Matthew Parnell

Also check out CT Straw for warming. Comes in the usual correction values (1/8 to Full I think) and warms up and gives as the name suggests a hint of straw.

I'm assuming you're talking about Arri heads. The Arri Compacts are a series of HMI fresnel lamps that use single ended globes and are much smaller in size to the original Arri HMI fresnel range.

I was using an Arrow 40 head, the sticks are from the Solo Series. They make the solo with both 100mm and 75mm bowls.

Most shows shoot two cameras, particularly on TV. There is no way we'd get the amount of coverage shot in the time given any other way. There are two common ways of using two cameras to shoot coverage. One is to do parralel coverage, where A and B cameras are placed roughly side by side shooting in the same direction. One camera might be shooting a mid shot, the other might be doing single close ups, they might both be on close ups. The general idea is you shoot in one direction, turn arround, shoot your reverses. Doing this, you theoretically half the ammount of time your shooting in either direction. In this case, the B camera is usually an addition made after A camera is settled. The second option is cross coverage, where one camera shoots coverage in one direction, while the other does the reverses in the opposite direction. Cross coverage is a comprimise situation. It saves a lot of time in not having to turn-arround to shoot the reverses, but ultimately your lighting, and the coverage itself with be comprimised by the fact your are shooting in two different directions, and therefore you will be somewhat restricted with what you can do without equipment ending up in shot, or comprimising one cameras lighting for the others. While blocking a scene that you are going to cross shoot, you really have to be mindfull about making it all work. Generally a two camera shoot becomes a mash up of the two different ways, sometimes you can justify making the comprimise to cross shoot, other times its better to shoot parralel. Ofcourses there are other ways of shooting with two cameras, but those are the two most common.

Miller used to make a very solid carbon fibre set of sticks to go with their bowl heads. I travelled abroad with them shooting a doco a few years ago and they were great. Much nicer to use than the manfrotto sticks.

A lot of LED units flicker because manufacturers dont bother using fully regulated DC driver units. A lot of the time in consumer units, LEDs are either driven using DC that is just rectified AC, or a poorly regulated version of the later. Some also use poor quality switch mode units that can cause flicker at unusual rates. There are quiet a few theatrical LED Units that do flicker. Especially as you head towards the cheaper and older stuff. It would be really worth doing some tests, especially with the LEDs dimmed and set on different colours to work out what is the best approach, and whether you can use the units. When you do the tests make sure you also pan through the lamps at different rates as well, some LED flicker is most apparent when movement is involved. Quiet a few, but sadly not all the LEDs that flicker, flicker at the same frequency as the mains they are supplied with, so dont assume that running your camera at 60hz flicker safe speeds is the solution to all LED flicker evil.

Your right. Slowly film is less and less cost effective. Post houses, labs, and film manufacturers have very little they can truly do to compete but make better stock, purchase better equipment and make the result worth the money.

Are you now going to turn around and ask why rental on lighting equipment is so high? Obviously, as with most service businesses, post houses set there margins based upon competition, the old supply vs demand factor and the fact that most customers are willing to pay that rate for the services rendered. Also consider the fact that most post houses rarely get there rate-card rates on many jobs. They are a business, n

Lighting shutters are probably what your looking for. They go onto the front of usually hmis and with a quick flutter you have lightning Usually manually pole operated, but motorized ones are floating around..

When lighting for reflections you are less lighting the reflective surface, rather lighting what is being reflected.

You really have to look at gear purchase from a dollar and cents point of view. Do your maths on initial outlay vs rental income vs running and maintenance costs vs realistic lifetime of the equipment(both before breakdown and becoming obsolete) Whatever is going to get you the greater return over time is probably the way to go.

A tube swap is not only expensive for the tubes, but for the time and labor to swap them out. Probably the most common alternative I have seen DPs requested for this problem is rather than correcting the tubes, (which would take as much labor and time as a tube swap, if not more), is to correct the lamps you are using to match the tubes (ie 1/4 Plus Green on HMIs and Kino). Therefore your Green/Magenta bias is the same over all your sources. Some DPs then correct the resulting image in post, others do it at the front of the lens with filters and others meet halfway between the two.

I don't think it's necessarily that your light is harder than desirable in wide shots, rather it is more desirable to have softer light for your close ups. Softer light is generally harder to achieve in wider shots because your lamps and your light control has to be further from your subjects, hence it is harder.

I would carefully consider whether to shoot the dawn or dusk magic hour. Go to the location and check it out. Sometimes one is longer than the other due to terrain etc. I would shoot your wider shots during the actual magic hour and would be scrimming and/or lamping your closeups to match, and correcting collie in the grade. Generally you can get away with cheating close ups. The morning magic hour also offers you the flexibility in that you won't run out of light to shoot close ups.

The newer style Arrisun 12's have been around for 10+ years and are arguably amongst the brightest 1200s on the market. The lamps use Single Ended HMI globes recessed in the reflector, as per most of the other HMI Pars around. The lens size is larger than the older sealed beam style heads. While the design is not exactly new, the heads have had a couple upgrades since they were first released and the current revision can take 'drop in' and the older style 'snap in' lenses. They have also redesigned the accessory latch. There is a massive difference between the output of the new style and the sealed beam type head. Whats also important to note is the seal beam lamps were nearly taken out of production a few years ago due to lack of demand, but were temporarily returned soon afterwards. As demand decreases for these lamps its definitely a possibility they will be permanently discontinued.

As far as heads go it's down to personal preference and what is the right fit for you. I'm a massive fan of ARRI Par heads, and the newer 'Daylite' series from Mole Richardson. Probably the first thing I would do if buying would be to call up a lamp/equipment repair company and have a chat to one of there technicians about what gear is going through there. HMIs are pretty maintenance heavy pieces of gear. Savings upon purchase can very quickly be eaten up 5 years down the track on repairs.

As a general rule tungsten heads under 2-5k will flicker at 1000fps if run off an AC plant. CML has a rather comprehensive series of discussions on this. Definitely worth a read.

I second Quality Light Metric. Have only had good experiences and heard good things. Even over here in Australia.

Step one: open up google/your yellow pages. Step Two: search for a qualified, licenced electrician in your area. Step Three: get it done by them. If you have to ask on an Internet forum you shouldn't be doing this. Electricity can, has and will kill.

Don't forget earth bonding and make sure your power is properly protected. Make sure it is protected within the legal limits of the electrical standards your country. The last thing you want is for a live lamp to take a swim with your lead cast, and for you to end up in jail for manslaughter as a result. From memory, (so don't quote me on this), in Australia anything where there is a reasonably chance it can come in contact with a body of water(there is an actual definition of what this is, but i don't have my copy of the national standards handy at the moment) should be protected at 10ma.

Generally the HMI is going to be a lot brighter. But it is also going to be daylight balanced. As to how much brighter, you will have to look up some photometric charts to find out. There are many different types of HMI gear, and that all plays a part, as well as age, state of repair, Fresnel vs Par, lenses, etc.

The simple answer here is that no one fixture can do everything(and for the sake of my job i hope it never comes to that). And a soft source like a LED Panel is most certainly the wrong choice when it comes to creating a slash of light. Like Kinos, LEDs because of the size of the source are quite soft, so trying to control beam shape from the lamp (using barn doors etc) rarely works across a large distance. Its not too bad over a few feet in situations where the doors are effective in feathering the light off the foreground but still maintaining it on the actor, the barndoors in these circumstances are more to control spill that to control a beam of light. We have snoots with large eggcrates made up for our Kelvin Tiles to make them more directional by cutting spill. We have done the same with our KinoFlos in the past as well. But neither method makes the light harder or more focused, just controls the spill. Also, Remember the rule with flags, move it away from the lamp to make the cut harder, move it closer to make it softer. This is especially important to remember when shaping soft sources.

If you are running a generator the best thing to do is be vigilant, and check, communicate and check again. -Check your oil and coolant levels before starting the generator. -Check your oil pressure and water temperature regularly and be aware of what is the acceptable range for the generator. -Check the load regularly. -Communicate to the crew and keep them up to date with what phases a heavy and what phases are light, so the next lamp to go in, goes in on your lighter phase and helps keep everything in balance. -Check your line voltages and frequencies, make sure all your phases are operating within range. -If you can, throw a meter on your Neutral and keep and eye on it too. -It might sound weird, but use your nose and ears around your generator, if it doesn't sound right, if it doesn't smell right, check it out. When your aware that your going to have a load that is not going to be balanced, and it does happen, I have always been taught that if you have a single heavy load, load up B phase, if you have two heavy loads, load up A and C phases. Some generators can handle off balance loads better than others, but its always best to be safe, a generator being out of balance can cause serious issues. They can range from plug burnouts from overloaded neutral pins, to your genset going up in flames and many more issues in between.

Were they on flicker free or magnetic ballasts. CMOS sensors don't handle magnetic hmi well at all.

Just be careful with strobes if you are shooting on Red, the rolling shutter can cause issues. I'd be recomending serious testing to make sure you don't get half frame strobing. Also be aware of what rules are in place regarding strobing for your project. You don't want to be causing epilectic fits. I have to agree Martin Atomics are very good for this kind of work if you are on a budget. They aren't a clunkly backyard solution either. They can be Either operated by an electric using a detonator(the atomics hand held dmx controller) or off a console. They can also be linked so you can use a number of them together. For example on a previous show I did we used two through windows then one bounced into foamcore for fill.