Lucas Griego

Yes you can. It takes some experimentation to get it to work and it's not without issues (eg. getting it flat and not losing image quality). But it can be done in a pinch if you can't get your hands on any other ND filters or make adjustments somewhere in the chain.

Glad it was something as simple as a dud bulb. To echo what had already been said... there is no need for a dimmer to start up 2K's and the 2K's rarely seem to have much problem with blowing compared to something like a redhead.

Yeah if you're on a tight budget you won't want to be buying Kino Flo's they're not exactly cheap. Though you can check with a rental house on what it would cost you to rent a single bank set up. That'll come with the single tube lighting bank, the ballast (which you run to your mains), a feeder cable from the ballast to the light itself. - That'll do the trick. However... if you're budget is so tight that you can't manage that then you might try the same trick with several fluoro tubes in the same position as I described. Just realize that flouro tube in general wont be as high output as a Kino Flo is... and if you gel them off for color correction - then you are going to lose a bit there as well. You'll have to experiment and see if you can get the look you want. Depending on where you're at and how sussed the fish tank is will effect the light. There are a bunch of different types of lights on tanks these days. A quick overview here: http://www.aquarium-lighting-guide.com/fluorescent-aquarium-lighting/ So find out what you have in that location and how it compares to the Kinos... it probably won't but muck about with it and double it up and what not and then gel it off and you should be ok. Fluoros are relatively cheap so they wont break the budget.

I'm working as a gaffer on a production now where we had a fish tank in a living room that we had to have read very clearly... you know that typical type of glow you get with a fish tank. The light that was on the tank wasn't close enough to get it to look how the DP wanted so I used a Kino Flo single bank with a daylight tube in it. To give it some extra kick I wrapped the tube with a Lee filters steel blue. I just put the light on a C-stand slightly below and behind the fish tank and then used black wrap on either end of the single bank to keep it from spilling onto the wall and rest of the scene too much. The rest of the room was lit with tungsten practicals. Worked perfectly. There are probably dozens of ways you could achieve the same thing - but this was the simplest with what I had on hand. FWIW we are shooting on a RED Epic and not film... but that probably won't make a ton of difference.

don't have an answer for you... but your post is comedy gold. :D

Just out of curiosity... what does 'aren't willing to collaborate' actually mean?

Yeah unfortunately I've found this to be an all too common a problem on smaller feature films. Lack of budget means lack of properly trained grips - often it seems first time film makers consider grips little more than unskilled labor. Sad that. It means I have to wear more hats than one and sometimes things slip through the cracks... it's not only handling lights but bagging C-stands and all the other seemingly basic skills that you nee don set. In the end I didn't have to pay for it out of my own pocket for which I was thankful... but your point is taken and now on the next one I will do a complete as possible run through before the starting day about the bleedin' basics of handling lights. The rental house got a quote from Jebsen which is a big distributor/agent of all types of equipment in HK. The finished price with shipping as well and the rental house tech doing the install (no charge there) was 225 Euros. Not cheap - but wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The prod. company will pay for the days the light was non rentable... so the end cost was obviously more than just the price to ship and replace the part. Of which my grips got an earful about.

Hi Matt, Thanks for the heads up on that. I just got the quotation back from the ARRI agent here in Hong Kong. They quoted it out at: €128. Euros (= 158.563 USD/1,229.62 HKD) So yeah more than I really want to pay if I can find it cheaper and Australia would be closer to ship from than Germany. Still waiting to hear back if they have it in stock here in HK or I've got then pay additionally for shipping to HK from Germany. Will give Barbizon Aus. a Google and see if I can come up with something. I'll post up what I find.

Thanks for the replies so far. Yep got on the phone with the local ARRI agent here in town... and unlike most of the agents in HK for such items... they were prompt and courteous. Mind = blown. I now have a bit of faith in humanity. The tech told me it's relatively easy to remount the replacement lens. He's going to check on the time to ship it from Germany. So I'll get that sorted and then head down to the rental house and fix it. Their in-house tech could do it I'm sure but I really want to keep a good relationship with them. It's so irritating that the one single time I don't personally pack out the lights and... BOOM! the broken lens happens on my watch. ugh. Will post up the outcome and costs.

OUCH!!! I'm the gaffer on a very small crew of a small budget feature film being shot here in Hong Kong. As such, I have to wear a lot of hats and have a motley crew of 4 grips with almost no experience... everything from never having set up a C-stand to not knowing how to roll up stingers. But whatever, the show must go on... it means I have to bust ass all the more on set/location. So today I get a call from the rental house saying that the ARRI M18 light was returned last night turned up with a cracked safety lens and some damage to the housing. Groan.... I pride myself on returning rented items in the same condition I got them... and I always treat my gear with respect and I try to instill that same type of craftsmanship in the guys working for me. But unfortunately on this production since most don't have any experience there is a larger margin for errors. Well it finally caught up with me today. I suspect that the lens cracked either when someone was taking lights off stands and they set the lamp down on the barn doors instead of the built in feet... or they packed it up in the truck wrong - most likely lens side down in the cart... on top of the grip box. :( I called ARRI directly to see about a replacement part so I'm waiting to hear from them. She said they don't keep replacement parts here in Hong Kong and it'd have to come most likely from Germany. Which creates a further problem as its a popular item at the rental house and if its broken it cant be rented which means his business gets hurt. At the same time it's probably too small cost wise to be covered with the production insurance. But I'm not entirely sure. ok... so here's a list of questions no particular order: 1) I'm guessing the glass is a high temp glass and not just random regular pane glass. Anyone? 2) Are these types of issues covered on production insurance policies? Wouldn't the deductible on an insurance policy be way to high to make sense trying to cover it as such anyhow? 3) Anyone ever had something like this replaced by ARRI. I'm assuming they are very switched on and have a good system in place for dealing with what is a minor issue for them MAJOR issue for me. Anyhow... at the end of the day I'm ultimately responsible for the lighting gear... of course... the one single time I didn't actually pack the lights into the truck myself, live and in person... this happens. I should have known. :(

Thanks for posting! Valuable info in this thread!

What time of day are you shooting that the reflector is bouncing so much light up that it's blinding your talent? Usually this isn't much of a problem... you don't have to go full blast with a reflector... depending on who's manning your reflectors get them to ease off a bit. If the light is so bright that they are squinting then what your DP and director see on the monitor must look incredibly unnatural. The reflector is there to simply fill some shadows... not generally to kill them all together. Depending on the reflectors you have go with the white side... some reflectors have zip-off coverings - usually you get a white a gold and silver. Depending on where they're held in relation to your talent and where the sun is you can adjust the intensity of the light being reflected. Play around with it... better yet... snap a pic of your talent with the light being bounced at them via reflector... post it up so we can offer more suggestions. It's usually dead easy to back off enough of the fill so that you aren't handing out sunglasses to your talent.

Have you actually been on location with the car and rehearsed the scene? It might not be possible... but if it is... then that might give you a better idea of just what the light levels are going to be. Take a light meter with you and take some readings from the dome to see what sort of light levels you've got... just standing on the rode. Is it pitch black or is there enough ambient light to give an interesting feel or to convey the location... just inky blackness may not work for what you're trying to convey in your film... The ambient light can vary drastically given your location and the time of year. Also you may find that you can get a bit of interesting light on your background with sodium vapor street lights.. er... if there are any. Again it's all going to depend on your location. So if I was in your shoes I'd try to get out there with the car and do some rehearsals with your light meter in hand or your DP to take a look at it (if you aren't actually the DP). I'm assuming you're lighting your actors from inside the car with some sort of Light Pads or something similar and that you're either using a hood/trunk mounted camera or one position is the car is a camera man. Last night we wrapped on a shoot where we have several scenes shot with an Epic cam mounted on the hood shooting through the front windshield at the driver and passengers - and then several scenes were the DP is shooting into the rear of the car by leaning out the front passenger seat. In some areas where we drove down shady lanes the background was pretty black and uninteresting. The areas where I could get the scene illuminated enough by street lights (more urban areas) then the background behind the actors as they were driving became much more interesting. As for the three options - seems all three require your post to be pretty switched on and you'll probably want your post guys to work closely with you DP so that the coverage you get is going to work for them to do their magic once they sit down at the screen and start doing the magic. Hope that helps and I didn't just ramble. :)