making do.

Ken Minehan · February 7, 2007

Hello guys, i have a question for you guys or rather, i would like to know what you guys would have done in the scenario i'm about to give you.

last week i was shooting a TV commercial in Phenom Penh Cambodia. We were shooting a credit Card Commercial. The concept is very soft, and beautiful, selling the elegent easy going lifestyle. My crew together with the camera equipment and lenses flew up from Thailand. These guys were excellent. I feel they were very professional, and the best crew i have ever worked with. I salute them.

The lighting equipment was organised in Cambodia. Before i left Singapore for the shoot i gave them an extensive lighting list. When i arrived, i was told they have no cutters, polys, silks, grid cloth, sand bags, c stands, nets, clamps. The smallest lights been a 2.5kw HMI.

Now at that point i got a little worried. For exterior scenes, the average f stop was about f45. that that was not so much a problem. We just ND down to get about 5.6, and the rest we can do in TC.

The interiors were quite challenging. We shot the interior scenes in real shops, salons and banks. I got the production team in Cambodia to buy me some polys. But they were about 1tf x 2ft. so we stitched them together with wire to get about a 3ft x 6ft. Then i started boucing diffused light. This worked fine for general fill. I bounced the diffused 2.5 off a poly on to the main talent and back lit her 1 stop over (i feel now maybe i should have gone 2 stops over).

In the end i was pretty happy with my results, and it was a very good experience. It taught me alot in making the best of a situation. What would you guys have done in this situation. Just wandering for next time.

Regards

Ken Minehan

Hal Smith · February 8, 2007

Hello guys, i have a question for you guys or rather, i would like to know what you guys would have done in the scenario i'm about to give you.
Ken Minehan

Seems to me that life gave you lemons - and you whipped up a pretty good batch of lemonade. :)

Ken Minehan · February 8, 2007

haha. Thats an interesting way to put it. Regardless of the limitations, i must say that it was a very fun shoot, and a great experience for me. Cambodia is a beautiful place, excellent place for shooting, the people are wonderful, and i was able to work with world class crew. it's always fun to work with very professional crews you can trust.

Ken Minehan

Michael Collier · February 8, 2007

I sort of enjoy those kinds of big challenges and steep odds. It really makes your mind think and work hard to get great results.

Its hard to say what I would have done in that situation, since I don't know what sort of equipment you did have availible, or time and budget constraints. Sounds like you did a good job w. Bouncing off ceilings and walls seems like the most versatile solution to a lot of problems. I would have asked for a trip to wally-world with 50 bucks. Its a bit cheap, but theres all kinds of solutions at a walmart or homedepot. Home-made silks, floppys, flags, nets, etc are all availible there for cheap. They don't look pretty, and don't always function like real equipment, but you can get very creative with little money out there. I would love to see a screen shot of what you got. Sounds like a fun challange.

Nick G Smith · February 8, 2007

I have shot quite a bit in India and Indonesia and always take a couple of lastolite 4x4 collaspable frames (great for bouncing light into interiors) and lightweight lamps such as Rifa 1ks, dedos, divalites etc. to supplement the old fresnels and hmi's that seem to be around.

For exteriors I always want and end up wishing for large butterfly frames. In Bali I found someone with parachute silk and the local grips used 4 bamboo poles to hold it up - I could pan across the bamboo poles with no problem as they became just part of the local fauna. Mostly great times and wonderful innovative crews.