Video Interviews & Lighting

Video Transcript

"A valuable tool for any serious videographer is a lighting kit. Now you don't need to buy a super expensive lighting kit. You want to have quality lighting, but it doesn't need to be the most expensive thing out there. And in fact, you can make your own lighting kit if you're on a budget. What you need essentially are bright lights that you can direct, so in other words, it's not going to be lighting up everything, the light's going to be going in one direction. You need stands to put the lights on, stands that are adjustable, so you can have the light go high up or low down, pointing up, and you also need clips, so you can clip the lights onto the stands. You can get the whole thing done for under a hundred dollars, really. The stands are the most expensive part. The clips and the lights can be found at any hardware store. I also recommend getting the florescent bulbs because they'll last longer and you won't have to worry about changing them. Of course you can always buy a more expensive lighting kit, but you'll find that a set up like this often works just fine. With three point lighting you have your key light, which is the main light that's illuminating the subject. You have your fill light, which fills in the shadows from an angle, and those are the shadows cast by the key light. And then, you have a hair light, or a back light, that's either lighting the subject from above or from below, or behind, or from the side. That makes sure the subject looks more dimensional, has some light coming from back here, otherwise subjects tend to look very flat."