Alan Greenspan doesn’t do lights
The last time financial guru Alan Greenspace gave a roundtable discussion with the Rock Creek Group in Downtown Washington D.C., the video production crew shined their lights directly into Dr. Greenspan’s eyes. The 94-year-old knows what he likes. He’s renowned for his consumption of Diet Coke at 9 a.m. (because he never took to coffee) and lights shining in his eyes are NOT on the list. The crews lights were ordered off, and ultimately, the video delivered was not up to par. They were not asked to come back.
This is where Kepka House comes in. We were asked to film Dr. Greenspan’s most recent roundtable - and to not have any lights shine in his eyes. The challenge was:
For the lighting to feel no different than if our subjects were sitting at a dining table having a casual conversation
To keep the lights out Greenspan’s eyes, but also out of sight of the 4 camera setup we used in order to edit the discussion seamlessly in post.
To add quality and professionalism to a production that is seen by tens of thousands of Rock Creek clients.
I brought the problem to my 1st AC and go-to MacGyver, Nathan Tylor. Nathan is one of those guys who is addicted to detail on set. He is also the kind of guy who takes all of your equipment only to label it and put it in a spreadsheet so he knows what he’s working with. The man is thorough.
He asked for a reference photo of the location from the client and then started building.
“Is the room wider than 12’? How much clearance do we have on the existing light fixture?”
Can we snake a stinger through the ceiling panels?”
Nathan started playing around and then sent me images of his work in progress. To make the lighting feel conversational and soft, we wanted it to come from above. At first glance, the solution was a 12 foot steel pole used for soccer goals. This would float the Apurture 300dmkII LED safely over our subjects head. This seems like it would work in a pinch, but we were hoping to get rid of the C-stands so that they would be out of camera sight. To do that, we’d need to mount it to the ceiling, but we didn’t know if we could clamp a 40-inch grip arm to the existing ceiling fixture.
We rolled into Rock Creek’s offices with 1 ½ hours to spare with two fully loaded Rock n’ Roller carts and set off to work our magic.
The sound crew put together a three lavalier setup with two overhead booms as backup. I set cameras and Nathan started climbing over the table where Greenspan would soon sit. Bingo - the cardillini clamps and 6 foot steel poles fit perfectly overhead, and there was no need for our backup stands. All that Greenspan would see would be a soft glowy light that made Dr. G’s glass of Diet Coke look oddly surreal.
Greenspan’s assistant came in to inspect the lighting set up before her boss even entered the room. Kepka House was given the greenlight. Most importantly the video we produced was given the gold star by the leaders at The Rock Creek, and now we are already working on the next production.
