police lights

[Austin Schmidt]

Does anyone have suggestions how to create the effect of several police car lights? However, the request was made for the red,blue,white light to rotate around in scene rather then sporadically flash. The scene takes place at night shooting with 5218 so powerful lights won't be so necessary. I am assuming there are pre-made f/x lights for this sort of thing but haven't seemed to discover any.

Edited February 13, 2005 by A.Schmidt

[Nate Yolles]

There are several different types of beacon lights. Call the rental houses and tell them what you want and they can help you. Depending many footcandles you need, you could use a real police lightbar from a prop house.

 

Alternatively, you could take two tweenies, gel one red and one blue, and throw them on a triple-header (or a rig them on a c-stand) facing 180 degrees apart. Spin the rig before the shot so that the power cables twist up the stand and for the shot spin it the other way to give you twice as much spin time; or have somebody work the rig and somebody else somehow wrangle the cable above the rig so that the cables don't twist around the stand.

 

I've also talked with friends who have another method. The take a full apple box, stand it tall and tape another half or quarter to it to make all four sides even. Then they attach 1-foot square mirrors to each side, a baby pin on the bottom and spin the contraption on the pin while gelled lights bang into the spinning mirrors. Which is more how a beacon light works, with a spinning mirror not a spinning light.

 

Just be creative and make it work.

[Bob Hayes]

I believe you can rent police light bars at rental houses and they work great. They can?t be that expensive because I get them on my films. A great trick is to put it on the roof of a car in the foreground and shoot over it. Really gives the feeling of lots of police cars.

[Luke Prendergast]

What I've done for this effect is three 1ft decorators' mirrors gaffed in a triangle upright on a turntable (record player) with red and blue gelled cans shooting into the contraption at appropriate angles. Takes care of itself without an operator but you only get 33 or 45 rpm.

[Michael Nash]

There's a pre-made device called a "whirlygig." It's a Par 64 globe in a housing with a spinning mirror, which is controlled with a rheostat. It comes with gel frames, and the whole thing mounts on a junior stand.

 

I've used them several times and they're a piece of cake. Get two of them, as you'll want to place them around the set for the best effect. With flashing or spinning lights like this you can take a lot of liberty with the direction of light to create the best visual effect.