Mike Hall

We ran into something similar in Phoenix, and fixed it by lowering the light level on the green by adding full green to the flouros lighting the greenscreen, and adding quarter minus green (later cosmetic rouge (spelling???) worked as well) to the back lights. I believe this increased the differentiation of the chromanance between the light on the actors and the green enough to make the mat palatable to the computer. Like someone said, the backlights "outlined" the talent, however, for the subject matter that we were doing it worked just fine. Interestingly enough, adding CTO to the backlights did not have the same effect. Hope this helps, Mike Hall Glendale, AZ

I think this is a technique from before our time. I have worked with people who did the same, and it was a technical consideration - with low asa's and talent that actually could make a mark - you could frame a close-up that had the face in complete focus, and nothing else. Bottom of the lens for close-ups was standard fare for the "old time" guys when I was a young lad. Not only did you soften/flatten the light for ECU's - you also put doubles in everything so that the focus was on the front of the face, and nothing else. Some of the old ASC camera guys could probably explain this better; however, coming from a technical side, we expected this to happen years ago. Where are Frank Raymond or Leslie Kovacs when you need them... Like the Arclight, the consideration for this type of shooting/lighting may have become extinct in our industry. Today's schedules implore the DP to "get things done", and they are not geared towards the "get things right" atmosphere that was present in our industry before it became a legion of large companies.

GAM has a new gel that is formulated to stay on windows flat like those plastic stickers you get for your car windows. It has a low tack adhesive: http://www.gamonline.com/ called "Windowgrip"

You can make an inexpensive butterfly that will take some of the curse off of the sun with a thick clear visqueen. I believe it's 6mil however it might be 8mil. It will look approximately like Hampshire frost or half-softfrost, and still allow almost the entire amount of light thru, so you won't have to worry about the BG being too hot. If you need to save $$$ on the car window tint, try some shade screen from a hardware store - it's pretty cheap, doesn't reflect like gel, and you can usually tape it down pretty good for when you are driving the car at low speeds - and use paper tape, not gaff tape or duct tape on the vehicle. Shoot as much golden hour as you can, and leave the inserts and car chase stuff to the middle of the day if possible. Buy, beg, borrow, one of those silver screens that people use to keep the sun out of their car, and keep it by the camera. If you really want to go all out, paint one side of it flat white, so you always have a silver/white fill close by camera. You may want to take some tips from Ron Dexter's website: http://www.rondexter.com/ Wear a hat and sunscreen, and drink more water than you think you need. Hope your shoot goes well, Mike Hall Arizona (THE desert ;)

Maybe we should include a discussion of the other side of Richardson's work: the key light - which looks almost like "fill" because of the hot BG's. I'ts usually a very soft light - bounce light thru a silk - that has to be contained correctly or it just goes everywhere. It helps to have a big team and big $$$ to spend to do this, but boy, does he do it right. I think this very beautiful light is what helps make that "out of bounds" nuclear hot light coming from above and behind so alluring to the viewer....thoughts?

The companies listed so far are all good lights. You may also consider Ultralight http://www.ultralightmfgco.com/ B & M Lighting http://www.bmlighting.com/ and of course, Mole Richardson. Both ultralight and BM have a pretty good light for the money, however I put 420 globes in my Ultralight tweenies because the sockets tend to burn with extended use with 650 globes, and the BM baby focus knobs can melt when the light is on for an extended time pointing down (both mfg may have fixed these problems by now). Other than these minor points, they are very good lights. I have found that the Altman, Arri, and Lowell lights perform and hold up pretty well. Since NAB ends today, both B&H and Barbizon have show specials; Barbizon : http://shop.barbizon.com/ may be a bit easier to get the show price from as BH can sometimes have very strange rules for sales. Also, DTC in San Francisco is a great place to buy lights, and much more knowledgeable than the other two. http://www.dtcgrip.com/ They have just moved, so you may have to call them direct as opposed to shopping online. Also, there is filmtools http://www.filmtools.com/ with great Arri prices. If you need filters for correction, the best price I've found is Rhino filters, although they only have colors and heat gel, but they're $60 a roll, so that's pretty good. http://www.rhinofilters.com/ Personally, I have at least one of each of these manufacturers lights, and, although I personally dislike the Mole distributor network very much, as it limits the amount that my business can grow with them, I have found that Mole lights perform and last the best. Believe me, I have tried everything not to shop Mole, and this year we have started going "all mole, all the time" because of maintenance problems with the other mfgs. The best price I found this week on Tweenies and Inbetweenies (mole) was the BH NAB show price, however I find that many times DTC will have a better overall price because they sell the barndoors, scrim, etc at a lower cost, and because I'm on the west side of the country the shipping costs are lower. I have not seen Barbizon's specials from the show, as they were not available as of yesterday. Anyway, I hope this helps a little bit. I've spent quite some time on this problem myself, and I would like very much to hear others experiences with Altman, Colortran, etc. Mike Hall Glendale, AZ

You know, 20' up in the air, and something that one person can't get a hold of alone, and a built-in time constraint. Sounds like it would be easier and faster to hang 4x4 kinos with either softening gel on them, or something below if you want to stay with cooler lights or space lights if you don't mind the heat. If there's an easy way to get rope points up, you might be able to build the blanket on the ground, and fly it from the floor.

What about putting polarizing gel on the light sources? The Gel is relatively expensive, and you have to make sure the polarization is all the same way, and, there is the polarizer on the camera/skin thing, but you will be able to dial the lamp reflections out (and probably make the fish look better), and the rest you can get with floppies or a couple of 12x12 solids. Rosco makes one brand of the gel, and there is also a 3M product that is in wide (as wide as 5') sheets. I think the rosco product comes in 20" sq. sheets. Works better with HMI fresnels than pars, as I remember, and obviously you want the pola gel to be on the outside of any diffusion or color on the light. Anyway, something to think about. Mike Hall AZ

David is, as usual, spot on. A tie-in used to be common practice in our industry, but accidents and liability issues have made the tie-in more risk than savings. First there is the very real possibility that you could be killed in the act. Then, one must consider liability issues and local law. Many municipalities have enacted stiff fines (in Phoenix the fine is $25k per incident) for hooking up "temporary" power distribution without an inspection and permit. If this is the case, and you do tie in, the power tie in might be considered an illegal act, and therefore may be excluded from insurance coverage. If something did go wrong, or someone including but not limited to yourself was killed, there could be sticky coverage/liability issues. If you do absolutely have to tie in, you might want to hire or consult an IATSE gaffer, or as David said, a licenced electrician. Many times the Union has covered the proper safety and liability issues for their members, and if nothing else, you can get a second opinion. Anyway, something to think about. Mike

I have some experience in IR video and film in military, industrial, and "reality" television applications. I don't know if this will help, but here is a little of what I've learned: IR light shows up entirely different on film and video. On video, IR light tends to give very hard shadows, and, depending on the unit used to light, it is easily "cut" and gobos can be used very effectively. Plastic diffusion has little or no effect on the "quality" of IR light when using LED's or filament IR illumination. I believe the best way to soften the shadows is to either bounce an IR source so that it illuminates behind the subject, or to use an IR heater to fill the area. IR heaters can be used like 10k's on most of these video cameras to light larger areas. If you would rather have a "non emitter" source, one can easily be made using percentage mirror at an angle in front of the filament or LED source. Basically, anything that gives off IR heat or light is suitable for illumination. This makes it easier to "hide" lighting, and at the same time a pain to eliminate native light sources. A full moon can fill in IR video to help with wide landscapes. Most IR video cameras will look better outside with some moonlight and dimmed emitters. At this lighting density, some military-spec cameras will actually pick up the heat signatures from exposed skin, making subjects "glow". Sunblock, zinc oxide, or makeup can be applied to stop the glow if it becomes a distraction. Anyway, hope this helps Mike

How about the Toshiba IK-TF 5? It's an ice cube camera, progressive scan, etc. Probably the camera that Luma is basing their design on. http://www.toshiba.com/taisisd/indmed/iktf5.htm Of course, it will suffer from some limitations and drawbacks as far as res. and latitude matching is concerned, but I have used these little cameras in some pretty rough situations, and they hold up well. Don't know if the look will match your expectations, but it might be worth a look. Mike

I think Kris Camarillo is spot on. I use/own both these lights almost daily; I've found that they are good for different things: The Diva case makes it more portable to transport the units. The Diva's built in dimmer is nice (although it seems to magenta the last 10%) to change the intensity without the fixture size. With the Flozier, it seems to be a very flattering soft source. The globes without the Flozier (full gridcloth) look harder than 4x4 tubes to me. I have found that it is much easier for me to change 4x4 globes than Diva globes - so much so that I have separate Divas for Tungsten and Daylight. The Diva globes store easier, and at the same time are more fragile. The diva has that slip-on grid, and I find it easier (and less expensive) to soften than using c-47's on the 4x4 or 2x4. It is also easier to cut with a 2x3 rather than a 4x4 since it is a smaller source. I would compare the Diva more to a 2' 4-bank Kino with the ballast on 4x4 than an actual 4x4. Last time I checked, the Mole version was less expensive than the Kino. Mike