Re: Please recommend Light for lighting backgrounds during interviews

"I remember years ago on a location shoot scrambling to an AutoZone store to grab a couple of those silver pop-up windshield sunscreens to use as reflectors in an pinch. People looked at me like I was nuts, but they worked like a charm."

BINGO TERRY. It's important to recognize what's needed to solve a problem and then create the solution based on what's available. Even when working for major companies it doesn't necessarily mean they'll give you what is really needed.

A few years ago I was hired by one of the "BIG 5" Networks to light their anchor booth skyboxes for the Democratic and Republican Conventions. I've been doing Presidential Conventions for 30 years. Back "in the day", money didn't seem to be an object -- currently it's the driving force. At Mile High Stadium in Denver we had no budget allocated, no manpower, and no time. The skyboxes had minimal power and we weren't able to do the major rigging that used to be done. These skyboxes, incidentally, have 6'-6" ceilings. Since the booth was going to be active 15 hours a day, with several anchors coming and going, I needed to also make sure the heat issues were considered. Ultimately I ended up sticking aluminum foil to the half the ceiling and walls of the booth and putting several inexpensive Kino Flos on stands behind the 3 cameras at various angles to bounce the light around them from above and the the sides onto the talent. It actually created quite a lovely soft wash of light on the anchors. When you looked up to the booth from the convention floor and podium it was the oddest looking thing and people keep asking me what was going on. I just winked and said we were dealing with an RF interference problem!

DS