Gelling the Sun

[Geovane Marquez]

Any ideas? I would like to gel the sun with a white color. Do 12x12 Gels exists?

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I'm not sure what you mean? They certainly has 12x12 overheads which can be silk or muslin or even black, if that's what you're looking for.

[David Mullen ASC]

Any ideas? I would like to gel the sun with a white color. Do 12x12 Gels exists?

 

What's a "white color"? Wouldn't that be a clear gel?

 

There are no 12x12 color gels though I'm sure you can try taping one together. However, there are diffusion materials such as grid cloth that can come dyed orange or blue.

[Geovane Marquez]

Might have to be color corrected then. I know about the overheads (muslin, silk, and black) but from what David said I guess 12x12 gels don't exist.

 

What we are trying to do is basically create a whitewash skylight that isolates all colors. Seem's like a cool 1/8 blue gel on a huge HMI + color correction would do the job.

 

Think of the look as yourself being in the middle of the desert but also in the no-time realm where it's all white and trippy looking.

Edited October 19, 2010 by Geovane Marquez

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Daylight film should render sunlight, White, perhaps with some blue in there, as would white balancing a digital system.

[Zander Kroon]

Might have to be color corrected then. I know about the overheads (muslin, silk, and black) but from what David said I guess 12x12 gels don't exist.

 

What we are trying to do is basically create a whitewash skylight that isolates all colors. Seem's like a cool 1/8 blue gel on a huge HMI + color correction would do the job.

 

Think of the look as yourself being in the middle of the desert but also in the no-time realm where it's all white and trippy looking.

Are you trying to produce shafts of clean, white light? Such as:

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, if everything just needs to be shifted towards the cooler, you don't need an overhead gel, you can just time the image cooler.

 

But if you want to gel the sun in only one area, then you'll probably have to tape together some gel rolls onto a 12x12 frame -- the real problem is going to be noise if any breeze hits that gel.

 

You may want to look into seeing if some very thin diffusion material (like half soft frost or 1/4 grid cloth) can be dyed.

 

I've actually wanted to try something like this to get the effect of many Renaissance landscape paintings, like by Raphael or Leonardo -- the foreground subject is in much warmer light than the background (because of the exaggeration of aerial perspective, a trick they had just learned and were overusing perhaps). The effect is almost like those Annie Leibovitz photos taken at dusk with big strobe banks through large soft boxes.

[Steve London]

Mr. Mullen, as a long time reader and devotee of yours here, there and everywhere, I think you need to collect your thousands of informative and helpful posts together and put them in a book. I would buy it. Thank you for your many contributions to those of us plying the craft and aspiring to excellence.

[Tom Jensen]

Mr. Mullen, as a long time reader and devotee of yours here, there and everywhere, I think you need to collect your thousands of informative and helpful posts together and put them in a book. I would buy it. Thank you for your many contributions to those of us plying the craft and aspiring to excellence.

 

One of David's strongest points is that he can explain a complex concept clearly and completely in a manner that most people can understand.

[Michelob Fedusenko]

I tried this effect... taped a 20x20 blue party gell together and white balanced through it. We wanted to make the 'mobsters' in white light and have the area around them in hellish red... It was a BIG hassle that would have been better done in post (if possible). There was a lot of noise from wind and you will need to tie down, adjust, tie down, adjust, tie down adjust.... ect. Also, the effect wasn't quite what we desired.

 

My suggestion is to test it thoroughly prior to shooting and have plenty of gel to spare. Best of luck and show pictures of the build and final product!

[verlon allen]

Trippy? I take it that shooting this as two elements, and then doing some effects work is out of the question, is that correct?

Edited November 5, 2010 by verlon allen

[John David Miller]

While I do not understand why you want to gel the sun, you can get 12'x overheads that are color dyed for correction but that is usually done with silks or grid cloths.