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Moving light technique??


Joseph

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Hi all,

I have seen a few times a technique in promos where lights seem to move. I'm shooting a spot in the next few weeks we I'd like to use this technique. I've been looking everywhere and I can't seem to find anything about how this is achieved. An example is here:

https://vimeo.com/176507317
look at the shots at
04.23-4.35

Any ideas what kind of set up i need to get this? I love how the lights moves around the subject.

Thanks all!!!!

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There are ways of moving lights, you can just pan/tilt them across the subject or you can physically move them by mounting them on a dolly or a crane. Doorway or Western dollies are good for this or, if it's just a small light. you could mount it on a boom arm and sweep it. You can also just hand hold a light if it's not heavy.

 

What you can do will depend on the space you've got, the lights and your budget.

Edited by Brian Drysdale
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Given the symmetry of the moves, I would suspect that this is programmed intelligent lighting.

 

You can rent this stuff fairly straightforwardly, but take care about flicker as many lights intended for club and event use have magnetic ballasts.

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That is definitely moving head LED fixtures. It looks pretty small, maybe just two lights and a controller, plus fog. If you don't know DMX, it's probably easiest to hire a grip who does. You could rent a kit like that for under $500 for the day where I'm from.

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It's not that complicated, if you can get an hour or two to fiddle around. The most basic approach is that each channel of control on the light becomes a single fader on the lighting desk. Some of them have joysticks or trackballs that can be assigned so that they control positioning. Obviously, if you want someone to do it while you're doing other things, fine, but don't assume it's absolutely necessary to get someone in.

 

Why the assumption it's LED-driven? Many of them, especially the profile-style types, are metal halide.

 

P

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Since it looked like just two fixtures, and not particularly high wattage, my guess was some LED moving heads. You could do it with whatever is available, but there are a ton of affordable LED heads out there.

 

I own an AV rental shop and have basically gone crazy trying to teach beginners how to set up two or three fixtures on a basic lighting board. It is very simple, kind of. Assuming they can set up truss, hang fixtures safely, run power safely, run DMX cabling or wireless effectively, terminate cable runs, configure appropriate DMX addresses, and operate a board is probably too much for most novices. If you are comfortable with lights and you have a willingness to learn and time, no problem.

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