Lighting Tips EVERY Documentary Filmmaker Should Know

Рет қаралды 2,394

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 40

@WhoIsJonHarris Ай бұрын

I’ve binged a lot of your content the last week or so. So glad I found another filmmaker that isn’t just marketing products constantly. I’ve been doing short docs that are totally unrelated to my channel for non-profits for a few years and it’s a breath of fresh air.

@austinmeyerfilms Ай бұрын

Appreciate you, Jon. Awesome to hear that you have been working on some short docs that have been meaningful. Hope my channel can continue to be of value!

@rgleeson 2 ай бұрын

the Astra is a classic! Glad to see it getting love.

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Underrated! Thanks for watching

@timdanyo898 2 ай бұрын

Great advice! Bounced light is a great fill. Although tube lights are not “essential” they are small and easy to set up and can help with character separation. Another light I love that is small and useful is a screw in color bulb to control background lamps. Foldable negative, white, silver, and diffusion systems from companies like Westcott are super useful too!

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Agreed! Thanks for sharing your experience, Tim

@d.edwardsfreelanceeditorvi4212 2 ай бұрын

Some of the best advice I’ve heard on KZbin. I hope more professionals who have experience pop up on KZbin

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

So glad that this was helpful for you!

@4sightfilmsLLC 2 ай бұрын

Dude I had that same light at my old company 12 years ago and it was fantastic. Nice weight, just enough power. Besides that this was a wonderful video about mastering your craft before leveling up prematurely. I couldn’t agree more. 🔥

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Great to hear that you also had a good experience rocking the Astra! Thanks for watching the video and sharing a comment here

@Brian-Hansen 2 ай бұрын

Thanks Austin. Natural light for the win. Many docs just need a good understanding of natural light.

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Agreed. Love me some naturally lit scenes!

@LarryEberhard 2 ай бұрын

Thanks Austin.

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

You got it! Thanks for watching

@BehindTheNeedle 2 ай бұрын

Thanks Austin! I interview tattoo artists and I am only using natural light and the light in the spaces where I shoot the videos. I am doing my best to keep my setup really minimal.

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Love that! I just saw that you messaged me on IG. Excited to check out your video

@BehindTheNeedle 2 ай бұрын

@@austinmeyerfilms Thank you so much Austin 🤜🔥🤛

@jaapvw66 12 күн бұрын

I love to see all those light tutorials. But sometimes they make me laugh. Complete renovations of homes to bring in all these lightstands, huge soft boxes, negative fill, and backlights , hairlights, cave lighting etc. Which cost about a half a day to set up, and makes the talent feels like he is a celebrity instead of an interesting human being who feels comfortable to tell about his life. In practice there is no time to set up light that, and consume so much time and space from the people you interview. Especially in the news branche I am working in. Reporters want to leave 15 minutes ago, and you have to bring all the gear on your own. But still you want a beautiful image. I love my bi color flex panel with soft box. Easy to carry, fits in your back pack, and also during traveling, you don't need lots of extra luggage because it fits in my tripod bag. For back/ hair light I use my camera light on a stand. An extra camera light can be used to light some details in the back ground. All quickly, easy to set up, and powered by battery. Next to my work, I like to make documentaries , or edit my own item with the footage I made that day. Just because I love to make stories, and have more satisfaction when I can "touch" 1 person, instead of a million viewers I don't see and don't know. Your channel is a great inspiration for me, with I have to say one disadvantage. Seeing your tutorials make my brain overflow with ideas and keep me away from sleep.🤣

@LouisLuzuka 2 ай бұрын

Checking in 😮

@taubenblau 2 ай бұрын

Hey Austin. I honestly appriciate your work and can't thank you enough for doing this! Especially your approach of avoiding gear, when ever possible! I used so many of your Tipps on my first Documentary I am filming completely on my own. So many things you share, make many processes a brise. Lightig and the correct way to use it is just another example for high value content. But there is one thing I ran into, that I couldn't quite firgure out and that I'd love your oppinion or advice on: How to set Whitebalnace for changing enviroments. In my film i often ran into the Problem of having like 5 different Lighsources with variing Kelvin Temps. My Protagonist ether looked yellow, pale or Blue. Or the room looked terrible. Especially now with shorter days and situations of filming inside with rather warm light and dim blue daylight from the outside. On dynamic shoots, when I do not know in what kind of siutation I will find my self in or if we change the location, there is simply no time to correct for WB on the fly... I cant affort a camera that shoots RAW and just gathered all my money to invest in a A7CII. I chose it because of it's versatility and to get to know the Sony workflow.. anyway... i'd be delighted if you would share your expirience on that topic.... sorry for my weired english greetings form Germany

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Greetings from the US! Thanks for watching and so glad that you have been finding the videos helpful. Great question on white balance. White balancing and color temperatures can definitely be a challenge. As you develop your skills you will start to get a sense for what Kelvin to dial in your white balance for different lighting conditions. In the meantime, you have a couple options -- You could stick with a few temperatures that you toggle between that will cover you in most environments (3200k, 4300K and 5600K)... or you could take some custom white balances if you have time (using a white card or a white surface). Auto white balance also has its place in certain moments! I will put this video idea in my docket to work on in the future! Thanks again for watching

@taubenblau 2 ай бұрын

@@austinmeyerfilms Thank you for the quick response! I'm sure that expirience will help a ton. I'll try the toggle approache for sure. In my oppinion if the sikntones are kind of allright the picture looks decent enough. For shooting outside I just used 6000 Kelvin as a rule of thumb. Because "in each Direction" its just about 500K, that I might be off. I was lookung for some rule of thumb linke this for indoors, too, but i guess the difference mit be just too big. In interview situations the lights can be interchanged most of the time to accomodate for a lag of precise WB. I use The Smallrig.C60B because of their versatility and you can change the Colortemp. thank you for taking time to find an answer :)

@FilmshooterOH 2 ай бұрын

Nice stuff. Love the simple setup. I have moved to a Intellitech RGB light matte that folds down to a 12x12" form. I have it in a wheeled backpack with seveal other lights so it is a compact kit.

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Nice! Will have to look up that light. Hadn't heard of it. Sounds like a nice portable option for people

@LouisLuzuka 2 ай бұрын

I found out you know luc, that’s so cool 😮

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Nice! Luc is the man

@LouisLuzuka 2 ай бұрын

@ how did you get an interview with him, you’re the master

@GSGPICS Ай бұрын

You inspired me to purchase the Sennheiser 8060 which is arriving tomorrow. In one of your videos you are confident in saying that the 8060 is good enough that you don't have to have a lav mic on the talent. That would petrify me. 15:51 the talent isn't wearing a lav. Aren't you scared not having a back-up and redundancy when it comes to recording audio?

@austinmeyerfilms Ай бұрын

Nice! I hope you like the Sennheiser 8060. It's a fantastic mic. The talent at 15:51 actually is wearing a mic. It's hidden under her shirt. On shoots like that one, I always have a lav hidden during interviews as a backup.

@GSGPICS Ай бұрын

@@austinmeyerfilms Cheers.

@LouisLuzuka 2 ай бұрын

I see on the a7s3 there’s a rode mic pro + is that just for scratch audio ?

@austinmeyerfilms 2 ай бұрын

Yes, that is just for scratch audio for syncing up later in post!