We recently filmed a video for a solar education program in Philadelphia. Our general approach to setting up an interview frame starts with assessing the space to determine the best camera angle. In a camera angle, we look for depth in order to create separation between the subject and the background. For this setup, we used an Aputure 120dII as a key light (affliate link).
For our background, we try to incorporate props as a way of providing background interest and adding relevance to the subject matter. In this case, we used rope, a harness, and hard hats as our background props.
We also used a pair of GVM 800D RGBs (affiliate link) to supplement our background lighting. We try to use RGB light sparingly in corporate/educational videos, but in this case the splash of blue color paired nicely with the yellow rope. Blue is also commonly associated with tech content, which was an appropriate effect for this video about solar energy technology.
Every production comes with unique challenges and opportunities in lighting and composition. Although there are some best practices that can be applied to every shoot, we enjoy the creative problem-solving aspect of building a video production set.