Simon Olney

Brian, thanks for the helpful link, I will do my best to digest it and translate it into the industry over there. Stuart, thanks for helping me realise that, I'll look into the City an Guilds qualification; I liked the look of it when I had a quick google but didn't know if it was useful to have or a bit of a red herring. I noticed you work in Bristol, off the top of your head, you wouldn't happen to know if there's the possibility to study for the qualification in the local area? I live just outside Swindon outside of term time and it would be ideal to study as close to home as possible. I'll get in touch with the organisations you mentioned to see what they recommend, helps to give the employers what they want.

When HMI bulbs blow it's normally 5 minutes after striking which would explain why they both blew so soon after being striked, it would be a coincidence, but stranger things have happened. It's unlikely to be down to temperature, I've used HMIs on december nights in the new forest in freezing conditions (we had to de-ice the cars when leaving set in the morning) with no problem.

Should have mentioned that, I'm not looking to go straight into gaffering, but I know sparks don't always need qualifications to work on set, but I'm planning to move through the ranks rather than haul lights for a living which I know a lot of people are content to do and it makes sense to get the necessary knowledge sooner rather than later, although after what you said it looks like I might need some qualifications to get my foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. You mention working at panalux, is that in conjunction with any qualifications or just to get me some more experience along academic studies? You mention I'd need to go to college to get the qualifications, are they in conjunction with on set experience or standalone qualifications?

I'm unsure if this is the right place for this discussion, but felt that posting it here would get the best response, feel free to move it if neccersary. I am halfway through my second year of study at my school and have decided to specialise primarily in lighting as opposed to camera or grip, both at my school and in the industry. My question is what the best course of action is to take regarding qualifications and any general advice. I have worked with the majority of common lights, have a basic understanding of electricity (from reading the Set Lighting Technician's Handbook) and worked in the electrical department on over 20 student and low budget films, however I'm aware that to work in the industry I'm going to need more than experience on student films and a knowledge of the theory of electricity. Is there a standard qualification most productions look for in electricians/ gaffers? I aspire ultimately to become a Director of Photography and keep a hand in camera where possible, but as my skills and interest lie primarily in lighting it would seem worthwhile to study electricity further, but I don't want to waste my time and money on excessive or pointless courses. Cheers Simon

This may come across as a bit of a no brainer at first, but I'm a student developing more of a tilt to lighting than camera and have accumulated a large selection of gels over the past year, which whilst it comes in handy on set, is fast becoming unwieldily and difficult to manage. My gels are starting to get damaged and lost and I was wondering if anybody had any tried and tested methods of looking after gels. Currently I carry them around in a large blue ikea bag with different sheets of each gel rolled together (all ND3 together, all hampshire frost together e.t.c.) and held together with electrical tape, however within an hour of arriving on set my gels have spilled out of the bag and by the end of the day they are decorating a corner of the studio floor. I'm aware part of the problem is overworking myself by not getting enough/any sparks on board and essentially lighting a film myself whilst the DP has his/her head stuck in the camera, but a better system for managing gels would help speed up my workflow. Many thanks Simon

The main worry in my mind is how it will cut, I shot the following shot today (production still: http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-sn..._5944635_n.jpg) which comes immediately after the match striking shot, which as you can see I was throwing some fairly serious light at, a 2K and 2K fresnel to be precise which was mainly to give me extra depth of field to play with as there was a track back to consider (and no specific focus puller after I was promoted to DP), but as the director wanted a constant light emitted by the fire I'm not sure with hindsight I should to too flickery for the match shot. You could justify it by saying the fire is more established in the second shot as enough time has passed for her to be watching the fire from the window outside (tracks back from a shot of her outside to reveal the curtains on fire). As for the tests you shot Edgar, I would feel fairly confident shooting a match on something like 500T, but my lack of experience with stocks is causing me to question whether it would expose at all on Eterna 250. A big part of me wants to rely on the brightness caused by the initial striking, even if it illuminates the actress' face for a split second as it will be quite obvious what is happening, but my concience is warning me of a 'fall through the floor' moment when watching the rushes to find the penultimate shot under by 2 stops. I realised after wrapping today that I have frames to burn with the tungsten stock as I have half a roll left and only two shots to shoot with it, so fingers crossed I should have enough stock to play about with. Many thanks for your helpful responses Simon

I don't have any dimmers unfortunately, and we don't have any in the equipment store so no chance of a last minute blag either. I like what you're thinking with the multiple matches, I'm lucky enough to have some fairly fast lenses (T1.3), however playing around with a lighter (due to lack of matches in the house) in my darkened room with my light meter, the stock is not sensitive enough (as I had imagined) and I'm going to need some more light to expose it correctly. If we were shooting in a less sensitive location I'd get a fire going and play about with a flag but we're shooting in a thatched cottage which we got by knocking on doors so it looks like creative lighting might be my only choice.

Today whilst focus pulling on a student short the DP bottled and handed the light meter to me to continue shooting the rest of the film, which has left me somewhat floundering as I have to light locations on the fly after seeing them for the first time. My biggest problem is recreating the image that a girl has lit a match and it is the only light source in the room. She actually lights the match but I need to give it some kind of boost. I'm shooting on Fuji Eterna 250 and 250D on an Arriflex SR2. Relevant equipment I have includes 2X300W Fresnels, 2X650W Fresnels, a soft bounce board, a polyboard and some fire effect gel. The DP didn't have a very clear idea on how he wanted to do the shot so I was wondering if anybody had any experience creating the effect, it would be nice to have a bit of flicker but beggars can't be choosers. I could fairly easily create the effect of matchlight but I'm having difficulty working out how to strike the light to make it look like the match has been lit mid shot, simply sparking the light mid shot would give an unconvincing effect. If anybody has any suggestions before I shoot the scene on Friday morning (currently Wednesday night in the UK) it would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks Simon

I've been working with 16mm film in primarily assistant roles (excluding a very basic project I shot with black and white reversal stock) for around a year now on student and low budget productions, but there is one questions that has evaded me for some time and I have found it hard to find a black and white answer to in any of my textbooks, what is the effect of mixed lighting sources? I'm aware of the colour temperature each stock is balanced for, correcting for different stock with CTO and CTB, have worked on productions where the DP has covered all the windows with CTO when shooting with tungsten balanced film and have seen DPs shoot with 85A (if memory serves) filters to allow daylight stock to be used under tungsten conditions, but I'm not clear on what the consequences of either shooting in tungsten conditions with daylight stock or having a tungsten source in a primarily daylight lit shot would have, the only explanation I have found telling me I would end up with 'amateurish looking colours'. I have heard that the cinematography lecturers at my university are very old fashioned and shun the use of mixed lighting, so I am unlikely to get an unbiased opinion from them. Starting this year I get the opportunity to DP on small budget productions and was wondering how specific I have to be about converting each lighting source. I assumed it was standard practice to treat the colour temperatures as law, but I have recently read articles about ASC members shooting outside with 500T (without any colour correction filters I assume) with daylight balanced lights, and was wondering what kind of an image it would give, I can only assume it would be slightly warmer. If anybody could share any experiences of using mixed lighting and how frequently it is used it might save me from being unnecessarily uptight about converting lighting sources or avoid any inconsistent lighting. Cheers Simon

I can't say I was on the camera team for the film, but I recently worked on a graduation film where they tried to replicate a car chase from stationary using green screen, a dolly, lights and fans. You won't have to simulate the movement or wind so much but the lighting is important to get right. From what I can remember we did a standard lighting setup on the car for an exterior night scene and had the gaffer swinging a 1K Fresnel in circular motions, so the light moved from the front of the car across the length of the car, and over the car, out of shot, and round the front again. We then repeated the motion timed to simulate passing street lights, variable of the speed the vehicle was travelling at, we were filming a car chase on an open road at night, so it was fairly frequent, but if you're filming a bus traveling through an urban enviroment, you probably won't need to make the swinging as frequent, though you may want more than one light on the go at once. Hope that helps