How to shoot a group of people with staged lighting

So, you have the task of shooting a group of people talking to each other. The final result depends on several important parameters.

 First, you need to carefully select the location, taking into account the availability of enough space for installing lights, the possibility of attaching them to the ceiling, the floor where you will have to carry everything, and the ability to illuminate through windows or eliminate the parasitic light coming through them. It is also important to consider the location of the windows in the frame, as the conditions outside may change, and it may not always be desirable to see them in the frame.

When all this is sorted out, you can start creating a lighting scheme. In this case, I had five girls in the frame, and I needed soft light to soften the shadows and textures of their faces. The size of the studio allowed me to build a 12x12 frame, but it was too small to support heavy lighting equipment, so I decided to use lightweight and powerful LED panels called Litetile plus 8. These panels are extremely lightweight, have a bicolor color temperature (3200 and 5500k), and do not generate heat, which is important in a confined space with a large number of people. However, they are more expensive than Kinoflo or Arri.

However, only the top light will not be enough for a pleasant soft pattern on the faces, as each face is unique and the prominent brow ridges and nose can create unpleasant shadows. To achieve this, a fill was added using litemat through a silk cloth and devices similar to litetile.

There is a light scheme, but how to shoot it all, how many cameras are needed, what lenses and shooting points. It is important to understand that if there are reflective surfaces in the frame, then the cameras need to be hidden as far as possible, so that the light from the scene does not pass on the operators. It is necessary to hang a long black skirt on the frame to minimize the light falling on the film crew.

For 5 people in the frame, 5 cameras will be enough: one camera for the general plan (16-35mm wide-angle lens), 2 cameras for the medium and close-up plans (24-105mm), and 2 cameras for the close-up and medium-close-up plans (70-200mm). This will be sufficient to cover all the plans required by the director.