LEE Filters

James Brown · June 29, 2005

I recently was discussing Lee Filters with some guys at Panavision and i am wondering what are the most used for you guys.

I mean in terms of which ones you find yourself getting out of the box the most. On the catalouge there is small details about the use for every filter, But which are the pro's fav blues and oranges for converting 5600 to 3200 or vice versa, Which are your fav for backlighting outdoors or to bring out the skin tones indoors.

It's just I am in the process of buying a set of about ten to play around with and would love to know what the pro's are using, if using Lee filters at all.

Kevin Zanit · June 29, 2005

I would say 250, 216, and opal are the most commonly used gels by me.

After that would be standard CTO & CTB (and all the various grades).

Everything else for me is essentially a special purpose gel that I still carry (carry it once, and hope your best boy/ gaffer that you so generously brought on again still has the gel he stole at the end of the previous show ;) ).

As far as special stuff goes, standard plus and minus green, sometimes yellow 101 (really ugly, but I have used it), and something we call RFR (really fu*king red - because I can never remember what it is called, and have really only used it once). Also some ambers, chocolate, etc.

Kevin Zanit

James Brown · June 30, 2005

When trying out the gels Kevin, do you find yourself picking the most effective from trial and error using a swatch book, or do you know the look and mood your going for and therefor know what gels will give you that feel.

Kevin Zanit · June 30, 2005

At this point I am pretty good about knowing what to expect from a cretin gel (that I use often).

Also, my gaffer tends to have the right idea about what grade of gel to use all the time, so he may ask to try something different (read: correct ;) ).

Sometimes I am wrong with things like hair lights. For instance (this came up recently) I had a person in daylight and I used a tungsten light source to create a warm hair light. I wanted to partially correct it to bring down the orange. Initially I tried 1/4 CTB but the light combined with the actress's hair color was WAY to warm for my tastes, so I simply went with 1/2 CTB. Not a real big deal to fix.

Kevin Zanit