Albion Hockney

If your going to shoot your own or others lower budget projects to build your reel an Alexa Classic can make sense. Its not a great financial investment in terms of pure business sense, but maybe it is the right thing for you if you think it will get you some work that you can build a reel with. I would plan for at least 10-15k to get it up and running with all the AKS.

Pola will not impact the look of other filters. And Pro Mist or any other diffusion filter will not impact saturation. Pola doesn't really create contrast, it does cut down on reflected light and in doing so can make a more contrasty image if there is a lot of reflections in a shot. Diffusion filters work very differently. Its sorta an apples and oranges situation - Although both can have an impact on contrast they work very different. From what I know most people use Pola to either create a Bluer sky OR to cut reflections down when shooting reflective surfaces (cars/windows/sometimes skin). I would assume the Arri rota pola is of good quality, probably better if not as good as the tiffen and I always assume I loose about 1 stop of light with Pola - not sure exactly about "1.2" stops that is very specific, but Arri isn't one to get something like that wrong.

was shane hurlbut really the first to use a book light? seem dubious

Hi, I'm shooting a music video project. we have some "surreal" sorta "dreamy" close up shots in a scene near a swimming pool and I'd like to motivate some reflective water effects on face of talent. I'm curious if anyone has done this with bounced sunlight off a mirror or shinny board w/ something to distort the light?

in terms of output the Skypanel still beats all of the competition that I know of and when you are working in even a middle tier market there is no reason to ask for anything else from the rental house. The lightpanel gemini is fine, but a touch less versatile and not as bright and usually rents for $50-75 cheaper /day at most... and it feels plasticy, it might not last as long as a skypanel - though with tech changing so fast it might not matter I guess. there aren't many 400W LED soft lights on the market. The only other option is to use several of the lesser power 1x1 panels or something like a Joker 800 through diffusion. of course they are too expensive - all Arri gear is, but the gear is designed better and there aren't too many other options.

I think it depends on how you will use the lights. The S60 is a more conventional light. It can replace a conventional tungsten or small HMI lamp (assuming you would diffuse them) and is a great versatile key. The lite tile(although it does fill that space) has less throw and doesn't do RGB. The flip side is you can mount it anywhere and it can act like an S60 through 4x4 diffusion all in one step. Great to rig to ceilings. The light tile will take more setup time. FYI it comes in strips of 4x2 panels so you will need 2 of them to make a 4x4. I would also look at photometrics I think both kits are about 400W of LED so it should be similar but worth checking out. If you are renting them out, the skypanel is such standard kit these days I would think it would rent more often. I believe lite gear is making a 4x4 litmat - not sure if it's on the market yet, but you might interested in that too.

It can be easy to conflate the look of lighting w/ other production elements (PD/Art direction, Good Casting, camera angle etc). Not all high key commercial's are lit super soft, although book lights or larger sources through windows are common. I would look for specific references that are similar to your project and analyze all the elements that came together to give the look you like. There is definitely no one size fits all approach. If you are matching daylight outside of windows your light sources are too small to come through the windows. shoot at a time of day you like the look of the background and then just lift your talent up with the sources you have. If you can get your hands on them Skypanels, 800W joker's, Light panel Astras, or even Kino's can do this. You just need bright, soft, daylight balanced lighting.

I always wonder about this. my approach has been that eye lights are reflections therefore a point source far away is the best bet - like a household bulb. The source itself will reflect brightly, but the distance will minimize actually lighting talent. Usually works ok, although I don’t do it very often.

I would recommend trying to not light the background. use practicals or natural light and just light your talent. that is a good way to learn and honestly in many situations especially on smaller shoots how a lot of people work.

there edge light is more toward the rear and hitting a little hotter. The key light is much more sidey almost rear third so the front/front fright of the raspberries go a little darker which creates that nice contrast ratio. They are probably using bounce or another light to fill in the front camera right side of the raspberry. There key light does look a bit softer to me it has a nice fall of from the back of the raspberries, but I wouldn't assume its super far away or huge. you could probably get away w/ a 4x4 frame or even a 2x3 frame close the edge of frame. notice the difference in the lighting on the spoon. see how the front edge of theirs barley has any light on it. that shows the angle of the key light they also have a little pop light in the BG that is either coming from the source creating the edge or a 2nd source just for that BG effect. you could achieve this with a small amount of haze in the room and have the light just outside of frame. this light was also cooler or colored cooler in post for a nice color contrast w/ the red raspberries Lastly they are using shallower depth of field w/ only part of the raspberries in focus, which gives a nice polished cinematic look. oh and there camera angle is a bit lower shooting up which really gives the raspberry a hero effect. to me looks like they are also on a wider angle lens. the cameras color depth and post work is a part of it too, but you can get a lot closer with the lighting. With the color red for something like this almost always in color grade you can pull a selection on red and work on the saturation/hue to get a really clean vibrant color - all cameras have trouble capturing that.

I would recommend "Mother of George" it was a smaller movie and Young's approach is super daring and beautiful. Chayse Irvin is also excellent, his work is very grounded and honest. There is so much good interesting work right now from DP's. I think people are taking more risk then ever which is very exciting.

Bug foggers should not be used for interiors.

Thank you - looks great.

There Is an almost yellowish tone from right on his face in the close up - Is that just from the lens of the Source 4 then? There is an interesting complexity to the color and reflections from his skin tone - I think that is part of what Mark was eluding to. Would you be able to give a rough idea of where the lights are placed for the close up?

I've never tested, but I thought placing Diffusion in front/Behind ND would effect the intensity of the effect in certain situations. General practice is placing diff closest to lens

money doesn't effect content a straight forward a linear way. for example in commercials a lot of the money has to do with needing specific things to happen on a specific day and needing it to run very smoothly - I suppose features are no different actually. For example an 18k's doesn't necessarily give more quality, but if you can't rely on the sun and need to shoot at a specific hour in a large space you may need them to have the shoot go a certain way. If you don't have that ability you will need to work with the sun OR change your plan which will effect the creative approach crew is no different, more crew allows working faster and a proper sound person frees time so a DP or Director don't need to think about it. A true sound person may have more equipment to allow more complex setups (multiple people mic'd for example)

if it works for your budget LitMat's and other LED's are a really versatile tool for this type of job if you want soft light. I think most DP's have pushed in that direction just because it allows you to get a good quality soft light with much less concern about space and having to control spill from things like bounces. they are also very light if you want to arm them out or even tape to a ceiling and of course also dimmable + color temp adjustable on the head.

The basic way those type of filters work leads to halation in highlights. If you don't want halation I'd try Low Con - you get some softness and lifted shadows, but a much more subtle/diffuse halation.

Yes. A 2560 would be easier to operate then a 1030 and be more stable for large zooms. it takes larger sticks, 150mm ball mount or mitchell base. Why don't you ask to test at your local rental house? It is much heavier and promotes a different style of shooting then the 1030.

I think that your intuition there is Negative fill is a good one. However that is generally decided upon while lighting and can be hard to tell. If your in a space with white walls you may notice too much light bouncing onto your fill side and need it. Or your key light is so strong the white walls help even the contrast out. I would say its the last step in the process. You can achieve high contrast with soft light. It will just depends on the angle the source is coming from and lighting ratios. This example has soft light coming from mostly the rear third and a little bit from the side so her fill side gets very little light on it. Just be careful that your soft light doesn't wrap around the face/front of the scene too much - keep it coming from behind and a little on the side.

I think the practical China ball is filling the scene with a good amount of light so I would start by dimming and find a base level for the back. Then worry about the actors. Bruce, really curious about your idea becaus I would never do that! Do you have examples where you did that?

Try dimming your practicals down so they arent clipping. After you do that you will see your off camera lights are much more impactful. I would control the chinaball your using for lighting off camera with duvateen skirted around it and bring it pretty close to talent

Killian. That is a big frame. Your M90 will be able to do one beam of sunlight. I would think about one ray of sun coming between trees or a narrow alley. That should allow you to cover foreground talent in a medium shot - maybe even a wide if ambiance is way down. but day wide shots are what they are in terms of what lighting is there unless you are working at a huge scale. Like several 20x20's and many 18k's. depending on your background the lighting might look a bit artificial - especially if you see the sky. Could be ok if you like stylized.

Guy, do you have any stills or a link to the final project? I would be very hesitant to use an M40 to create direct sun outside unless the ambiance was way down and frames where quiet tight. However I can see it workings as a subtle soft sunset effect.

Capturing 14 stops dr and compressing to 7 or w/e rec 709 is much different then capturing only 7 stops to begin with