Many churches include video in their worship--either live or for later playback and reteaching. Unfortunately one area where poor advanced planning can really hurt video is the Worship Center's lighting arrangements. Especially in the realm of i-mag (image magnification--putting live camera images of stage personalities on video screens), lighting can make or break the image. 

Theatrical lighting, or lighting for the live stage, is significantly different than lighting for video. Understanding these differences is key to making video look good. Because the two types of lighting require wildly different arrangements to be effective, you really must plan around one or the other approach. There are two major areas of concern when planning for one or the other.

Front lighting. In the theater, the front lighting does not necessarily have to light the stage or subject perfectly. There's quite a bit of forgiveness in a live situation, where the subject on stage has front light, but may also benefit from the reflection of house lighting and other light sources, like windows. The eye's range of sensitivity in a live situation is capable of processing what it sees in a very broad range of lighting conditions.

Not the case with video. First, the cameras themselves need a certain amount of light--a base level of luminance--to function properly. Too little, and the video can be grainy or off color. Secondly, the front light must have an even field.  Hot spots and uneven light cause the cameras adjust their gain, leading to inconsistent images.  Another front light issue is placement--too high, and shadows can make the subject look dark, even sinister.  In a live situation, we may not notice any of these things, but on video, they become pronounced and distracting.

For video front lighting, employ large, even field wash lights, that give the stage a high level of brightness and coverage. Generally video lighting should be a little lower in position, so that the angle relative to the subject on stage is rather shallow. A 30-35 degree elevation is going to give a much more flattering image on video than a 45-50 degree elevation. Sometimes this approach is called "sitcom" lighting.  If you watch a television sitcom, you'll notice that the main sets are usually bright, wide and evenly-lit.  Even nighttime scenes on these sets differ only in that the background lighting may be dimmer--but the main stage lighting stays quite bright and even.

This approach allows the subject being taped to wander on stage a bit without fear of stepping out of adequate video lighting.  While there are certainly more dramatic ways to light the stage, when it comes to video, an even field of light is key. 

Back lighting.  The other element of lighting for video that must be considered is back lighting. On video, lighting over the shoulders from behind creates a "halo" around the edge of the subject that on the video screen "pops" the subject out from the background.  Back lighting on video adds a sense of three dimensions by creating a contrast around the edge of foreground objects.  Watch just about any television program, especially live concerts, and you will notice this light "halo" if you look closely.  Often the back lighting is quite a bit brighter for video than the front lighting to clearly separate the subject from the background.

In a live production situation we of course do not need to rely on back lighting to give us a sense of dimension.  Our binocular vision does that for us--that's the reason we have two eyes set slightly apart on our faces.  The two slightly different images from our eyes are processed by our brain and give us a perception of depth.  Cover one eye up and your ability to judge how far away something sits is greatly diminished. 

On two dimensional video--what we see on a flat screen--this depth perception must be provided by two things: focus and lighting. Focus as viewed on a video screen is a depth of field in which elements further away are blurry. This is achieved through the lens settings in the video camera. Lighting provides visual reinforcement of the depth of various elements on the video screen by separating them--brighter elements are usually closer.

For example. In a worship facility I served recently, which was fantastic for theater, the adjustment to lighting for video was fairly straightforward, building on these two simple premises.  We simply had to space out and slightly increase our front lighting to even out the field of illumination, and increase our back lighting to allow subjects being videoed to be separated from the background with a halo of light over their shoulders. 

The most expensive part of this transformation was finding good locations for back lighting.  During our teaching times, the speaker stands far downstage, and good back lighting positions for theater are designed to be upstage of the proscenium. There was not a perfect solution in our case as the most accessible lighting position for the speaker's backlight was almost over his head--so it's more downlight than backlight. 

You will be amazed at what good lighting design and implementation can do for live video.  Using light to give the audience 3-D cues on a 2-D video surface tremendously enhances the experience.  What we want to happen, of course, is for the video to be as realistic and close to live-action as possible.  Careful attention to lighting for video can help you accomplish this.

About the Author. Eugene Mason has more than two decades of experience in ministry communications and technologies. More...