Looks neat.

I rarely do a centred interview. Mine are to one side of centre. I allow/like the BG to be part of the frame. But this is a framing thing.

I'd add some fill under her left chin. It is a wee bit dark. Not getting too much definition. I'd be lifting this with a reflector. OK, adding together my comment about the Framing, if the talent WAS to one side, the darker "under-chin" might just be carried-off better.

Her brow is a wee bit shiny - I'd ask her to put just a tad powder to her forehead.

Overall, it has the making of a soft Rembrandt-ish old master look. Which would be great. But this is kinda halfway? The framing is central, and the highlights<>darks place the feel, for me, with a foot in each camp - yeah?

And the HAT is precious! And maybe that too is lending my ideas on the Rembrandt thing a reality too!

Grazie

hey, appreciate the compliment, perhaps you prefer something like this?

Interview_Lighting_2

Now, this is all done up with my post work, but I try not to show my original :P

Regarding powder on the forehead, I agree, usually I have something with me - not this time though.(but actually rather than powder, I actually use these oil absorber pads, and they are great at taking off the sheen w/o requiring anyone to be powdered up - some guys don't really like those things).

Dave

"I rarely do a centered interview" She actually wasn't centered, however she moved back and forth a bit, so this made her more centered in the grab that I used, however in a tight shot like that, shooting too far off to the edge will often put them out of the shot if they're swayers. That actually brings up another interesting point of conversation.

How tight do you like to shoot your interviews?

Normally when I'm shooting my talking heads, I don't like to get a lot of extra information in the background to distract, so I tend to shoot tightly. This makes me curious as to what others do here.

And I'm not looking to be the only one posting grabs here, so please feel free to post interview grabs and give some info about how you light them.

Dave

It looks good the top one

The left side shad too dark especially around the eyes they say if the eyes look good you don’t notice anything else

We normally left high soft light , harder hair light right and soft back light and use a doff adapter to blur all the gumff at the back

For on the scene stuff LED’S and battery packs no dof adapter because you want the person in context

I am shooting interviews this Sunday with Lightads “from Vegas forum”, he won photographic awards when he was only 12 years old and has had stuff on international salons
At 14 represented different camera societies, went to Japan, Italy France ,UK now that he is a lot older he’s not so talented

So come on Lightads what is your opinion

Thanks for coming to save my but on Sunday

You asked for our opinions so here's mine :)

I've become a believer in motivated lighting. Your first shot looks truly great, good enough to be framed and hung and that's my problem with it. The second one highlights my problem, where is that light behind the subject coming from. The subjects are talking, they want us to believe what they're saying is honestly said and yet they're lit like they were sitting for a portrait.

Not to say that people in interviews should be lit to make them look bad or not lit at all. But we should believe what we're seeing. Practical lights are good, windows are an obvious source of light.
One movie I saw recently (Fados) was brilliantly lit, given the subject. The entire set was just walls made of large scrims with big HMIs fired into them. The performers near the scrims were wrapped in this sensous dramatic light that made them look fantastic. But. We knew why they looked like that, we could see where the light was coming from. Just to make certain we knew at a times the camera looks over the walls and shows us those massive lights.
What got me thinking this way was reading a DP who said "I don't know how to light people, light lights people. People walk in and out of light". Sorry I don't remember his name. Even the master painters showed us the light, they positioned their subjects in that light so it sculpted them.

How would I have lit those scenes, exactly the same way but not as well. It's one thing to have an opinion, it's another to know how to execute it so I play it safe. The few times I've captured something lit the way I like it was purely by accident.

Bob.

Bob, that's one of the most interesting posts on lighting I've read in a long while. It's something to really think about beyond the mere technicalities. Thanks.

I agree like a fresh breeze blowing in

thanks Bob

In the old days we shot with 3 studio lights. One on the subject, one 45 degrees between subject and camera and one on the background to light away subject shadows if the background was to close and for supporting information to the shot. The light on the subject was moved backwards or forwards until the right effect was reached.

The aspect ratio then was always 4:3 on a standard shoot. So the lighting system generaly covered the shot. However today HD is shot with 16 x 9 aspect ratio so one would have to try disperse the light evenly over the whole 16 x 9 frame otherwise you will get light spotted center and dark outer border, which can be achieved by buying very expensive Boris filters :)

I have built a mobile 16 x 9 format LED lamp that fits nicely on my Fig-Rig which I'm going to try out this weekend with XFX. The lamp has 108 LEDs which run off 4 AA 1.2V batteries.

In the first picture I feel that the background is lighter than the subject. If you fill-in a little then it would be great.

In the second picture: Is popcorn really $1 :)

Looks good to me,, I maybe would have a splash of light on the plant instead of the right,, but with the bit of shadow on her face stage left it still works for me, Lighting drives me nuts.. anytime i can fit it in the budget i hire a lighting guy,, we use 2 different dudes both excellent,,with different styles, funny thing is one will use very few lights the other will empty his truck, using a light to counter some other light he has set up,, both result in great images and i dont sweat over it and can just shoot.

Love seeing some specular light in the eyes on both subjects. They both are
a little flat without.

First one:
As others have said fill to hide the chin shadows and rolls of skin around mouth.
(Subject is pretty but we all are self-conscious about little things)
Perhaps an orange gel on the background so not so color boring.

Second one:
I imagined rack focus on mug with a pan to owner. Did it have name of the
establishment??? Perhaps a light to bring it out.

Background I'd like a cookie instead of plain spot. Window shape perhaps.
The bottles look dirty/dusty. Perhaps polish them and place a hard light with
a snoot (or black foil) as you want customers to know they have fancy coffee
flavors.

Overall only good comments!!

all the kind words are great guys, but I want other examples too, post some of your own grabs, show me other things, and say why you do or don't like em. It's a great that folks like some of the stuff I did, and it's great that some of you would change it and say what you don't like about it, but the point of this thread was not for me to have an inflated ego :), it was for people to see examples, and show their own, and discuss what they do and don't like about those examples.

Dave

I always try to find a way to use natural daylight.

Put the interviewee near a large window with indirect light, seated at a 90 deg. angle, put a reflector (collapsible foil, or white board, depending on how much reflection is needed) on the other side.

I'll try to put up some examples as soon as I can get a few minutes to dig them out.

These are a few I don't think suck but always open for constructive criticism...sorry I couldn't get the linking thing to happen:

http://s376.photobucket.com/albums/oo206/GRB53/

Some stills and clips from a job i did some time ago:

http://patrykrebisz.com/films_dan.html

and the lighting scheme:
http://www.patrykrebisz.com/dan/DAN_lighting.jpg