American Cinematographer - December 2020 - 13

Images courtesy of Jay Holben

Blackmagic Web Presenter boxes, which are extremely useful tools
that take the input from the P4K camera (or any camera with HDMI or
SDI output) and, via USB input to a computer, present it to the computer as if it were a webcam. With the Web Presenter box, the compact
professional cinema cameras integrate seamlessly with Skype, Zoom,
or any other application that accepts a webcam signal.
For lighting, Robert Magness of Aputure provided four LS 300X
bi-color LED fixtures, and four Light Dome II 36 " so boxes. Litepanels
provided four Astra 1x1 panels.
These kits were augmented with a Movo LV8-C wired lavaliere
microphone, four Sachtler Ace tripods, and stands for the lighting.
The topic for the episode would be high dynamic range, and ASC
members Markus Förderer, Polly Morgan, Marshall Adams and Erik
Messerschmidt, as well as colorist and ASC associate Dave Cole,
would be our interviewees.
ASC member Bill Benne took responsibility for gathering all of
the equipment and se ing up each package to be as easy to build
as possible. From labeling of the components to providing detailed
instructions, Benne put considerable effort into making this process
as painless as possible for the interviewees. He decided the best
method for recording locally was to connect a solid-state Samsung
T5 Portable SSD 1TB hard drive - which is small and fast - to the
camera via USB-C. Benne also custom-fabricated four Delrin plastic
baseplates to a ach to the tripod quick-release plates - a rigging
that provided be er support for the Fujinon zoom lenses. These Delrin
plates additionally offered an ideal docking position for the Samsung
drives, which were secured to the plate just under the lens via hookand-loop tape. Each interviewee was also provided with an ND 0.6
screw-on filter to help keep the T-stops of the lenses fairly wide open,
and to maintain a pleasing and cinematic depth of field in the image.
Because I was hosting the episode in addition to handling producing/
directing duties, I ended up with one of the four equipment packages.
One of the important aspects of the setup was the interviewees'
eyeline - that they would be able to have as comfortable as possible a conversation and establish a good eyeline for the production
camera. To accomplish this, we instructed each subject to place their
camera to the side of their computer screen. This would create an
eyeline that was similar to the familiar setup where an interviewee talks
to an off-camera interviewer. Additionally, people generally set their
computers on a desk or a table, which places the screen (and webcam, which is typically at the top center of the screen) at a position
significantly lower than their natural eyeline - so everyone is typically
looking downward on a web conference. We made sure that each
subject elevated their screen - and the production camera - to a
natural eye height when they were seated. In many cases, this required
employing an improvised platform to elevate their screens. As my metal monitor riser wasn't enough, I repurposed a box of printer toner that
was the ideal height to get the external monitor at my natural eye level.
The next request was to make sure the production camera was
at least 5' away from the subject, in order to avoid the also-common
webcam wide-angle-too-close distortion effects.
For my setup, the Blackmagic P4K was connected via HDMI to
the Web Presenter box, which was connected via USB to my Lenovo

Opposite (clockwise from top le ): Markus Förderer, ASC, BVK;
Erik Messerschmidt, ASC; Marshall Adams, ASC; associate
members Jay Holben and Dave Cole; and Polly Morgan, ASC, BSC.
Above: Holben's at-home setup.
PC laptop. The initial interview with Förderer produced unsatisfactory
results with my sound - there was incessant microphone noise -
which persisted even a er replacing the wired lavaliere mic, so the
setup required some revision. Thanks to the generosity of sound mixer
Kally Williams, I was able to incorporate Sound Devices' MixPre-6
small sound mixer, with a K-Tek boom pole and Sennheiser boom
mic on a C-stand connected via XLR to the MixPre-6. In addition,
the sound from Zoom was routed via a ⅛ " stereo to an XLR adapter
into the MixPre. The output from the mixer was then sent to the Web
Presenter box via ⅛ " stereo to RCA stereo, so the audio from my mic
could be heard by the interviewees. Using the mixer's headphone jack,
I connected a pair of earbuds to the output so that I could monitor
both the interviewees' sound via Zoom and my own sound to make
sure it was clean. My isolated boom track was recorded on the MixPre
to an internal SD card.
Lighting is, of course, critical to maintaining a cinematic look. Each
interviewee was responsible for their own lighting - luckily, four of the
five subjects were cinematographers! Messerschmidt and Förderer
opted for natural light, while Morgan, Adams and Cole employed
Aputure and Litepanels fixtures. I used a Rosco DMG Lumiere MiniMix
LED fixture as my key light - its thin profile made it particularly
nonintrusive - and as I didn't have any diffusion rolls, I used a 4'x6'
sheet of lining silk, which is very close to standard diffusion silk. I
used a LitePanels Croma fixture that was Ma hellini-clamped to my
bookshelves as a backlight/edge, and placed a second Croma into a
2'x3' piece of foamcore for a bit of fill. I also taped up a BB&S Lighting
Pipeline Free LED tube to the back of a dark bookshelf to give a bit of
background light.
Instead of the ND filter, I incorporated a circular polarizer on the
Fujinon 18-55mm zoom to help reduce monitor and light reflections

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December 2020 13

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American Cinematographer - December 2020

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