lighting TV debate lighting

[frankieverona]

Hello everyone!

I'm new to this forum and my first question will be about TV set lighting. I'll hope that's ok.

I've been asked by a local TV station to light several political debate that will take place in a mall. There will be two or three journalists and 6 candidates around the table. This will take place at night but the lights of the mall will still be on. That will give us an ambient lighting.

I designed two lighting plots. The first one is almost made only of fluos (kinoflos style).

I intend to use fluos for the key lights and a few tungsten fresnel for the backlights. I also added two sources for a bit of fill.

But i'm not sure the rental company we will work with has fluorescent lights. So i designed another plot with only tungsten lights.

It's pretty straightforward. Everyone has its own source. Every source for the candidates are used as a key and as a backlight for the person on the opposite.

But i'm full of doubts. If i need to go for the second solution i'm not sure what power i need to choose for the lights. I guess 750w each will be enough?

I need your opinions on those two diagrams. Are they correct or am i completely out of tune? Your advices would be very much appreciated.

Thank you everyone!
Cheers
David

P.S.: i come from Switzerland, hope my english is ok

 

[SkyCopeland]

Personally I'd recommend the the kinoflo plot you made. But I'm also highly into soft lights so, biased.

Also lights create heat, kinos create the least amount of heat. These people will have suits on, and you're putting these right on their backs. I feel disgusting when my back is covered in sweat and my dress shirt is sticking to me. Sure they will feel the same.

Kino behind your reporters is going to make them seem like angels. I recommend just using some 300w tungsten. For those backlights I'd use perhaps a single 2K soft light behind each of the candidate tables, place it a bit back and let them have a really soft low backlight, just enough to make their jackets come off the background.

The sources? Meh. Depends on the channel in my opinion. Some news channels I watch are super flat and never have noticeable contrast ratios, others I've seen have noticeable Rembrandt's. Watch the channel to know if you actually should use those sources or not.

Lastly, I think this is the first set of lighting plots I've seen posted on IndieTalk since I've been a member. So yay, DP right there. I work with a lot of lighting plots (as I work in a lighting sound stage) and these are pretty clean and neat. Little confused on your green and brown kinos though, Are brown 2fts? They look almost the same size as your greens.

BIGGEST THING RIGHT HERE: Lighting plots CANNOT be wrong. Light is subjective like any other form of creating art. I've seen horrible looking plots that turn out to look wonderful in function. I've seen great plots turn into a horrible mess.

 

[Rayandmigdalia]

I would go with your "tungsten" plan because:
(1) You want to keep your lights back to avoid "top lighting" which results in hollow eye sockets and nose shadows.
(2) By putting the lights behind your subjects, your key light can also be used as your backlights.
(3) In a wide open mall environment, heat will not be much of a factor.

 

[SkyCopeland]

I would go with your "tungsten" plan because:
(1) You want to keep your lights back to avoid "top lighting" which results in hollow eye sockets and nose shadows.
(2) By putting the lights behind your subjects, your key light can also be used as your backlights.
(3) In a wide open mall environment, heat will not be much of a factor.

That has nothing to do with it... Even in open soundstages, talent sweat from lights. The actual beam of lights are hot.

 

[frankieverona]

Kino behind your reporters is going to make them seem like angels. I recommend just using some 300w tungsten. For those backlights I'd use perhaps a single 2K soft light behind each of the candidate tables, place it a bit back and let them have a really soft low backlight, just enough to make their jackets come off the background.

Thank you both for your answers! That seems like a good solution. I like the idea of using tungsten for the backlights. I'm also concerned about the hat on the set. The only thing is for now, i don't know if the rental company we will work with has fluos. I hope they do but i was told they are more of a theatrical/concert company.

What do you think about the two sources i placed in the corner to add a bit of fill when the debaters are looking directly to the journalists? Is it worth it?

Thank you for your critics of my lighting plots. I use ShotDesigner. This is pretty basic but gives me a quick idea of what i want to do. The only reason i used a red color was because all that green fluos were melting into each other. It's just for understanding purpose.

As for the gels, i'm planing on going daylight on everything. I'm waiting for some photos of the mall lighting.

Again thank you very much for your answers.