Here's the link to a great site created by Lowel Lighting to improve your lighting skills.
Interactive features allow you to see the effect of
each instrument in a lighting setup.
The site reviews and demonstrates lighting placement, use of lighting controls, interview lighting, and soft lighting. Lowel also provides a number of lessons to teach you how to light typical setups.
Each lesson includes a wide shot to show lighting
and camera placement relative to the position
and orientation of the subject.
Lowel has long been recognized for selling quality gear at affordable prices. This useful site demonstrates a growing trend among manufacturers to educate customers in the proper use of the gear they sell.
Here's the link to a great article by Jan Ozer which appears in the August 2008 issue of event DV magazine. Ozer addresses the unique issues that arise when shooting talking head video for the Internet.
Why should Internet delivery matter? Because if you're not careful, the codecs and bit rates used for Internet video can render your piece unwatchable.
In this example, Ozer demonstrates how striped patterns in clothing are unsuitable for the Internet. Notice the rainbow and smeary artifacts in the shirt.
In addition to clothing Ozer reviews lighting and backgrounds. To sum up, keep it simple. Most video codecs handle simple images and lighting much better than complex scenes.
This month's edition of DV has a great article on lighting. Jay Holben discusses how to diffuse light, thereby creating "a long transition between light and shadow".
He writes, "Many filmmakers who are new to lighting know that they want softer light...so they put diffusion on the face of their lights. Unfortunately, this has very little effect...If, however, you put that diffusion out away from the [barn]doors and fill it with the light, it becomes a much larger source and much softer light."
The article is a little tricky to access. After you go to DV's website, click on the magazine icon near the upper left corner of the browser window. A new window will appear and the full magazine will download.
The article is on pages 45 and 46 and is entitled "Character Study". Good stuff.
What's the Inverse Square Law and why should I care? No one said there would be math - will it hurt?
This law of physics has extremely useful applications in video production. Understanding it will help you control your lighting and record better audio.In Jay Rose's great book, Audio Postproduction for Digital Video he explains, "Each time you double the distance from a sound source, the power of the sound is one fourth as much. Each time you have the distance, it's quadrupled...It's called the inverse square law because power changes as the square of the change in distance." (page 26)
For example, if a microphone is four feet from your subject, moving the mic to a distance of two feet from that speaking subject will boost the power of that sound four times.
The same applies to light. Double the distance of your light from your subject and the intensity of that light decreases four times.
Here's a link to an article from the B&H newsletter by Tom Kirkman on video lighting for interviews. While the lighting instruments he recommends are a bit pricey, cheaper lights may be substituted. Also the diagrams fail to indicate the position of the interviewer. Typically the interviewer is seated near the camera, between the camera and the main light (also referred to as the "key light").
Vortex Media also offers an excellent and affordable instructional DVD on video lighting, How To Setup, Light, & Shoot Great Looking Interviews (using a light kit that costs under $1500). You can check it out here.
Each lesson includes a wide shot to show lighting
