Kurtis Myers

I think if I had the budget and manpower to pick the background in post I would go that way to save the headache of having to stop or worry or even think about the background while having to cover that many pages of dialogue. You could hang a big overhead diff over the green and the window and get enough light to get ambient through the window and nice levels on the green and leave some room to sneak your sunlight lamp streaming in through the window. You'd still get some ambient fluctuations if the sun was in and out of clouds and some color variations throughout the day, however. You could tent the whole thing big enough to allow your green, sun motivating lamp, and fill units to all work inside the tent. Time, money, manpower, the works.

I have a few fond memories of seeing the director, dp, producer, and tiny grip crew they hired all heave-hoing a big steel deck platform into place on re-shoots after the money's basically run out of a large budget production. You just sit back and appreciate the film-school "everyone's in this" attitude. I think it would go a long ways towards humbling some and building due respect for others when everyone decides to get dirty once in a while. You know, throwing union rules to the wind for an afternoon. This also has the effect of making you appreciate the well oiled machinery of a very efficient and organized production at the same time...

Is this still available?

I have the full line of Optimos for sale. 15-40, 28-76, 45-120, 24-290 all in very good condition. I also have zoom brackets and a microforce zoom systems for them. The 24-290 has a duclos carry handle and duclos internal zoom mechanism upgrades. Contact me for photos and prices or to scehdule a time to check them out.

I've used a bunch of stuff for camera covers in poor weather. Sometimes I get annoyed by the bulkiness and thickness of visqueen type plastic. It's crinkly and loud and just bunches up and bothers me depending on the situation. I've had a lot of success with very thin trashcan liner type bags. They're clear, which is handy, cheap, and don't make a lot of rustling noise when you're carrying it. I typically cut them to fit the camera I'm using it on, and spend a bit of time early on to put some velcro on the camera/mattebox and the bag to secure it in place. They're typically thin enough that I can fold it up when I'm not using it and keep it in a jacket pocket or AC bag without it taking up a ton of room. Because they're thin, you'd think they would tear easily, but I've had them withstand 60mph winds without tearing. The only issue I find is that since they're so thin, they can droop down into your focus motors or follow focus if you aren't careful. But I usually take care to make sure that it cannot happen during operation.

The orangeish yellow and pink hard lights come in at such an angle that they don't interact with each other or mix. The blue is coming in at an angle where it doesn't really mix with the pink, but does with the orange creating that green gradient. You would get wildly different mixes depending on exactly how your talent is positioned in the frame and how the contours of their face are catching each color and causing the different colors to mix.

Not sure what your application is for this, but you could possibly try non-fabric material like what makes screen doors/windows? I have no idea if it will alter the color or what the general light reduction would be though. I'm not sure why you wouldn't just go with bobbinet? Because of the expense? https://www.homedepot.com/p/Phifer-36-in-x-84-in-Brite-Aluminum-Screen-3000043/100390092?g_store=620&mtc=Shopping-B-F_D30-G-D30-30_23_GLASS_SCREEN-Generic-NA-Feed-LIA-NA-NA-GLASS_SCREEN&cm_mmc=Shopping-B-F_D30-G-D30-30_23_GLASS_SCREEN-Generic-NA-Feed-LIA-NA-NA-GLASS_SCREEN-71700000044150121-58700004608004196-92700038790561217&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrfvsBRD7ARIsAKuDvMOHAUHy5z0xtJRHWsT2pbaj3qmEEo5fs9heG9O7TRzL69NFX88Z1IkaApBbEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Here's an amazon search result with some options. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=2000k+light+bulb&i=tools&crid=2AIET0Y2OEVIW&sprefix=2000k+%2Ctools%2C1513&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_6 Alternatives could be a phillips hue LED bulb which you dial in your desired color. Or get a standard household bulbs and make little gel hats for them that warm them up a bit more. You may melt the gel depending on the wattage though. You could use LED bulbs so they don't get so hot. Another method is to just adjust the white balance of the camera so that your standard bulbs appear warmer than they are. So if you're using 2700K house hold bulbs, you can white balance the camera higher than typical and then gel your film lights back to normal. Depends on the circumstance. This may not get you the sodium vapor color exactly though.

UPDATE: No responses but we completed the shoot so I'll leave you guys with an update. Used a total of 18 5k's with 10 rigged overhead shooting down through a 30x30 half grid. Most of the lights were maybe 5-6 feet over the grid so they didn't have much coverage of the diffusion individually but together covered the whole 30x30. We then added 5 additional 5k's on stands sticked up over the set walls and shooting down into the diffusion. The logistics of the stage made rigging in the ceiling a bit difficult. The grid was 13 feet high and the set walls were 12-12 1/2 feet high so I couldn't rig from the grid but had to put the lights above the grid with some rigging. We then attached the 30x30 to the grid and so the diffusion was pretty much right on top of the set walls. Not ideal, and I was worried about falloff from head to toe, but it only wound up being about a 1/2 stop. We had an additional 5k w/ a chimera for fill on individual faces and a 10k through a 8x8 1/2 grid as front fill as well. Got us to an even 2.8 @ 800iso @ 600fps across the whole set. Also, going with tungsten saved quite a bit of money for production vs rigging a whole ton of sky panels in the ceiling.

Sometimes I throw all the drawstring bags of like sizes into a plastic tote. This works better for diffusion as apposed to solids because solids take up a lot more space, but I can generally fit 6-7 rags in each tote. They're a little pricey but they are very durable and I prefer them over milk crates in some instances. They stack very nicely. https://www.uline.com/BL_318/Clear-Industrial-Totes

Also curious if we would have any noticeable flicker using the high speed ballasts? Or arc wander fluctuations if we wanted to key them with a lamp directly?

Hey guys, need some advice on a setup. We are shooting a high speed ad and I'm wondering what my options are to get at the light level we need to be at. I have to light a 30x30' space and shoot at 600fps. Will be shooting at 1600iso and would like to be at around a 2.8 with some wiggle room to stop down if necessary. This puts me at roughly needing 150-250fc over the entire area. The location has pretty low ceilings (13') and we are going for a general soft top light like you would get from a soft box. I don't really have the head room to build a box without it being very low profile, and then you can't put very powerful units in there to get exposure. I can bounce light off of a 20x20 or 30x30 though but I'm wondering how many units I will need to get the proper exposure. Does anyone have any experience with Luminys Lablight 30K's or their soft suns and would you recommend those over going with something like a 12k/18k? If I went with 18ks about how many would I need if they were placed on stands outside of the set walls shooting up into the bounce. 30x30' is a pretty big area and I'm scratching my head about how many lamps it will require to get my exposure. Thanks!

Triple baby offset with light on the back and diff on the front? https://americangrip.com/product/baby-triple-offset-arm-30/ Or use a grip head combo stand and put the lamp on a baby pin/butt plug and then put an arm in the grip head to hold the diff. Combo stands take up a bit of space, but you can skinny the legs somewhat.

Well this is incredibly pleasing on my eyeballs...

Thanks for the great write-up Guy!

This is always an issue with day for night interiors. There's a few options but it really depends on what you are seeing outside the door/windows. You could tent the door. If there's an awning that buys you some space outside the door to hang some 20x20 solids (or whatever size you need) that usually helps. Or you could rent more speed rail and build a box to hang your rags from. This would allow you to add some units in your tent to sell that urban night spill or whatever it is you're going for. The problem with this whole technique, is that if you are seeing a fair amount of the "Outside" and it is tented, you just wind up looking into a big black void, which is usually less than ideal. You would need some very large lights to sell the urban night gelled look outside while competing with the sun. You could underexpose the outside, but that means raising your ambience in the room considerably. Sometimes you can get away with putting nets over windows or back behind a window to knock down whatever it is you are looking at outside, but it is noticeable if it is in focus.

It sort of varies from set up to set up depending on which stand you use, how long your boom is, and what you're putting on the end of it. Here's a photo of one. http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/329/247/329247737_640.jpg You need to balance the load of the light on your boom end with shot bags on the other end. So, if your light is sticking 10 feet out, and you only have 2 feet on the back end, then you're going to need more counterweight than if you gave yourself 3 feet on the back end instead. Keep in mind that there are weight limits on the stands. A mambo combo has a limit of around 90 pounds. You could go over 12 feet, so long as the maximum weight limit isn't exceeded. I recently built a menace arm with a pretty hefty light on the end (15-20lbs). It only extended about 8 or 9 feet out, but I didn't want to go any further with it than that. Once it starts getting that heavy, it's a pain to raise it up in the air. You might want to get a ladder or two and raise it first and then start securing it and adding your weight and light if it's going to be too heavy to raise afterwards. Bag the stand down well, obviously, and throw a strap from the back end to the bottom of the riser housing to keep it safe from tipping once it's in the air. You'll want another guy to help.

Very very important! Put a star on this.

New risers are relatively cheap. Granted here in LA you can just go over to American and pick up some new risers. There may be a parts supplier somewhere in your neighborhood.

Swap those step ladders for something designed to hold speed rail, like clamps and sturdy stands.

Larry over at Mole told me they were originally designed to fit up in a street lamp or as close to it as possible.