Light on a Budget

Phone sensors are small. In good light they look wonderful, and in bad light they turn faces into grainy smudges no edit can rescue. Light is the cheapest upgrade in video, because most of it is already in the room. You just have to move the chair.

The window is your best light

A window on an overcast day is a huge, soft, free light. Soft means the shadows fade gently instead of cutting hard lines across the face. Softness comes from the size of the light compared to the person: a window is big, a bare bulb is small.

Where you put the person matters more than anything else:

• Window behind the subject: silhouette. The phone exposes for the bright window and the face goes dark. This is the single most common mistake, because people like sitting with their back to a nice view.
• Window behind the camera, straight onto the face: even but flat, and if the sun is coming in, they squint.
• Window to one side, a little in front of the subject: this is the one. One side of the face lit, the other side falling off into soft shadow. Faces look like faces, with shape.

Turn the room's overhead lights off when you use a window. Ceiling lights come from straight above and put dark sockets under the eyes, and they are usually a different color from daylight (more on that below).

Direct sun through the window is too harsh. Hang a white bedsheet or a sheet of baking parchment over the glass and the sun becomes a giant soft light again.

Three-point lighting with what you own

Three-point lighting is the standard interview setup. The names describe jobs, and any light can do any job.

1. Key light: the main light, about 45 degrees to one side of the camera and a bit above eye level. Could be the window, or a lamp with the shade on.
2. Fill light: on the other side, weaker, to keep the shadow side from going black. A second lamp farther away, or just a white foam board ($3 at a craft store) bouncing the key back.
3. Back light: behind the subject, off to one side, aimed at the back of their head and shoulders. It draws a thin bright edge that separates them from a dark background. A small desk lamp out of frame works.

The ratio between key and fill sets the mood. Fill almost as bright as key looks like a morning show: friendly, flat. Fill much dimmer looks serious, more like a documentary. For most civic interviews, aim for the shadow side noticeably darker but with detail still visible.

A cheap upgrade worth the money: one LED panel with adjustable brightness and color temperature, usually $25 to $60. It becomes your key, and you can match it to whatever else is in the room. Clamp lights from a hardware store with daylight bulbs, bounced off a white wall or ceiling, also work fine.

Mixed color temperature

Light has color. Your eyes adjust so you do not notice, but the camera does. Color temperature is measured in kelvin. Lower numbers are warmer (orange), higher are cooler (blue). Energy Trust of Oregon's bulb guide gives the household numbers: warm or soft white bulbs around 2700K, cool white around 3500K, "daylight" bulbs around 5000K. Daylight from a window runs cooler still, especially in shade or on a cloudy day.

The camera's white balance picks one color to call white. With one kind of light in the room, it does a decent job. With two, it picks a middle and both are wrong: the window side of the face goes blue, the lamp side goes orange. Color correction in the edit can shift the whole picture warmer or cooler, but it cannot fix two colors on one face.

Ways to get there:

• Window as key? Turn off the warm room lights. If you need more light, use daylight-labeled bulbs (around 5000K) in your lamps.
• Night shoot or no window? Close the blinds, and light only with warm bulbs. Warm is fine; it is the mix that hurts.
• Bicolor LED panel? Dial it to match whichever light you cannot turn off.
• Fluorescent tubes at a public meeting? You cannot control them. Keep the subject away from windows so at least everything is the same ugly color, which the edit can then correct.

Once the room is set, lock white balance if your phone allows it (iPhone has Lock White Balance in Settings > Camera > Record Video) so the color does not drift between takes. Matching shots in the edit is much easier when every clip started from the same white.

Small things that make a big difference

• Move the subject away from the wall, at least four feet if the room allows. Shadows on the wall vanish and the background falls a little darker, which looks intentional.
• Glasses reflect lights. Raise the key a little higher, or angle it more to the side, until the reflection leaves the lenses.
• Check for a bright lamp or window in the frame behind the person. It will pull the phone's exposure even when locked if it changes, and it draws the eye away from the face.
• Outside, shoot with the sun behind a building or in open shade. Noon sun straight down is the worst light of the day.