How We Light Our Interviews

How We Light Our Interviews

The Lights We Use For Interviews

Lighting is one of the most important parts of videography. It affects the look of the image more than anything else. The best lighting setup varies for each location and project, but for our interview shoots, we usually consider Key, Fill, Hair, and Background lighting.

  1. Key Light:

    The key is the main light used the illuminate the subject. For our interviews, we use the APUTURE 300X for our key light with the SOFTBOX. If the subject is looking off-camera at an interviewer or teleprompter, we usually place the key light and the cameras on opposite sides of the subject’s line of sight. This allows the far side of the subject’s face to be lit by the key…

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Efficiency: Shooting Multiple Videos at Once - The Y

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Efficiency: Shooting Multiple Videos at Once - The Y

EFFICIENCY

When working on a budget, you want to get the most bang for your buck. With video projects, one of the best ways to do this is to plan to shoot footage for multiple videos during one shoot. Quite a bit of work goes into prepping for a shoot, traveling to and from the location, and setting up and tearing down the gear. If you only have to pay the video production company to do that once for a set of videos instead of several different times, you can end up with more videos for less money.

THE YMCA OF GREENSBORO

Lauren Bowers, the marketing director for the YMCA of Greensboro, is taking full advantage of this strategy. Every month or so, we schedule a day for me to shoot 4-6 videos at one of the Y locations in the Greater Greensboro area. Most of the videos are a couple of minutes long or less and we are able to shoot everything we need for all of those videos in just a few hours…

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GAC Enterprises, LLC

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GAC Enterprises, LLC

SETTING UP THE PROJECT

Guillermo Amaya, President and CEO of GAC Enterprises, LLC, reached out to me several months ago about creating a promotional video that they could use at an upcoming work fair. He shared his thoughts on what he was wanting from the project and shared some inspiration with me. I made some suggestions and we decided to move forward with our plan.

SHOOTING

On two separate days, I went out to several construction sites in and around Greensboro and shot footage of the crews working. I used my cameras to get most of the footage, but for some of the shots, I sent up my DJI Air 2s drone. My favorite shot in the video is when I flew the drone very close to the cable lasher as it was pulled quickly along the cable. Because of the wide angle of the drone’s camera, I had to fly it much closer than it looks. It was a bit nerve-wracking in the bright sun, but the end result was absolutely worth it.

POST-PRODUCTION

The post-production process was fairly straightforward…

Pruitt Adoption Fundraiser

Pruitt Adoption Fundraiser

PRUITT VIDEO

We recently created a video for some friends of ours from King’s Cross Church in Greensboro. They are planning to adopt from Colombia and are trying to raise money to help make that possible. They are a wonderful family and we are so excited for them to add one more to it.

SHOOTING

I went over one afternoon to film everything for the video. They started with lunch. Most of the shots of the kids smiling and laughing came from some games they were playing at the table. They took turns thinking of an animal from the Greensboro Science Center while everyone else asked questions to figure out what it was.

After lunch, they played in their backyard, colored on their porch with chalk, and took a short stroll down the street.

During naptime, we shot Eric and Bre’s interview.

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"Now That I've Seen" Music Videos

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"Now That I've Seen" Music Videos

“HE WASHED ME / HE TOUCHED ME”

Jonathan Solomon is a worship leader (King’s Cross Church) and songwriter living in Greensboro, NC. He recently recorded an album called “Now That I’ve Seen” and has just released a single from that album entitled “He Washed Me / He Touched Me”, which you can watch below! We were able to shoot the entire album, so you can watch those videos once the rest of the album is released.

GEAR SETUP

Our setup for this shoot consisted of several lights and four cameras. I ran the main angle camera (5D Mark IV) on a shoulder rig, Nathan Funderburg captured close-ups with his 5D Mark IV on a monopod, Max Wilmot stayed with the drumset with his handheld Blackmagic camera (as well as getting a few shots from the back of the set), and a 1DX Mark II sat on a tripod fixed on Jonathan.

ASPECT RATIO

I ended up using a 2:1 aspect ratio, which I felt best fits this particular project. It gives a bit of a wide cinematic look without having to sacrifice too much vertical space. (Watch this if you are interested in aspect ratios.)…

Mount Jubilee Ministries

Mount Jubilee Ministries

“THE JOURNEY CONTINUES”

We recently created a video for a wonderful ministry in central North Carolina named Mount Jubilee Ministries. I absolutely loved creating this video for a number of reasons: how important the ministry is, how endearing each interviewee is, and the style of the video. The ministry leaders gave me a lot of creative freedom with this project, which allowed me to bookend the video with several clips of the participants. Most organizations want every moment of their videos to be describing what they do and who they are, but I was allowed to use a full 37 seconds at the beginning of the video to just show some of these incredibly special people. I think it allows the audience to start getting to know some of the individuals and to care about them. It is my favorite opening of any video I have ever made, and I think you will see why.