Lighting Advice for School Productions

Our goal in filming your production is to capture your performance as accurately as possible.

Most schools are not aiming for a perfect performance and nor should you.  We understand that mistakes may occur, both on and off stage, which could impact the quality of recording we are able to offer you.

Below are some things that we recommend you consider for when we film your performance.  If you have any questions or queries around these things, feel welcome to contact us.

Lighting Advice for School Productions

• The human eye is far superior to video camera lenses/sensors.  What looks good or acceptable to our eyes may not be visible or sufficient for video cameras to capture correctly.
• We recommend your main lighting should be a standard, stage white colour.  This can be used to White Balance video cameras in order to produce accurate lighting of your actors, etc.
• Coloured lighting should be used as supplementary lighting.  Things do not show up well when coloured lights are the main lighting in use (despite what the human eyes see).
• Dull lighting does not allow stage performers to be captured well by cameras.  For ‘duller’ scenes, we recommend you still keep the overall lighting level up but maybe lower background lighting.  We may be able to adjust the video lighting in post-production – we can’t make things bright if they were not captured bright.
• Ideally, lighting should be consistent level across the entire stage – rather than bright spots vs dull spots.

Smoke Machines

• These can be very effective for providing a desired atmosphere, when used well.
• Use smoke machines carefully and wisely as video cameras do not deal with smoke as well as the human eye.
• When you are filming, use less smoke rather than more smoke. Sometimes the decision on ‘how much is too much?’ is best made from someone looking at the stage from the audience’s perspective not from someone sitting backstage.

If you have any questions about the filming of your production, feel free to contact us.