Very new! In a little deep. General input needed.

I

iwasthere

Like the title of the thread says. i'm very new to this film making thing, and maybe a bit naive. But oh well, here I am. So, a quick rundown, I'm doing a documentary on tattoo artist. Traveling all over the country meeting them. In 10 days I'm heading out for 21 days to California and Hawaii to meet different artist. So point is, I have some good and some so-so equipment to work with. So first, I'm sure there are plenty of opinions of I should have got this rather than that. It's to late for most of that now. Just looking for anything you can think of that will help me out on my way. Am I missing something obvious? I'm working with....

MacBook Pro 17 inch 2.5 GHz w/ Final Cut Express 4

Sony HDR-HC5 MiniDV Camcorder High Def 1080i Camcorder

Sony ECMHST1 Stereo Microphone

Sony DCR-HC28 MiniDV Handycam Camcorder

2 - 1000W Worklights that I bought at Lowes

That's about it. Remind you, most, but not all of the footage will be indoors. Lots of interview stuff. Some tattooing footage.

If you have any pointers on how to use the lighting and audio the most effective or anything else, it would be helpful.

Thanks.
 
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With 2, 1000W lights, you want to find creative ways to soften the light by bouncing, or using scrims. In this case, I'm using the term "scrim" a bit loosely. With non-pro lights, and sometimes with my pro lights, I hang a folded piece of nylon screen (mosquito netting) from a C-stand or something like it and put that between the light and the subject to soften the light source. I use one or two folds so the light is passing through 2-4 layers of the fine white mesh and that makes a huge difference.

You may also want to find a couple of clamp lights or other lights in the 100-150W range that you can use to give your background some character. It wouldn't hurt to have another small light pointed at the back of your subject as a back light, to set your subject off from the background. There are lots of references on 3 point lighting, then you just need to find creative ways to make the light look softer / more natural.

Doug
 
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I agree with Doug's suggestions.

It seems 2 - 1000w work lights is overkill for interviews. Maybe
just 1 to light the background, a clamp light for the hair light and
a couple of paper lanterns for a nice, soft fill on the subjects face.

You might want to invest in an external hard drive to store the
footage. And a wireless mic system can come in handy since
you will be all alone and using the on camera mic.

Since you are traveling, carting around a couple of work lights
might be more hassle than it's worth. Might be easier to just
have a couple of clamp on work lights and the paper lanterns.

I've done a lot of traveling for shoots and bringing a lighting
package along is really complicated unless it's in a shipping
case.
 
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Here's a couple good videos covering a few lighting topics:

Come on Baby Light My Background -- Talks about lighting the background to make your subject really pop, and the final example is done with two lights

Conqurering Cramped Conditions - Talks about how to effectively make use of small areas

There are several "shows" covering various topics on several different aspects of filmmaking, and more worth watching than I am going to post here (as ideally the first link is the most relevant to this thread) but if you're interested you can find 'em all here
 
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They have been for a couple years now... Unfortunately my personal favorite show (Production Notes) has been on hiatus for over a year. Rumor has it it's coming back, but I haven't seen any new episodes. But, I imagine Perry is probably busy shooting new stock footage and stuff.
 
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A 650 to light the background - adding a shadow using the
barndoors or blackwrap can be a nice touch. But the one
1,000w work light will be fine, too. A couple of 200/250w
bulbs on dimmers in a paper lantern are usually fine for
both the key and fill. You can adjust the light to fit the
look of each.

Experiment on your own a little. That can be very helpful.
Set up your camera and a monitor facing a chair. You then
sit in the chair and look at the monitor while you try different
lighting set ups. That way, you can take all the time you need
to get exactly the look you're going for. When you are ready
to shoot the interview you already know exactly what you
want and how to get it.
 
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