Ok, I am now doing short video email follow ups for conversations. It's pretty damn cool, cos 10 minutes after my guy talks to folks, they get a motion picture of his ugly mug thanking them for the commitment and reminding them of the deadline.

OK, here's the problem: The white walls make the back lighting a bit weird.

What can I do to provide a contrast/soften up the white..without making it look like a Qaeda kidnap video.

I also want to put an American Flag, Alabama Flag and maybe State Seal behind him, and need to buy torchiere/floor lamp for light.

Will a piece of poster board work? A sheet? What color?

Oh, its gotta be white.

With eye holes.

yikes.

Yeah, I left myself open to that one...

This will go BEHIND the guy, not on his head...

Pretty much a slow roller over the plate.

As to your question, can't you just shoot it in his actual office? Maybe set up some extra lighting, but make it more "presidential address" than "They gonna cut my head off unless yall get outta the Gaza Strip."

That's a 500-ft. home run if I've ever seen one!

What about getting a section of board with wood laminate on it to put behind him? Put your flags, seal, and some pictures of lynchings on it and it'll look right classy.

Just splice in some down-home footage of Homer Stokes on the campaign trail.

do you have to do it in front of a white wall? the sheet might work, warm gray or middle blue.

my other suggestion would be to set up the shot where walls/plants/artwork are farther in the background and shoot with a wide aperture so the background has color but is less distinct.

That is what I was looking for.

Here's the deal: dude has an office, but that is for official gov't work. We have a seperate, bare-bones campaign office, that is run out of a shitty apartment.

So, I need to "spruce up" the background a bit, and get some contrast...thanks soreal.

no prob.

one other thing i thought of is if you're adding a floor lamp for lighting, make sure you white balance the camera. maybe you know this already, but if you mix fluorescent/tungsten/daylight people's skin tone can get a little funky.

This is really sad.

Though I envision the camera crew from "Telephono" or some other Chucky B. pic running the show at your "taping".

Blech.

You can probably just diffuse the light by covering it with some wax paper if it's light enough.

My favorite thing about you is that you never cease to give people shit for putting in an honest day's work, while never having done so yourself.

Go oark your truck in one of your storage units, and a run a repo'd hose into your window.

I was doing full day landscaping jobs before you could even reach the pedals of that Car-velle, you fuck.

Sitting in a chair, drinking RC Cola's and telling Andre and Derikous to "get to work or daddy'll be mad" ain't landscapin son.

we invented this shit waaaaaaaaaaaaay before we could afford ninjas like that.

don't believe the hype of them sorry.

THAT's TELEFON, to you, BOY.

congrats on your promo about the World's Oldest Living Waterhead.

fucker.

HAHAHHAHAHAH!!!

DAT FUNGGEEB!!

dude fucking EXISTED.

I mean he did die and all, but like Big Rick says, "he was a good man"

Him, Stump, Vernie.....

you dudes need to annotate this shit or take this party to instant messages.

Or publish a history paper.

I suppose you could do it like a simple portrait photograph. There are these huge rolls of paper that you can get to set up as background. It's probably one of the cheaper and "not-so-amateur-looking" ways of going about this. what kind of lighting do you have? is it something that is professional quality or is it cheap stuff?

I think I like the idea of the wide aperture. It's easy to give some texture to the background without being distracted. It would sort of make the flags obsolete because they would be blurry. But it certainly could maintain the focus on the "star" of the video. My thoughts with the lighting is always to use a dark background--black, gray, mediumish blue--assuming the person on film is a white guy. Lighting is a pain in the ass though. SOmething I am not too excited about.

Make sure you get that catch light...make them eyes glimmer--gives the audience the impression you care.