Albion Hockney

Rarely do I see a light attached to a stand picked up and moved, usually the head is taken off first. I'm not sure what industry standard practice is with smaller fixtures though for gaffers. Its not something I've ever thought about to be honest.

I work with my gaffer and discuss what we would like to accomplish in a given time period. they turn to the producers and tell them how many people they need on their team to accomplish it. If everyone has a good level of experience there is never an issue in accomplishing what is necessary.

Safety and well being of everyone on the crew should always be a priority.

I'd go for Montreal if you speak french.

Toronto is where most of the industry is though, so if you really want to get to a higher level that's where you'll need to be.

Vancouver is like a 20hr drive from LA, I wouldn't say its close at all.

unless its for very tight close ups or specialty shot those lights are not powerful enough for a natural effect for day exterior. I wouldn't even waste time bringing them or a generator to set.

in the 2nd shot of your scout photos the light is very flat, I would try to find another time of day to shoot that. 1 12x12 silk overhead is good for shots up to medium width so if you intended to shoot shots that wide that should be done with natural light.

the references you shared utilized large HMI's. likley an 18,000W light which is comparable to more then 20 of your 500W LED's

update. https://apnews.com/article/alec-baldwin-rust-movie-shooting-charges-decision-8c76eddb8a6418419078903d24ec3813

this may help:

https://dofsimulator.net/en/

at 25m to get an ECU you would have to be on an impossibly long lens, so it would need to be VFX at that point.

for whatever reason I was under the impression 35mm negative film didn't come in till the 70's, 80's.

Can anyone name some examples of 35mm films shot on color reversal through the 70s, 80s, 90s?

with the renewed interest in color reversal I was just curious when we transitioned to negative film.

What were cinematographers thoughts about it at the time? Did anyone still prefer reversal for the rich blacks and saturated colors?

Just use something nylon like griff or ultrabounce w/ black on one side. for sure a 12x black rag will get really heavy and soaked if its pouring rain on it.

First I'd say the age of the scan and color correct makes a major impact. Also the format you watched them in.

But I think mostly what you are reacting to is the style of the films. These are totally different projects. Tarantino likes the look of B-Films that use harsh lighting techniques and you can see that at play here. It was also 1994, so the large soft source lighting of the mid 2000's and 2010's was not popular yet. Lord of the rings for sure used softer more contemporary lighting techniques and had a DI color correct (early digital process where the film was scanned, color corrected digitally and re-printed to film) so the color is much more manipulated.

the speed and size of the film negative really only impacts grain and neither of these projects show much grain at all.

personally, I think Pulp fictions looks way more interesting and you are now seeing a return to some of the harsher 90's lighting techniques now in newer work.

I dont think you have the lights to sell this in wide shots with complete control and all your own lights.

I would shoot during the day and use natural ambiance from the windows then use the brightest light/s you have as an isolated direct beam of sunlight and then roll in light diffusion over it. shooting tighter will help.

I'm sure this was shot on a sound stage, just because of practicality for a tv series.

Often times sets are built with ceilings, but they can build in mounting points or in some cases even remove sections of the ceiling if needed for lighting a certain shot or scene.

I just saw the trailer and its clear they are using a lot of practical lights, the DP probably worked closely with the art department.

That said you can also see that there is lighting to manage contrast ratios and light the talent in some shots, its likely most of this is coming from the ceilings or units outside of frame from the ground on stands.

All the techniques you mentioned are possible to use in different ways to create a similar look, but yea Litmats would be a popular choice for soft light motivated by lamps and to create low level soft fill light.

ask david attenborough

If you start getting called for union gigs and have to permit in that is a good time.

I feel like most DPs these days get an agent before they go 600 so that gives you an idea.

depend on the type of work you do though

22 hours ago, Robin Phillips said:

I was once on a show where they were focusing only by the monitor for the first week of shooting. Panavision Alexa package, all top tier stuff. 50% of the footage was out of focus. We in the post team hypothesized that the monitor was so small (or was not full HD) such that the scaled down image looked in focus when it actually was just ever so out of focus (and not salvageable by post tools). After repeated warnings from us production finally started using laser rangefinders measuring from the image plane to talent, and lo and behold suddenly everything was in focus.

On camera monitors lie, or at least are not suitable for interpreting the final image short of a calibrated high rez monitor in a dark tent at video village.

Get your marks, measure your focus with a tape measure or a laser finder, or ideally get a cinetape or similar if spending the extra 15-30 seconds to measure your marks is too great an inconvenience. Doing any less is potentially throwing money into a shredder, and leading to heartbreak, disappointment, and scrambling in post to save the picture.

Every AC works different. Not every high end AC uses a focus assist tool and those tools are only aids anyways ...some do like working off monitors. most veteran AC's have a 9 or 13' 1080 display these days. 

Both the techniques you mentioned along with a handful of others are regularly used for just this...very popular for the long lens b-camera side angle. it helps to have time to play with it on set and its easier on longer lenses. 

usually you just use vasaline for the filter thing, but it really does just blur the frame.

sometimes people just to place a glass of water in the edge of the frame, that gives a similar effect to prisms.

backlit helps with all of this sorta stuff usually.

There is even some kit you can buy of prisms and various objects you can place right on the edge of frame

most of the time its a vfx comp

3 hours ago, Nicolas POISSON said:

A very approximate rule of thumb would be to consider that a LED source is twice more efficient than a HMI with equivalent angle and optics (like a Fresnel lense).

I don't find this to be true.

LED to HMI efficiency seems pretty similar.

I find the 600d close to as bright as a joker 800

a 1200D is like an M18 bulbed with a 1200W bulb...again maybe a touch less?

exciting! looks great.

woah, so many good things in this thread. thanks!

here is a long doc about bergman making on winters light:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOebK7UTUgc

to me it looks like the face is underexposed. You prob want to overexpose a portion of her face 1-2stops.

also this is very much about make up and sheen. you want the lights to be reflected by her skin.

your model is also white and white people don't really reflect light unless they have a lot of makeup/product on. Jennifer Lopez's complexion is also apart of the look.

its going to be very expensive thats for sure.

the stabilized head on moving vehicle wont be very clean or consistent unless you did it as a slow move on a very long lens so the car can maintain a speed and circle the vehicle easily...you'd also need a huge road with open space left/right of it.  ...and even then that's just a super tough shot to operate. would need to be cineflex or shotover. and to do that safely too.... its basically a stunt in itself.

the jib makes the most sense to me. some Russian arms could shoot this shot on the car....but if you need to mount that sorta setup to a normal car....I donno

you could build track around the car and suspend it off the roof maybe with some sorta robotic dolly underslung.

to get a clean look for a shot like this is a very  large scale production...especially on 35.

reverse sky panel bounces for fill? and some sorta very large source as moonlight frame right. Would love to see some breakdowns of setups on Filmlights.

no other frames, but one 12x20 solid?

bold.

If you want to be a Gaffer/Truck owner I would buy industry standard fixtures like an M18 which people will request, though the 1000W plasma light which I have never heard of sounds interesting.

Also at this size the vehicle and organization systems start to matter quiet a bit. You would ideally want a small cargo van fitted out with shelving and ideally a lift gate. Also Carts.

If you can't afford that I'd scale back. I have seen some gaffers with ultra tiny packages work out of Mini Vans or Hatchbacks, but at that point you can really only fit enough gear for interviews or very small setups and with out a vehicle renting it out can be challenging.

Hi Edith,

your inspirations and approach are great but every project is different and the lights and gear needed do vary quiet a bit. If your interested in owning this size package w/ grip gear is your plan to work as a gaffer or rent it out?

If not, I would suggest working with a lighting rental house if you need this big of a package. With grip gear and that many fixtures it sounds pretty much like a 1/2 ton or a 1 ton package which is a small truck or vans worth of gear.