The Healing Place Church, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Lighting design and installation by SIA Acoustics, Wendell Basinger, LLC and Rigging Innovators. Photo courtesy of The Healing Place and SIA Acoustics.
So you've been handling the lighting needs of your house of worship and have the basics of theatrical-style lighting down. The pastor is well lit at services, the choir stands out, and when called upon you can deservedly be credited as the lighting designer for productions and musical performances in the church. Now your church has decided that they want to start using video for services. Whether it be lighting for live video image magnification (IMAG), or videotaping to distribute to remote locations, documenting sermons, or record performances at the church.
Perhaps you have some anxiety about lighting for both video and the congregation in attendance simultaneously. It is a balancing act to design lighting that looks good to both a camera and an audience. However, it's one that you can master with some practice, a good color temperature meter, and when you're armed with useful tips and advice from designers who have years of experience.
CPM spoke with three lighting designers who have experience with lighting for the video camera, and they share some things to think about—as well as mistakes to avoid in lighting for video. The designers in this article include: Fred Bock, lighting designer with television lighting design firm Ferri Lighting Design Associates (FLDA), New York; C. Andrew Dunning, owner of Landru Design in Nashville, Tenn., who consults on lighting for houses of worship and other clients; and Jon Griffin, lighting designer for Saddleback Valley Community Church in Orange County, Calif.
CPM: What should a designer consider when lighting for the camera?
GRIFFIN: For me, the biggest thing to consider on camera is depth-of-field on video. Without the proper lighting ratios (frontlight, backlight, sidelight), your image will appear very flat on camera. Use shadows and dark spaces to help delineate your foreground and background in the image. The other item that is a necessity is to get a reference monitor for the lighting person. This
is an absolute requirement for any event I do that is doing image capture. Without it, you will be completely lost on what the camera is seeing.
BOCK: You need to find out, what are the camera angles? Lighting should come from the same direction as the cameras. The angles of the light to the subject need to be at a shallower angle to avoid deep, shadowy eye sockets. Subjects should be kept as far away from the walls as possible. The fill should come from the sides. That will enable some control between the backgrounds and the talent. Also, you should know how much movement [there will be].
DUNNING: Remember, the human eye can process much higher contrast differences than the camera can—be it intensity or color. Therefore, things like shadows caused by more theatrical lighting angles or color cast by different sources that read as subtle to a live audience will be exaggerated on camera. Shadows might become dark holes, and warmer or colder color will read as orange or blue on camera. This is true for both talent being lit and their surroundings. A background that is simply dim for the live audience might read as black or muddy on camera.
CPM: What are some common mistakes that designers should try to avoid when lighting for video?
GRIFFIN: Just because you’re lighting for video does not mean you have to throw 100+ foot candles of light at the stage. It’s not the quantity of light ... but definitely the quality of light that you are lighting the stage with. With all of the new HD cameras, the quality of light is very obvious. Any uneven lighting will become obvious on the video image. Hot spots and dark spots, while not noticeable to the human eye, will become more pronounced on the video. This is why a reference monitor is a must.
BOCK: If lights are dimmed, consider adding color correction to bring the color temperature of the dimmed light up. Watch out for windows in the background, and where the sun may be during service. You need to know what is the color temperature of the rest of the lighting in the church? Also, backlights become very important in video. Avoid theatrical colors on the subjects, unless it’s for a specific performance. Avoid dark backgrounds because chances are that the cameras will be in auto iris. Dark backgrounds will cause the auto iris to open up for the background, and that will leave the subject washed out and overexposed.
DUNNING: The traditional 45-degree theatrical lighting angle is too steep. Angles closer to 25 to 30 degrees are much more appropriate. At the same time, multiple angles are still needed. However, don’t be tempted to light talent with a single, low-angle source. They will appear flat on camera. Backlight is a must or your talent will lose visual dimension and/or will blend in with backgrounds. Brighter is not necessarily better. Lower light levels (50 to 60 foot candles or lower) will help to create camera capture with a perception of more depth, will be more comfortable for your talent, and will help color to pop.
Remember that at lower light levels even small level changes can be more evident. Theatrical color (even the subtle tints) can easily look unnatural on camera. Though the results will vary depending on what your white balance is, it will be wise to remove color—especially for faces. Also, elements appearing on camera have got to be lit. Even a background you want to be dark should be lit, unless you want the ‘head floating in space' look. Dark blue or lavender can do wonders for fixing this.
CPM: What gear may cause a problem when trying to use existing ‘theatrical' rig for video?
GRIFFIN: Low-quality LED fixtures that generally look good to the human eye will most likely flicker on camera. Also, using PARs for washing the stage, while acceptable for theatrical uses, will take a lot of finesse to make an even look on camera. The biggest thing to realize is how forgiving the human eye is. When all else fails, look at everything through a calibrated video monitor.
BOCK: Older ellipsoidals may cause a problem, by older I mean any light that predates an ETC Source Four, because those older units need a lot of maintenance to avoid hotspots. Pinspots could be a problem, as well. Look at adding light diffusion (Lee 253 Hampshire Frost) to ellipsoidals that will diffuse the light, but enable shutter cuts to be useful.
DUNNING: Having multiple types of sources, each with different color temperatures, can cause lots of headache. Also, an ellipsoidal can still be fine, but you’ll need to pay very close attention to things like lamp optimization or you’ll get holes and/or hot spots and focus edges, as they can really show on camera. Have plenty of diffusion on hand to help even out light.
CPM: What do you think should be a primary consideration when adding lighting equipment for video, and what are some misconceptions that people should be aware of?
GRIFFIN: As I’ve mentioned, the quality of light is going to be the most important. Do not fall back on a lesser piece of gear because it’s cheaper. Especially when it comes to optics, spending a little more money on the initial investment will save you a lot of headaches later down the road.
BOCK: The biggest mistake that can be made is over-complicating the design. Keep all choices simple enough that the equipment can be operated and maintained by several members of the congregation if there isn’t a full-time lighting person or team. Also, keep access to the lights as safe as possible. Avoid placing lights in extremely hard-to-reach locations, because they will most likely never be touched once they burn out, so remember [that] maintenance of the gear should be a consideration. Power consumption should [also] be a factor—look at adding LEDs wherever possible, including for lighting talent. RGBA should be the first choice, because it will give you much greater range in the warmer colors, especially for cameras. There are some solid LED options that will work without flickering on camera; they are more expensive but will save in power over the long run.
DUNNING: Get and use a good light meter. That will help you to catch things your ‘more forgiving’ eye won’t. I also suggest getting and using a DSLR camera that will allow you to use settings similar to your video cameras.
A lot of good advice to consider about depth-of-field, lighting angles, color temperature and the differences between what the camera and your eye sees. Advice is perhaps the best place to begin, talk and gather information. As Griffin comments, “Networking, networking, networking. Contact other churches that are doing what you want to achieve. Talk to vendors. Talk to manufacturers. Use Facebook and Twitter to your advantage and get all the information you can as early as you can.” And in the end, remember, we all learn from our mistakes. Trial and error—during rehearsals or tech time—will improve your skill set.
