Lighting An Interview: Simple Setups for Beginners!

There are an infinite amount of ways to light an interview subject, but every choice you as a filmmaker have to make should always come back to the tone. Because how we choose to light that subject can tell the audience how we are supposed to feel about that person before they even speak? Are we wanting to capture their warm, calming smile so we can make the audience feel at ease? Or do we want to create contrast to capture a deeply conflicted human being?

All of those decisions come back to the fundamentals of the three point lighting system, so we created 2 simple scenarios for you to refer back to that showcase those basic fundamentals of lighting a subject!

---

THE BASIC SETUP

Typically, for interviews, you’re going to want to use soft lights. Choosing to use soft lights will make your subject look and feel more comfortable, and will make your interview feel more intimate to the viewer. A good rule of thumb with any interview is to try to make your subject more relatable.

Our Example Setup Before Any Lights Being Turned On

So all of the lights we'll be using for this example will either be diffused or bounced in some way to spread our light out and give us a nice, soft, comforting glow.

KEY & FILL LIGHT

First thing you're going to need with any 3 point lighting setup is the KEY LIGHT: our main source of light. This is the strongest source of light in our setup that we'll use to build and shape around.

For our key light, we used the Q1000 LED from Fiilex. It comes with a big softbox dome that we will be using for diffusion. Set this light as close to the subject as you can without having it get in the frame so you can get as much as possible out of it. This will ensure you'll have it really wrap around your subject’s face and not so much anything in the background. You’re going to want this light a little bit higher than your subject’s face which will keep any potential shadows cast from being too nasty.

First thing you're going to notice after turning your ket light on is that one side of their face is lighter than the other and that’s good! But. The other side? Not so much. To reduce and control that contrast, you're going to bring in your second light to combat that strong source, which is called the FILL LIGHT.

You won't need a ton of fill for this setup, so just uses something like a foam board to bounce some the light coming from your key light back onto the other side of the subject's face. That’s going to make the shadows on that other side of their face a little less intense and therefore make the tone of this interview a little less intense.

If you WANT a more intense, dramatic look to capture a more intense, dramatic tone, you’re going to want to increase your contrast ratio. This really just depends on the subject matter of your interview.

BACKLIGHT

Now that you have your two main sources of light good to go, it's time to put the frosting and sprinkles on the cake! And by that, we mean placing the lights that are absolutely essential in taking your composition to the next level of professional.

If you're looking at your shot, you can probably see how your subject is kind of falling off into the background. There’s nothing bringing them forward to signify them as the subject of the shot.

That’s where my BACKLIGHT comes in: our 3rd light in the 3 point lighting setup!

This light is also referred to as a HAIR LIGHT or RIM LIGHT. This light is placed behind and above our subject, giving them a nice glow of light, like a halo of sorts, on their head and shoulder (this, why it's referred to as a hair light). For our example, we used a small Quasar light, and put it on a Cardellini clamp attached to a C stand.

Your subject is probably looking pretty good at this point! One thing that can be added to this setup to really take it up a notch is to give a little more fill to my background, just so it doesn’t look like my subject is sitting alone in a dark room and I can provide some context to where we are. In our example, we used our little DMG Lumiere Mini LED Panel and propped it up on the floor behind the subject pointed at the wall behind us. Just set the levels the way you want them and voilà!

What This Looks Like STEP BY STEP

ADJUSTMENTS

Of course, the only reason lighting the background was that simple is because this particular background is pretty even. We moved the cases up on the shelves behind the subject to make it that way. Before the cases were there, we had a bunch of lights which, in and of themselves, did not look bad, but they cast a bunch of really funky shadows. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have used this as a background, but I would have had to take a lot of time to meticulously make sure the background is perfectly lit. It’s a lot easier to just choose an even background or a background that’s already well-lit naturally.

This is a pretty flexible setup! You can swap out different lights for others. For example, in our warehouse, we have a lot of ceiling space and things we can hang stuff on. This gives us the option to, instead of using the quasar as a backlight, clamp another light like this P360 LED head to the wall which saves us a little space and takes another light stand out of the equation.

Another adjustment you might want to make to this setup, depending on the topic of your interview is to actually use a light for your fill instead of a bounce. This gives you even more control over the contrast ratio on your subjects face and can take your tone across the spectrum from dark and sinister to light-hearted and fun.

---

RECAP

Make sure your setup accounts for three sources of light:

1. KEY LIGHT: which is your main source of illumination for your subject. You’ll set your exposure based off of this light.

2. FILL LIGHT: controls contrast and manages tone

3. BACK LIGHT: creates a rim of light separating your subject from the background.

REMEMBER: Soft lights are your friends for interview lighting! That means diffusion and bounce.

---

WHAT IF I HAVE TO DEAL WITH NATURAL LIGHT?

If you’re in a space that has already has some natural light and you’re not able to block it off in any way, you’re going to have to factor that light into your setup. Something that seems obvious when you say it, but that people often don’t really think about is that the sun is a really REALLY strong source of light.

In some situations, when sunlight is directly hitting your subject’s face, you’ll want to use the sunlight as you key light. Set your exposure based off of that, and then put in your fill and backlights. Other times, the sunlight can also serve as a kind of ambient fill for your background.

You can use the sun as a Key Light OR a Fill Light

In our 2nd Example Setup, sunlight was pretty diffused because there’s an awning past the window it was coming through, and the window faces north, so we were never going to actually be hit by direct sunlight.

So, in this situation, we went ahead and setup two kinoflos from a kit that’s actually called the Interview Kit. We used one of them as the key light, knowing we won’t have too much unwanted contrast because the sun will fill in the other side of the subject's face.

After that, we still want to create some separation from the subject to the background, so we armed out this other kinoflo so it’s above and behind my subject, as well as out of frame. This gave us that nice halo from a back light that we were looking for.

What This Looks Like STEP BY STEP

Again. Different scenario: same foundation of 3 point lighting. All those adjustments, changes, addition of lights you can make are all going to stem from this initial setup, so it's important to remind yourself of each of those lights and their importance in making a great composition.

If you want to see how our example scenarios played out for us, check out the link HERE to follow along any time you are in need of referring back to this information!