If I wanted to put a lighting gel in a 3 point lighting setup (for an interview), do I put a colored gel on all 3 lights, or just one light (key light maybe?)Thanks!
I agree with Screwdriver. There is just no real reason to use a gel except for perhaps a contrasting background color, but that needs to be thoughtfully considered. You would not want a gelled red background with a lady with red hair, or a blue background with someone with a blue shirt. Personally, I think you should forget the gels and concentrate of having the light and camera white balance temps matching and proper lighting position and exposure. steve
Gels are only really necessary if your 3 light sources are different coloured light for example tungsten and daylight fluorescent. Then you would gel the light that is different to make them all daylight. Gelling for effect i.e. a warmer light you would gel all the lights, but you can do this globally in the video editor more easily. Gelling just one light for effect normally just looks odd, the real answer is to try it, but normally you want to work with all lights at the same colour temperature, daylight is best as then any natural light through a window would blend in. You can gel the background lights to create a mood, cooler or warmer or just for a colour splash maybe shone through a 'biscuit' to cast an interesting shadow (potted plants work well), but normally you want daylight balanced light on your subjects or skin tones start to look odd. Chris
