I was hired in December 2011 to create a highlights video for FanDuel’s second annual Fantasy Football Championship in Las Vegas. We had the challenge of creating an exciting wrap-up video from what basically amounted to a day of people watching football on tv. In the end I was happy with what we came up with and look forward to filming their next event this summer.

Shot and Edited by myself and Michael Flanagan
VO: Kurt Kelly

My buddy Keith asked me to shoot a video of a recording session for his new album “Seethrough”. Keith is a charismatic, “interesting” fellow, and one of my favorite people to put a camera in front of so I couldn’t say no.

We shot the entire recording in about 12 hours on this mostly “studio live” album at Sonivox in Cambridge, MA.

For camera geeks, we shot this on the Panasonic AF100, Sony FS-100, and Canon 7D.

Directed by Micah Levin
Camera Ops: Benjamin Eckstein, Brandon Vincent, Ben Pender-Cudlip
Sound Engineer/Mixer: Jason Jordan

In 2011 I only uploaded 5 videos to Vimeo.  Not that it really matters, but I do think it helps to keep things more current.  I know part of this is because of things mentioned in the post linked above, namely that what I do is not necessarily made for “public” consumption so most of you may not care.  But still, since Vimeo basically serves as the easiest online portfolio of my work, it’s good to show prospective clients a range of recent projects.  So without further ado, here’s 3 projects, completed in the Fall/Winter of 2011 which I’m adding to Vimeo, and a brief description of the project and some of it’s challenges:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This was the project I shot in Las Vegas, that I wrote about in this post back in December.  We wanted to create an ESPN-type vibe to this piece which was used to highlight a fantasy football tournament they were having in Vegas.  Ultimately the biggest challenge was on the day of the event what we had to see was really just a room full of people watching tv.  Obviously not the most exciting thing in the world.  It was also a very dark room, which gave me a chance to test out the high ISOs of my new F3 (which performed admirably at +12 and +18db).  We mixed the tournament footage with interviews we shot the day before in a hotel suite in the Palazzo (shot on the F3 and 7D) and interviews shot that day at the tourney.  In the end I think this was a nice, high energy piece, which they’ll use to help promote next year’s Fantasy Football Championship.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This was a fun project for my friend Keith, who hired me to DP a shoot of the recording of his new album “Seethrough” last fall.  Keith is a close friend, and one of my favorite people to stick a camera in front of.  He is always ready to riff or improv or do something odd.  You may recognize him from the Lens Test video last year.  This album was going to be recorded in a “studio live” fashion with a three piece band and he wanted us to be rolling pretty much the entire time.  We had three shooters, myself on the AF100, Brandon Vincent on his Sony FS100, and Ben Pender-Cudlip on the Canon 7D.  (For those camera geeks feel free to dissect which shots are which camera.)  It was directed by Micah Levin and recording duties were handled by Jason Jordan.  Basically a re-convening of our 48 Hour Film Project team.  We pre-lit the studio the night before and set Micah up in the control room with three monitors and all operators were on comms, so he could give us direction.  With three cams and three band members, we mostly knew our jobs, but having the ability to get direction from Micah was great, and made sure someone was always “ON” at one time.

Keith and Micah edited a longer film, but this is just the first track of the day that we recorded.  Keith is the first to admit he is not the most polished player or singer, but he has a nice laid back vibe which I really dig.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Las September I worked with Time Inc. Studios to shoot a series of profile videos on several doctors and research projects taking place at Mass General Hospital.  These were to be used for an iPad version of their medical journal Proto.  We filmed interviews and b-roll for several days and they created 7 different 3-minute videos.  I think the most fascinating part of this was hearing about the different projects and areas of research.  There are some VERY smart people over at MGH, and we kept talking about how this is THE place to go if you’ve got some weird problem in your body.  The video itself is fairly straightforward, but I liked how the Producer/Editor, Paul Lablanc put it together.  This was shot by myself and Mike Flanagan, on the Panasonic AF100 and Canon 7D.

Hopefully I’ll continue to make more of an effort to keep my portfolio more present.  But for now, enjoy!

In terms of the production, the video was pretty straightforward.  We did one day of filming interviews at Rosie’s Place. and I decided ahead of time to shoot on a seamless backdrop with the (likely) intention of making the interviews black and white.  We shot with 2 Panasonic AF100s, so we could have a second angle (this has pretty much become the norm for me for shooting interviews now).  They gave me a lot of photos and some archive footage of Kip that I could use as well.  I decided that in lieu of the normal “pan and scan” approach to moving on the photos in post, I would film the photos instead.  I often see this approach on ESPN and in some documentaries, and I think it’s a nice visual change from the “Ken Burns” effect.  I really liked it at first after shooting and editing the pictures in.  Then I didn’t like it so much.  Then (I think) I liked it again.  Ultimately the client was very happy with it, so I guess it worked.

Normally I HATE choosing music for my videos because I find it to be so painstakingly difficult, but I actually really enjoyed it this time.  I found a couple tracks right away that I thought worked perfectly (I think it was the first 2 tracks in the video) and that got me on a roll to find the others.  In the end, it’s a fairly simple piece, but I was quite happy with how it turned out.  I was told that it was the highlight of their fundraising event, at which they raised $450,000.

Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

When I was starting out, and my lighting kit was all tungsten (3200K) fixtures, the normal procedure was to walk into a room, close any blinds or window coverings, turn off all existing lights, and start from scratch.  The darker the room, the better, as I felt there was nothing to “contaminate” our lighting. That’s changed a bit, since LED and fluorescent lights have gotten better and more affordable, and I’ve become less concerned with daylight creeping into the scene (obviously gelling tungsten lights is an option, but it can be a pain in the butt, so I typically avoid that when I can).  Working with cameras with bigger sensors has also helped, as it’s easier to throw the background out of focus, instead of having to create the separation through lighting (although that’s still important).

I often find that I go through stages of how I light things, and recently I’ve been on a kick of using little to no additional lighting for interior, day-lit interviews.  I do really enjoy figuring out the best lighting options and like the look of “lit” interviews, but sometimes the setting and mother nature work to allow you to leave all the lights in the car.  The upside is that, when it works, there is a very natural look, but the downside is that you have somewhat less control.  Here are some frame grabs from 2 recent projects, where each setup was all natural lighting, with only bounce (I think in one shot) or negative fill added.  Then I’ll get into some things to keep in mind if you’re going to setup for day-lit interiors.

The first issue if you want to shoot with all daylight inside, is to make sure that the light is going to stay pretty much the same throughout the interview, scene, etc.  Completely overcast days work well, and so do cloudless days.  In the bottom image, that day started clear blue, but about halfway through the interview, clouds started to go in front of the sun, so the light level in the room changed drastically.  This is my usual reason for closing all window blinds, so that any daylight shifts don’t effect the scene.  But, if the weather works out, then it’s easy to pull these off, or if what you need to shoot is very brief, you can hopefully pull it off during breaks in cloud coverage.

The second issue is positioning the subject.  I am very persnickity about the direction of the key light, and also somewhat nudgey about how the room “leans” in the shot, and when you don’t have control over where the key light (windows) are placed, you need to figure out your subjects position related to that.  The third shot is a good example of the room “leaning” in (what I consider) the right direction related to their position, and we are keying from the correct side in reference to the direction they are looking.  Anytime you have a long wall of windows, that type of shot is fairly effective and easy to achieve.

I found the setup for the fourth shot interesting because we had the wooden venetian blinds in the window to the subject’s right completely closed, and the only light was the sun hitting the white, wooden window sill, and bouncing onto the subject’s face.  Paired with a pretty fast lens, I think that shot worked out pretty well and is one of my favorites, because from looking in the room it seemed like there was no way there was enough light in the room.

There are definitely times when this type of look/setup is not appropriate or possible, but when it works out, it can not only lead to quick setups, but also yield pleasing, natural looking interviews.

(Some technical specs: These were all shot with the Panasonic AF-1oo with the Olympus 35-100 f2 lens.)

]]> http://benjamineckstein.com/2011/05/lighting/feed/ 3 http://benjamineckstein.com/2009/09/interview-demo/ http://benjamineckstein.com/2009/09/interview-demo/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:28:25 +0000 Benjamin http://benjamineckstein.com/?p=296 Click here to view the embedded video.

I often get asked when applying for shooting gigs if I can shoot and light interviews, so I decided to put together a demo reel for this purpose. I have filmed literally hundreds of interviews, and it is an important skill for most shooters.  All the samples here were shot with an EX-1 and about a quarter of them had the Letus Extreme adapter.  I use anywhere from 0 to 5 lights, and my kit includes Arri, Kino, Zylight, and Lowel lights.

Thanks for watching!

I think the samples in this video show a range of looks and lighting techniques.  In some cases I try to work with existing lighting (natural or artificial) and either supplement with my own lights or reflectors, or just use ONLY existing light.  Other times I will only use my lights, blocking windows or shutting off existing lights, so that I have the most amount of control over the look.  The shots in my demo range from using no lights up to five lights.  My lighting kit includes an Arri Softbank kit, a Kino Flo Diva (which I think is an ESSENTIAL piece of gear), a Zylight LED light (a new piece I got that I also think is stellar) and a couple Lowel lights.

All of the shots here were with the Sony EX-1 and about a quarter of them had a Letus 35mm lens adapter.  This allows me to create a shallower depth of field, which helps to separate the subject from the background visually.  While the adapter is a worthwhile tool, I have found that, unless I am in a very tiny space, I can obtain a nice shallow depth of field with just the EX-1 alone, and I actually prefer the quality of the image in those cases (and the ease of use without an extra piece of equipment).

There are great articles and forums online that discuss interview lighting, and I also certainly learned a ton by going on shoots with other DPs.  And while there are some general rules of thumb, there is no ONE way to shoot interviews and different projects certainly call for completely different looks.  The most important thing to remember, though, is that an interview is all about what the person is saying, so GET GREAT SOUND!

Click here to view the embedded video.