How would you light this?

Hello,

I'm going to be recording some interviews in various home theaters. In general, these are dark rooms, dark flat colors on the walls and ceilings, black velvet fabric on the walls, and so on. There is normally very little direct lighting anywhere. My concern is in over-lighting the room. When folks take flash photos in a home theater, the colors are very often wrong, and you end up seeing 'beyond' the fabric to structural elements. Pro photos normally are shot with a time-release, not an option with video.

So, how would you suggest to light such a situation? If I have not described it well enough, please let me know, and I'll try to give you more details. Thank you.

Hello,

I'm going to be recording some interviews in various home theaters. In general, these are dark rooms, dark flat colors on the walls and ceilings, black velvet fabric on the walls, and so on. There is normally very little direct lighting anywhere. My concern is in over-lighting the room. When folks take flash photos in a home theater, the colors are very often wrong, and you end up seeing 'beyond' the fabric to structural elements. Pro photos normally are shot with a time-release, not an option with video.

So, how would you suggest to light such a situation? If I have not described it well enough, please let me know, and I'll try to give you more details. Thank you.

I'm not sure if my situation was the same as yours but here's what I ended up doing to get a nice video for an interview. I had to bring my large velvet backdrop which was hung behind the model. Only using household light such as living room lamps, I placed two of them as such to give a main and fill to give shadowing depth and a gooseneck desk lamp slightly behind the model to give some rim lighting around the one side of the head and shoulder. I don't know if it was the rim lighting causing it but you barely noticed the black velvet backdrop.

If your vid cam has the ability to change its aperture, you could achieve a deeper depth of field to blur out the background as well.

Be sure to 'custom white balance' your camera before the session but even better colours and depth.

I also shoot some portfolios sheets using this lighting technique with good results.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for but hope it helps.