How to Set Up Your Room on the Day of Filming

Room appearance can be very time consuming and difficult to do, but it is essential in what you want to present to your audience. If your shoot is off premises, you want to arrive at least an hour ahead of the scheduled shoot to move furniture, close shades, and set up your camera and lighting equipment. In one of the shoots DJs arrived late to the scene for a few hours, and everyone was really disappointed!

If there are areas of the room or props you want to focus on, you may want to set up smaller lights with barn doors to give those objects the attention they need. If you are pressed for time, using a camera with a shallow depth of field will knock the background out of focus, and will draw attention to your actors instead. This will cover up any mistakes in the room.

When it comes to considering the lights you will be using, you should rule out incandescent light bulbs. They heat up a room very quickly and sweat on actors is not what you want to present to your audience. You want the actors to feel comfortable, and therefore they will perform better. It’s a good idea to go with fluorescent or LED lights which produce less heat. They last much longer and your actors will feel more comfortable.