ID) ."> Kristina and Joe in the Big Chair at Mader's – Milwaukee, WI – Our first interview was in May 2012. I flew out to Indiana and we drove up  to Chicago to meet Eberhard at the Ellis House. This was more »Read Complete post.]]>

Kristina and Joe in the Big Chair at Mader's – Milwaukee, WI –

Our first interview was in May 2012. I flew out to Indiana and we drove up  to Chicago to meet Eberhard at the Ellis House. This was the house he was detained in 1943 with his brother, Julius, after they were arrested for "suspicion" in Cincinnati.

The house is currently privately owned. We were lucky the homeowner was so gracious and interested in this story. After the interview we drove through Chicago, down Lakeshore Drive and filmed B-roll. Joe had the camera and was hanging out the sunroof and I was driving the Hummer! We were zooming along under the L-train tracks and we were both laughing out loud.

-Back to Indiana to fly home to Los Angeles.

-The last weekend in June, Joe flew to Los Angeles to join me. We had four interviews that weekend. We traveled around Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. As an interviewer I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned a lot. And always you get plenty of B-roll!

-Later in September, Joe flew back to Los Angeles and we went, together, up to San Francisco and the surrounding areas. That was an especially fun trip. We were getting used to the interview process and San Fran is so beautiful. There was so much to shoot. We wrapped up our days, there, at the Fisherman's Wharf. Great restaurants were everywhere.

-Finally in November was the Annual Spinach Festival in Crystal City, TX. We both flew in to San Antonio. We had two interviews there. We took a quick walk over to the Alamo and ate Mexican food along the riverwalk in San Antonio with Eric Gehrman and his wife. We are both just tourists at heart. The only other time I had been to San Antonio was in 1984 during my first month on General Hospital. I was an Aztec Princess then. lol

We drove  down to Crystal City to the internment camp there. It's an agricultural area. There were not many ruins of the camp left. There really wasn't anything left standing.

The interview with Richard Santos made it definitely worth the trip. He took us over to a cemetery where some of the internees from the camp had been buried. The graves were unmarked except for two. We also saw a dump site where the government had left some of the old offices of the camp. We attended the Spinach Festival Parade.

Joe got a little camera happy. When I saw him running with his camera between the lines of tubas and trombones in the marching band I thought I was going to loose him! The next day we were off to another part of Texas for our last interview  in the state.

-Smash cut…The end of November, I flew in to Indianapolis. We were headed to Chicago again and Wisconsin. First stop, Milwaukee. I mention Milwaukee specifically because we ate at the greatest German restaurant ever, Mader's. After three more interviews in Wisconsin, we were done. 2013 was a year of flying back and forth to Indiana to edit with Joe.

-Our first screening was in Los Angeles, at the Chinese Theaters on January 27, 2014.

Now it's time for our first Film Festival. Hooray!

ID) ."> You can read about it on the Access Hollywood Live website here: http://www.accesshollywood.com/kristina-wagner On Wednesday, February 27th, I made a brief appearance on Access Hollywood Live. The showed a 1 minute clip from the Children of Internment documentary during my more »Read Complete post.]]>

You can read about it on the Access Hollywood Live website here:

http://www.accesshollywood.com/kristina-wagner

On Wednesday, February 27th, I made a brief appearance on Access Hollywood Live.

The showed a 1 minute clip from the Children of Internment documentary during my interview with them regarding General Hospital's 50th Anniversary.

A special thanks to AHL's Segment Producer, Anthony Ramos for allowing us to convey this very important topic on their show.

ID) ."> How To Do Professional Looking Interview Lighting On A Tiny Budget. There are so many layers to this story, it has been a fascinating process hearing the different perspectives about internment from both victims and those who were involved with more »Read Complete post.]]>

This first interview (above) is the only one I did with the EX-1. We shot it in a mansion where the internees where held in South Chicago. The gain was set at 0dB, the aperture is wide open 1.9f and we were shooting 1080p at 24 fps. The native ISO on the EX-1 is about 500, based on my measurements.

This footage has not been color graded yet. I wanted to show you the lighting the way it was captured. I did shrink the size of the shot so it would fit on the page.

So let's talk about the light sources.

The room has windows on two parallel walls. You can see them bordering the left side of the frame from behind Eberhard. The room is 30 feet across. He is sitting about 12 feet from the back wall and about 20 feet from the windows in front of him.

Kristina is sitting to the right of the camera doing the interview in an attempt to keep his eye line very much on axis with the lens. I believe that the closer you can get to being on axis with an interview like this, the more personal the shot will feel. As you go off axis, you create separation between the subject and audience.

He is lit from the front with a 24' china ball with a standard 100 watt light bulb ($6 for the fixture).

For the interview, I placed the china ball a couple of feet above his head on a C-stand to the right and about equal distance between the camera and the subject. It is very close to the axis of the shot. There is also a fold out white reflector on a stand about 2 feet left of the subject, providing some fill. A 100 watt bulb doesn't put out much light compared to the window light – but it softened the shot beautifully.

I also like the eye light that we are getting naturally from the china ball and the fact that I was able to angle the shot in a way that kept his glasses from reflecting the bank of diffused windows in front of him.

I opened the back curtains enough to give a nice sheen on the fireplace to the right. I also kept the actual window out of the picture since it would have blown out if I left it in frame. The light from the window is giving his jacket the back rim light.

One thing you may notice is the bluish tone to the shot because a lot of it was daylight. The bulb in the china ball was a "Reveal 100 Daylight" bulb that I got at the grocery. They are not balanced at 5200 kelvin even though they are called daylight bulbs – they seem to be closer to 3900k if you don't use a dimmer.

It took me longer to write about how I did it than it took to light it.

Let's look at a few interviews that I shot with the 5D Mark III.

Yae is sitting in her living room. There is a bank of windows along the wall to the left. I was able to get the background to go out of focus a bit more because of the larger sensor on the 5D, the wide open aperture and the 105mm lens.

When I purchase the EX-1 a few years ago, everyone was saying that the "film look" could be achieved on video by shooting 24 frames per second. I never found this to be the case. The way to get the film look is by using the shorter depth of field that only a large sensor camera can give you – the Letus 35mm adapter works, but it's a pain in the butt to use for run and gun work and impossible with a zoom lens.

We were even more limited in our space in this house than we were in the previous one so getting the background to go out of focus was more of a challenge. I shot it with a 105mm lens at 3200 ISO. The aperture was opened to 4.0f and the shutter at 1/50th.

The picture on the 5D Mark III is amazingly noiseless at 3200 ISO and I've been surprised and pleased by how well 6400 ISO looks as well. I think the low light capabilities make this camera perfect for the low budget filmmaker. When I started shooting back in the late 70s on 16mm film, we used Kodak 7247 negative stock that was rated at 100ASA (now called ISO). There is no way we would have been able to get an acceptable exposure at 100ASA with the lighting set up we used this time.

Low light cameras like this have made life much easier AND I think it is changing the style of lighting. I could talk about my opinions on this for quite a while, but I'll stick with the issue at hand for now.

The glow from the left is coming through the shears of the living room windows (it was bright outside, but the window was in shade). I used the china ball again, but this time I put it closer to the subject – the bottom of the ball was about a foot higher than her head and it was about 3 feet away from her face slightly to the right off camera axis. There is no other lighting in the room. You can see some window reflection in her glasses, but as she moves, it didn't bother me.

We also moved around a few props that we found in her living room to give the background some interest and to express a bit of her personality and heritage.

Another note: I am using a 7' monitor mounted to the camera hot shoe to help with focusing. It also allows me to angle the monitor so I can sit down during the interviews – which are lasting between 1-2 hours.

It's a cheap Marshall monitor ($250) and has a lot more contrast than what you see in this screenshot. It also separates the colors differently – I was a little nervous when I first started using it because it made the different color temperatures in the shot pop out. In this shot, her face, on the left side went much bluer on the monitor.

I probably could focus fine with the screen on the camera or use a loupe attachment, but I am also using a camera stabilizer with a vest for other shots in the project and needed a monitor for that, so I bought one monitor for both functions.

While I'm at it, I also bought a Beachtek DXA-SLR XLR adapter ($450 from bandh.com) for my mics. It works wonderfully and we are getting some excellent sound.

Here is another shot.

This was a challenge to light since it was very close to dusk when we shot it.

Again, I was at 4.0, 1/50th, 3200 ISO and shooting 1080p, 24 fps. We get a different look because the china ball is now the main keylight. It is positioned above and to the left of frame and Kristi was sitting slightly off axis to the camera lens on the left to direct his eyeline.

I also made a mistake putting him in a high backed chair. When you do this with folks, they often end up leaning back and slouching which doesn't make them look as good.

I love what the back window and the reflection of the yard outside did, bringing green and blue reflections to the glass on the furniture in the background. We moved the plant on the right to give a bit of shape to the window area and adjusted some of the stuff in the background. I also like the sheen off the dining room table. There is depth and personality to the shot. I turned on the light in the china cabinet and you can see the top shelf went a bit orange since the tungsten bulb in there was a very low color temperature. I wouldn't do it that if I had it to do again.

I have a higher contrast ratio on this shot and I could have used a reflector on the right side of the shot filling in and softening his face. Overall, I'm satisfied with the shot and think it represents him and what he has to say very well.

Here are a couple more shots that are different environments, but are lit with the same tools.

All of these folks were very interesting to talk to and we got a lot of very usable footage.

A lot of interview lighting that I see these days is so harsh. One of the things we wanted for this film was a softer, friendlier look. All of these folks were children during WWII and were thrown in to a very difficult situation with their parents. We are looking for the heart of the story.

The memories they have and how those memories conflict with each other tells a fascinating story about human memory, family, hardship and how the human spirit overcomes horrible events. It also speaks to the concept of fear molding public policy – about a nation who sees itself as the "good guy" can abuse it's power when it's people are frightened.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming interviews and editing the piece together. I'll keep you posted as we progress.

Take care,

Joe