen and onto the back of your subjects. This green contamination is a real no-no.

Light your screen separately. Lowel Tota-Lites are good for this however KinoFlos or Lowel Caselights are also very good. I position one to each side and run them through a dimmer to control the output. The plan is to get an even spread on the screen with each of the lights washing out any creases in the fabric if that's what you are using. Lighting the screen so that it's one stop darker than the subject is a good rule of thumb.

Once you are happy, light your subject separately using all the modelling with the light and shade that you would normally use. Keep in mind that strong back-light on the hair and shoulders can exaggerate the fact that’s it is a green screen shot when the final composite is done. When you have finish lighting the screen, turn off the lamps lighting your subject so you can check to see if any green is reflecting back onto the backs of the subject. A small amount of back lighting will generally take care of this problem. It's important to make sure that there is no reflected green from the screen falling on the back of your subject – if there is, it will come back to haunt you as the production manager coughs up the extra dollars for the editor to clean up the problems.

Even lighting

This was a talk on lighting basics I gave to filmmakers about to shoot their first film for the annual Tropfest Film Festival held in Sydney in February each year. There are helpful suggestions on which lights are best for particular shooting situations (duration 05:22)

Sony RoughCut lighting talk from Pieter de Vries ACS on Vimeo.

There are a number of different styles of tripods available. Regardless of whether it’s the telescopic type or the dual tube type, always try to use a tripod/fluid head combination that has a "levelling head". A tripod that has a adjustable rising centre post is designed for stills photography – it has no place under a video camera.

Video and stills tripods consist of two parts – a tripod and a fluid head, however it is common to refer to the whole unit as a tripod or a tripod system.

Tripods with ultra-lite telescoping tubes are popular for use with video cameras – the height range is impressive and you can operate from almost ground level to over the top of crowds.  Setting up a tripod can be a little like setting up a deck chair, so it’s best to get in the habit of doing things in the right order. For this tutorial, we're using the Miller Solo DV 2-stage telescopic tripod which is the one of the best tripod systems available.

Stand the tripod on the floor, un-tighten the pan/clamp and raise the pan/tilt handle parallel to the ground. This gets it out of the way so you can proceed to the the following steps.

1. Lift the tripod and cradle it on one arm. Loosen the (larger) upper concentric lock on one leg and extend the tube to the approximate height that you’d like to work then re-tighten it. If you want to set the tripod to a higher position, then extend and lock the lower tube first then the upper tube. You can stand the tripod on the one extend leg to check if the height is right for you.

2. Once you’re happy with the height, hold the tripod as before and extend the other legs to match the length of the extended tube. Make sure that you tighten all three concentric locks. 

3. Grip two of the legs with both hands near the top of the tripod and place the foot of the third leg to the ground in front of you. Keeping that tripod leg in place and take a step backwards, drawing the other two legs towards you and placing them on the ground. Be sure that you pull the legs out to the limit of the leg angle limiters or built-in spreader.

4. Using a Miller DS10 system, you should firstly mount the rectangular camera plate onto the base of the camera with the supplied attaching screw. The screw should be tightened and there should be no slipping movement – the locating pin on the plate should prevent this.

5. Slide the attached camera plate (now securely attached to the base of the camera) into the recessed channel on the fluid head and make sure that the yellow securing lever has fully engaged to lock the camera onto the head. Tighten the smaller yellow slide channel lock on the side of the head to ensure the camera doesn't slide forwards or backwards in the channel.

6. Set the panning arm angle. Find a position where the pan/tilt handle feels comfortable. I find it handy to have an index mark on the head to find this position in the future. Try a few positions to see how it feels, but once you find the sweet spot, you should place an index mark on the head so you can angle the arm just where you like it every time. You’ll find that it feels comfortable and familiar when it’s set at the same position each time. 

7. You are now ready to level the tripod. You should do this by gripping the top camera handle in one hand, and loosening the main locking adjustment cup underneath the tripod head. You should now be able to roll the fluid head with the camera and adjust all angles so that the small spirit level indicator on the head is in the centre of it's circular index marks. At this point re-tighten the adjustment cup.

8. You now need to balance the camera on the head. This is done by loosening the black tilt lever on the side of the fluid head. This will let you tilt the camera on the tripod. You will probably notice that the camera will tend to naturally tilt backward or forward depending on the where the camera is seated on the fluid head. You need the camera to sit level to the horizen, so undo the yellow slide lock (near the camera mounting plate) and slide the camera forward or backward so that it sits in that horizontal position. Tighten when balanced.

You are now ready to set your tilt and pan drag settings with the small rotatable knobs. This is a personal preference, but when set correctly you should be able to make smooth slow or fast speed camera moves without jerking, and be able to start the move from a stationary position without having to apply excessive force.

I always try to have the sections of the document required to be filled out by me, completed before arriving in the country. Usually on the plane as I'm about to land. I find that it's good to have the document already out and in full view of customs officers giving directions to the area for processing.

Have the rest of the crew follow you and they will usually slide through the procedure in your 'wake'. You will probably know more about the procedure that the customs officer in some countries. 

Have the number of items listed (eg 1 thru 86) written clearly in that part of the document and insist on stamps where they are needed. Have the total value of the carnet written in the local currency of the country you are entering. This tiny bit of thoughtfulness impressed the hell out of tired and weary Customs officials. Typo's can be corrected on the way out with a pen and stamped by the customs people there. 

Don't accidentally fill out and tear off an exportation voucher instead of an importation voucher when entering the country. Done that! We lost a carnet in Italy (house keeping threw it out!) and had to wait a week to get the equipment from customs in Milan while we waited for a hard copy of the carnet to be DHL'd from Australia. Could have been worse – a week of sitting about in Moderna, Italy drinking coffee etc! 

Some production companies ask you to reduce the value of your items listed on the carnet document in order to reduce the bond they have to pay to the authority. I suggest that you don't agree to do this as in the event of an insurance claim, these marked down values can be used as a guide to the replacement costs. 

Finally, allow 3 hours to get yourself and the gear out of Tel Aviv. You will be subjected to an extensive interview with your equipment laid out in front of you. Your interviewer may be no older than 24 and be very pleasant and apologetic.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS