two spots in eyes

Using two 650-watt frenels with chimera soft banks. Shooting 2-shot to 1 shot close up. Talking heads. Light-grey muslin. Talent is too close to cloth so need to angle lights down from a slightly too high position, in order to have shadows not show on the cloth. I also need to keep the fill and key pretty straight on talent. Once I move past say 20 degrees the shadows show to the left or right of the talent. No room for back light.

After experimenting with height, angle, intensity, position, the shot looks pretty well lit. Nothing dramatic. Not looking for too much modeling- just a good soft newsy talking head(s).

Problem: two lights are showing in talent’s eyes rather than one.

I can adjust the fill’s position to eliminate this but then other problems crop up like shadows on the muslin or the image’s overall quality.

Any suggestions?


OSX 10.4.11; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; G5 dual 2.5 gig; FCP 4.5, 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000/pd170;Canon xl2; Pana consumer cams; write professionally for a variety of media;teach video production in L.A.