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Centennial Launch Video & Oral History Project

Fordham Law School advertisement in the New York Times, Fall 1918, announcing that classes were now open to women.

With a few words in 1918, in an ad in the New York Times, Fordham Law School did something revolutionary, it admitted women to its classes. “Courses Open to Women” was added in all caps between the class times and the fall term start date. Now, 100 years later Fordham Law is celebrating and I am proud to have helped them launch their yearlong festivities.

Originally envisioned as an oral history project, I filmed interviews with seven women alumni, one from each decade beginning with the 1950’s and through to the 2010’s. Each alumna will be featured in two videos, a long-form interview and a shorter teaser video, with staggered launch dates starting this week. Additionally, I created a compilation video featuring all of the interviewees along with mixing in archival images which led the kickoff event last week at the New York Historical Society.

Launch video for Fordham Law School’s 100 Years of Women yearlong celebration. Available on Vimeo and YouTube.

Tech notes: This was a one-camera setup but shot in 4K to allow for reframing and punching in during post-production. I relied on my C300 Mark II with the CN-E 18-80mm Cine Compact-Servo Zoom lens.

Canon C300 Mark II with the CN-E 18-80mm Cine Compact-Servo Zoom lens. New York, NY. July, 2018.

In this type of scenario, interviews against white seamless, you want to light the background as evenly as possible. I also needed to factor in the age range of my subjects and that we wouldn’t have a makeup artist on set. All of which pointed to high-key lighting with only a hint of directional feel. As usual, I relied on my four Litepanels Astras as key, fill, and background lights.

The lighting setup from behind the camera. Interviewer’s chair to the the right, interviewee framed to camera left. New York, NY. July, 2018.

The lights were modified with the key pushing through a Litepanels/DoPchoice Snapbag Big with the Magic Diffuser. This is a 23″ x 31″ source which when used with the Magic Diffuser creates a light much more akin to a larger source. The fill was a smaller Snapbag, 17″ x 17″, but with two full-grid diffusers on the front to soften the light.

I had a Litepanels Sola 4 fresnel light with a diffuser disc, seen above in the back to the left of the backdrop, as a backlight for each subject.

When you view the video you’ll see how well the combination of the larger softbox with its diffuser works. Subjects are lit but the shadows around their features, under their chins, and on their clothing remain very soft.

Background lights. Litepanels Astras pushing through RoadRags silks with a RoadRags II flag to keep light off the subject. New York, NY. July, 2018.

I often push my background lights through a small silk because I have found that it gets me to an evenly lit backdrop very quickly. I did that on set for this project along with using a flag to keep the light off of the subject.

Waveform of the feed on set with an in-camera LUT applied showing how evenly lit the background is. New York, NY. July, 2018.

Since my background was only 7′ wide and I had the space in the room, I shot between 73mm – 80mm for each interview. A wider focal length would have meant the subject being closer to the backdrop and potential issues with the width of the backdrop showing up sooner.

I shot in Clog3 in the Rec.709 space. This allowed for an efficient visual grade in post without the need for a LUT in my NLE.

Lighting diagram, 100 Years of Women at Fordham Law project. New York, NY. July, 2018.