Stage Lighting as movie Lights

[peacefulone61]

So the Department Chair came to me yesterday and wants to do part of our winter production (aprox. 95%) as a filmed piece with a live Finally. After i stopped looking at her like she had three heads, I started to ask her some questions. I asked simple questions like what she was going to to do for video editing, do we have Cameras, do we have equipment for on school filming, she told me to figure it out and get back to her. Most of these things i can find good on line articles for, but the major thing that I am unsure about is how to adapt theater lighting to work as Movie Lighting on sight. All of our equpiment in the schools infinate wisdom is built in and nothing is modulare not even the boards.
However I did find out i can write a capitol Improvement Request to purchase film lighting but my training never covered anything other than stage lighting. While Hunting on line I found some kits but do not know enough about them to know if they will cover any of the basic needs i might have. Any help or Input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jhdesynz]

Are you doing the video shoot during or separate from a live performance for an audience? This will be a big factor in how you are lighting both.

If you're lighting for just video: Increase your footcandles and color temperature everywhere you can. The camera needs alot more light than the human eye does to record properly. Make sure you take the time to balance all your "whites" as well. You want all your light sources to be one colour temperature. Depending on your budget, you can take them all up to 5500K or set everything at 3200K. Most camera's won't care which you use as long as its all balanced. If not you will get hot spots and shadows you can't see by just looking.

If there are any scenes in shadow, over light them. Remember as you design your plot for video, there is rarely too much light. Set the scene, light it, record for 30 seconds and see what you think, then make adjustments. It will be easier to remove lights than to realize you don't have enough.

If you're shooting during a performance, you may want to increase general area light and gel all your profiles and washes to 5500K (1/2 or better CTB). If you also make sure your key light and back light have good coverage, you should be OK. Get the cameras as close to the stage as they will allow (or get good zoom lenses). You will also need to make sure the camera's are white balanced using the stage light and that the camera's iris is set properly.

A light meter will be your friend.

The other big suggestion, have your makeup person(s) practice with the camera coverage. Makeup that looks good on stage doesn't always look good on camera.

 

[JD]

Although not as bad as it once was, remember that the human eye can see a contrast ratio of about one million to one. Film is about 1000 to one and video is more like 100 to one. In other words, try to reduce contrast wherever you can as whatever is there will be exaggerated to a massive extent.

 

[Footer]

The kits you can buy, otherwise known as "grip kits", are meant to light one scene pretty tightly. They in no way can light an entire stage.

There is nothing saying what you have can not do what you want it to do. Just keep in mind that you want all your lights on at full. If you need a light dimmer, use a neutral density filter or a scrim, don't dim it using a dimmer. That will help your white balance tremendously.

 

[JD]

Not that rock shows and theater have much in common, but I would sometimes find out at the 11th hour that a show was going to be broadcast. My favorite trick was to take one of my front washes (about 4 to 6 k of Q1000 pars) and simply replace the gels with a frost and leave them on full. This whitewashed the stage which lowered contrast. I would then run the rest of the show normally, which allowed color to show through without throwing the video. Here's an example from a show I did in 1983.

 

[peacefulone61]

As far as I can tell and this is subject to change drastically over the next few weeks there will be scenes shot on location in the surrounding town and in the school for the project. they will not be using the stage. I believe that we are looking at sort of Making a Mock you mentury Like Best in Show or Mighty Wind. This film will be displayed before the final performance happens live on stage. I have a production meeting today with the Costume/ Make up person so i should be able to start talking to them about the other points you bring up. thanks again.

 

[peacefulone61]

Footer thank you for the info on Grip lights.

 

[peacefulone61]

That is a good Idea for when we are filming the live show. I can make the adjustments there for out video and it was helpful to see the Video you posted to illustrate your point.

 

[David Ashton]

A very important factor is to light the production watching the video screen, what your eyes see will be different.One either lights the video and let the audience suffer or vice-versa.