Lighting the debate
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In the comments
Bull! As a lighting Director at Fox News I have to lit Donald Trump several times. Harris’s lighting during this debate was worse than his. She had deep shadows under her chin and the light coming from her left, (screen right), is it annoyingly too bright, causing an unnecessary shadow around her left eye. It’s true her eyes reflected her key light and this definitely helped with her appearance. But that’s because she had her eyes open and her chin up and looked into the camera often. Trump’s key lighting appears to be lower because he is taller reducing the shadow under his chin which should have helped give light reflecting in his eyes, however he didn’t open his eyes enough and kept his chin down looking only in anger at the hosts. And his side fill light wasn’t overly bright, and so His lighting looked better than hers.
As far as the interviews and the host lighting for the debate, yes their lighting was better. Having done many of these, the lighting director is well rehearsed at lighting their host since it’s their show. All hosts that I’ve worked with are highly particular on how they are lit and let the lighting crew know in advance, .JD Vance has deep set eyes which is always a challenge and so the lighting crew should have given him some Chien/Eye light.
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In the comments
Bull! As a lighting Director at Fox News I have to lit Donald Trump several times. Harris’s lighting during this debate was worse than his. She had deep shadows under her chin and the light coming from her left, (screen right), is it annoyingly too bright, causing an unnecessary shadow around her left eye. It’s true her eyes reflected her key light and this definitely helped with her appearance. But that’s because she had her eyes open and her chin up and looked into the camera often. Trump’s key lighting appears to be lower because he is taller reducing the shadow under his chin which should have helped give light reflecting in his eyes, however he didn’t open his eyes enough and kept his chin down looking only in anger at the hosts. And his side fill light wasn’t overly bright, and so His lighting looked better than hers.
As far as the interviews and the host lighting for the debate, yes their lighting was better. Having done many of these, the lighting director is well rehearsed at lighting their host since it’s their show. All hosts that I’ve worked with are highly particular on how they are lit and let the lighting crew know in advance, .JD Vance has deep set eyes which is always a challenge and so the lighting crew should have given him some Chien/Eye light.
