Chris Cooke

The video is now up on YouTube for those who are interested.

I took the time to re-size some of the screen grabs to the proper aspect ratio... I will try to remember to post a link of the actual video when it's completed.

Let me know what you think.

Here I was shooting without the lens adaptor... in an infinity black environment, DOF is not as noticeable and I wanted to make sure my focus was on. We were using the Fisher 10 dolly with a Schactler head.

Seems like your aspect ratio is off on your grabs, apart from the last one...Most likely an export issue.

 

Looks nice!

Good call. I was exporting them quick in the airport this morning and missed a step.

Thanks for the comment.

I just finished principal photography on a music video for a gospel artist named Kevin LeVar. We shot it all on the EX1 at 1080p with a Letus Extreme adapter.

Director: Chris Atkins

Producer:Steve Prankard

Director of Photography: Chris Cooke

The locked version will be completed by August 1st.

28mm lens

The lighting was perfect this evening. It was shot beside Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada.

Shooting on the beach (I'm behind the camera and the director is over my shoulder)

50mm lens

I had a soft light to supplement the window light in front as her key and bounced another light off the ceiling behind her for a soft kicker... again, supplemented by natural light coming through the window.

This was one of those happy accidents where the actor pulled up the picture when we were doing our OS and we saw his reflection. Decided to go with it.

28mm lens

Dappled sunlight coming through the trees and some reflected light onto the tree trunk on the left.

50mm lens

Another shot in the cemetery.

50mm

Shot this in at 60fps and the light had to match with our beach scene.

A lighting diagram I drew up for our studio scenes.

No lens adapter on this shot.

Screen grab from our studio shoot. I used a heavily flagged Chimera with a 2K Fresnel for the keylight and various Source 4's, Par 64's, Par 56's and Fresnels for modeling.

Hi David, I'm looking forward to seeing this film. You do great work with the Polish Brothers.

Are you concerned about multiple light reflections on reflective surfaces such as the car in the sample frame you showed us? I'm sure that a DI could solve that problem but it's probably not an ideal use of budget to go that route. Will you just let the lens diffusion soften these reflections?

I have a project coming up that is a fantasy/midieval setting which takes place mostly in a night interior tavern lit with candles/fire/oil.

 

There are a few scenes where characters produce a glowing "totem" (call it plasma in the form of a ram's head/ lion/ etc) from their fists that then shoots across the room and hits another character. The color of the totem varies between characters-- one is blue, one is gold, green, which may change.

 

I'm trying to figure out how to create a lighting effect that will interact with the actors and set that travels and looks like it's emitting from the CG element.

One idea I had was to use dimmer cues to "move" the light across the set, but I realized that would very likely eat up too much setup/rehearsal time (We won't get much of a pre-rig), and will probably look pretty hokey if not executed well.

Another idea was simply a lightbulb on a black stick operated by an electrician in a duvetyn ninja-suit...

 

As of right now, none of these shots are moving.

I don't have a big lighting budget, so I can't go very deluxe with the equipment.

I would like to avoid greenscreen in the interest of time and budget.

Shooting Super16, stock TBD. Finishing to D5 or HDCAM.

 

I haven't done much work like this, so I would love to hear some experienced advice!

 

Many thanks,

This product might spark some ideas... http://www.elementlabs.com/products/versatube-hd

Thanks for the update, I really enjoy these. Sounds like you're liking the HMI Source-4 Joker. I don't remember you ever mentioning using these before. I remember on "Big Love", both you and Jim Glennon used tungsten Source-4's a lot and bounced them off show cards but is this your first experience with the Source-4 Joker? I still haven't had a chance to use them yet but I'm sure they work just as slick as the tungsten Source-4, just brighter and bluer. Do you ever use them for hilights in the background? Or do you just use them for bouncing?

if I stick a 6k maxi brute on an additional dimmer it will always draw the same amount of power? even though it s outputting a lot less light?

You may need to explain what you mean by "an additional dimmer" but with professional dimmers, the amount of power consumed is decreased as you dim the light. With Maxi-Brutes, you can switch off each bulb individually if you want to maintain colour temperature and you have a limited power supply.

I visited a factory here in China that seems to be making those products so, apparently not Arri's. Quality was excellent. The fluorescent models look somewhat like the coroplast Diva design and use both 2 foot and 4 foot T12 type tubes. There are some improvements though in the design like aluminum edge (as opposed to plastic) extrusions for protection of the corrugated plastic.

 

Not sure why someone would prefer the T12 tube today though. Most manufacturers are using the 55w CFL tube which has a much higher lumen per watt output and efficiency. Really, only Kino Flo is manufacturing a product which uses the T12 tube, practically every other manufacturer has chosen the more modern 55w tube. Even kino has 55w tube model products too like the diva 400. Why is this important? Well, if you want to be locked in buying Kino Flo tubes that's fine. It's particularly hard though to find tungsten colored (3200K) replacements in the T12 line especially if you use the 75w version which really is only a Kino product. 40w T12's are more common and can be found in daylight if that's what you need. You can find quality, high CRI 55w tubes in tungsten and daylight colors from practically every major lighting manufacturer like GE, Phillips, Osram, Sylvania and many many other small and large companies.

Thanks for that. What would be your choice for a portable fluorescent then? I've only used Kinos and Videscence and I definately like Kinos better.

http://www.cinemills.com/index.php

They look like good lights and I'm considering ordering HMI and Flouro Light kits from them. Any thoughts?

I interchange the words Pup and Baby as the same thing. They're just 8 inch 1K Fresnels. The light that I was actually referring to in the podcast was a 6 inch 750w fresnel which is somewhere in between a Baby and a Tweenie. Therefore my use of the name Pup.

Here's a simple lighting setup that you guys might be interested in. This is a goofy podcast to create some awareness for a new daily music show that I'll be lighting (I'm actually in the podcast as a "potential host" for the show). We shot the first one on an infinity white set and you can see my lighting setup at the begining of the first podcast. Very soft yet contrasty lighting.

Junior through 4'x4' of Grid Cloth as side key light

Naked pup for kicker

Soft light through Grid Cloth for uplight

Spotted Junior for White Glow

Cyc Lights for green wash

To subscribe, click this link; if it doesn't open iTunes, open iTunes yourself and under the 'Advanced' menu, select 'Subscribe to Podcast...', copy and paste the URL below into the box that appears.

http://www.miraclechannel.ca/channel/our_p...UF/mainfeed.xml

I just saw a segment on the Daily Planet that talked about another new lens design made out of crystal, calcium fluoride. The technology has been used in telescopes since I think about 2002 but this new design is more compact and will be perfect for helmet cameras and cell phone cameras. Light loss is reduced as compared to glass lenses and the resolving power is "supposed" to be better.

Here's an article for those of you who are interested.

http://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/5853

One of my greatest challenges right now with concert and theatre lighting is to make hard light look soft. Unfortunately, I can't have a 6'x6' of diffusion just outside the frame because the frame becomes the whole venue. Good looking trusses are almost as important as a good looking stage.

I began my cinematography career with lighting talking head tv shows and then short films and music videos. I'm still in love with dramatic filmmaking but I've found a second love... concert lighting. I've been doing a lot of studying how to light concerts and theatre lately and a week ago, I got to do my first large venue concert. It was an experience to say the least and I'll be doing more in the near future. I would recommend this for any cinematographer who wants to improve his/her skills.

Here are some pics.

The newer HID lamps (in S4's and newer pars) and Ceramic lamps (in Arri's new lights) are considered Gas Discharge lamps. Not incandescent. It can even be argued that our typical tungsten lights are not incandescent, as they are filled with gas and a trace of halogen. Don't tell the legislators that before they make the law though.

My biggest deterent to bouncing light is that it spills everywhere and controling that spill would take way too long on a film set. There are times though where bounced light is the only practical way of lighting a scene and there are times where you don't need to control spill (eg. night exterior of forest bouncing an HMI off a helium baloon).

You will want an evenly lit background, and you will not want the background to be blown out. You want it white, so you will want to go about 3-4 stops above your setting. I have not shot with Vision2 200t, so I am unaware of its latitude, however, I think you would be safe, and need to go to 4 stops due to its wide range.

Why wouldn't you want it blown out? White is white. The caution that I have is that you don't blow it out so much that the edges of the talent in the forground start to blow out. I've lit these type of situations on video before and lit the background to about 110 IRE and the talent to about 70 IRE. This worked well.

Here's an example that I shot of a red head through a 4x4 of 251 like I mentioned in my earlier post. This picture was shot before the backlight was in place.

mm_angle50000.BMP

Like Brian D said, kinos are nice when shooting in a small room for a long time when heat becomes a factor. Also, they're handy when you need to hide a light in a tight space like behind a couch or on a ceiling.

Well, the first suggestion that you'll get from most people on this site will probably be to use a kino such as a diva light or 4 bank and then diffuse it even more by attaching 250 or something of that nature to the barndoors. I like to put a 1k redhead, 2k fresnel or 1.2k hmi par behind a 4x4 frame of 250 or 216. Just make sure that you place your light far enough behind the frame in order to completely fill it. Also, put the frame no farther than 6 feet away from the talent on a closeup (if you want that soft effect). Placement if very important to achieve the proper mood. But that's up to your judgement.

The next thing to do is get a c-stand with a flag on it and put it as far away from the light as you can without entering the shot. This way, the light becomes very controlable.

Ok, I just saw We Are Marshall and couldn't stop from commenting on the shallow focus of that movie. In some scenes, the shallow focus really added to the story and seemed to seperate the football players from what was going on around them but there seemed to be a lot of soft shots in the film. I did like the look and I thought that Shaun Hurlbut, ASC did a great job with lighting but it seemed to me that maybe when they were cutting the film, the director and editor chose good performances no matter how soft the shot was. This would be my main concern on a film like We Are Marshall with so many action shots coupled with a shallow DOF, you would have to talk with the director before hand to make sure that he didn't cut in any soft shots. Either that or get a flawless 1st AC.

In the studio that I work in as the lighting director, we have a green room (three green walls and a green floor) painted with Rosco DigiComp, a white cyc and an infinity black set. In the last 4 months, I've lit the white cyc four different times, the infinity black set six times and the green room not once. For daily tv shows and commercials chroma keying doesn't seem to get used as much as white cycs because of the ease of use and also the "anti cheese" factor. Chroma keying is not as easy as finding the right software to do the keying for you. You also have to light it the same as the background that's getting keyed in and find/shoot a good background that will suite your specific need. White backgrounds seem to be apealing to producers and directors these days because of the clean and professional look that you can achieve by using them without spending much money. And infinity black is always a safe way to go for interviews.

I bought a large china ball from Ikea the other day and fitted it with a 500w EHD bulb from osram. I then proceeded to put 250 inside the ball as a heat barrier so that the paper lantern would not burn. The light from it looks good but I'm still a little nervous to use it for more than a couple of minutes at a time. What are some ways that you guys have made fire safe china balls and fitted them with large bulbs.

Try buying a white shower curtain liner. I have used this for quite a few scenes where it's the perfect size and weight of diffusion that I need. They're less than $10 and work well. Just make sure that the curtain is far enough from your source (you'll get a softer effect this way because it fills up the frame and it won't catch fire).

What do you mean "supplemented by real fire"? I thoight that the point was to avoid that or do you mean

simply to remember to have a lighted candle in the shot to justify the "candlelight" that everybody is

working so hard to produce? Thanks.

In the situation that I was talking about I used the fresnel with CTO and a water jug as my key light and used real fire as my fill (it was actually a wood fire that we built into an outdoor set). I put up another tungsten fresnel with CTB as a backlight/kicker.