Stephen Sanchez

You should consider softness as well. It's easy to place a 4x4 reflector to the face to reach level in camera. It will look like a 4x4 hard light to the face, with specular skin and squinty eyes. A 4x8 will throw even more light but not necessarily be any softer. But that's if it's a sunlight reflection. If a skylight reflection, then it could work better for talent's experience. And the lift would depend on what breaks in the trees it can reflect. And 4x8, will be softer. It will be cooler too, which isn't necessarily bad. There is no right or wrong answer because it depends on your values as a DP. I value with 100% conviction the shape around the face, and I will surround and lift areas of the space to make the face appear as if done by natural mechanics. The surfaces can be large, and if desiring more output, then I lift all of it, not just one small spot. Others may not value natural appearance and choose to poke a PAR light straight to the face in the middle of a forest. Relying on collecting sunlight under treecover will disappoint expectations. Pockets will move, and the reflection will never be consistent. Also, hard reflectors are a great short term solution, but they need "wiggling" every 3 minutes. A Silver Lame is better because its a larger surface to track the reflection across, so adjustments can range between 10 minutes to 20, depending on if 8x8 or 12x12.

With a tiny crew, I would avoid small fixtures and use white and black surfaces. The larger the frame, the further away it can be. Also, frames can combine for a larger surface. I'll sometimes run 4x4 ultraflops and white cards to surround the subject to create a 8x8 or 4x12 or whatever. It's faster, but not as tall as a 12x. I've done two 8x8 ultras (8x16ft) for fill as well. Either way, you'll know what amount of gear your crew can support. These are my solutions. Another benefit to lots of white. If you're in a forest, then I'd always suggest white surfaces to replace the green and brown that would otherwise hit the face. The return may be negligible to the meter, but the face will appear "more pleasing." It'll also create a huge but dim reflection on the eye. And black the fill side to whatever flavor the project wants. This will create a natural look, great for drama or branded commercials with 50IRE skin. But if you're doing a high-key commercial where skin has to be at 70IRE, this is not the solution. You'll need power. And I'd avoid CRLS to the face. It's a really efficient series of frosted mirrors.

This may be the case in L.A. But in Florida, where I work, spark/grip is the same and the work is combined. And we call it a grip. Only on the larger budgets do the most experienced folk take up the gaffer and keygrip positions, but the workers are always swings.

The modern digital era hasn't just changed technology's availability and immediate access. It's also impacted the people who've "grown up" in that environment. I see this in modern kids, who consider smartphones a normal default for immediate entertainment, who get frustrated when they can't "skip" a commercial on Roku TV, or don't understand waiting a week for the next episode. The trend may seem unrelated, but it encourages less appreciation of time, or planning ahead. If everything is immediate and you don't have to wait, then you'll deal with things as they happen. That's my take on the subject. I've recognized this new generation of workers in various ways. I once worked with a grip who stared at a joker case and said he didn't know how to set it up. He'd only used LED. So he didn't even know about restrike time, cooling down, lens swapping. All of which take time.

An update on this: https://www.waveformlighting.com/ This company produces full spectrum LEDs. The spectral distribution is really nice, especially for 3200k. Their T8 bulbs are non-dimmable, unfortunately. Which leaves the strip lights/driver/pwm dimmer combo.

I had a recent discussion with a seasoned DP in my area (40 yrs experience I think). We were on a discussion about commercial price brackets (30k jobs, 200k jobs etc.) and staying within budget. Previously, we both got to visit another commercial set that was two 12ft walls, 15 skypannels for backlights and key, 2 alexa minis, wireless FF each, really heavy O'Connor tripods. This was for a stationary talent. The crew was something like 20 people total. I want to say there were two operators for those static cameras, I can't remember. About staying on budget. I said it was quite a lot of gack for the situation, and I've done similar with much cheaper lighting and fewer personnel. And his response was... He's seen on bigger jobs like that where the DP and Director would deliberately inflate the costs to bump the commercial into a higher price bracket. Because the DP and Director got a percentage of the spot's total budget. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Perhaps it was a story of old, I forgot to ask. But I am still curious! Thanks friends!

Oh no, never. Proving others wrong is a pointless endeavor. My concern is only in learning and educating.

Yes, science! Exactly! My favorite subject! While these processes may not make sense, I still enjoy learning about them. The Alien Resurrection story is a wonderful example, and the Ashok Metha link as well. Thanks Karim and David. I'm totally not surprised by everyone's responses.

I ran into this information today. His suggestion was for lighting the interior of someone's space ship set. I'm a fan of the motion control and model-shooting processes back then, and I've never read about "black glass." I never received a reply back from the guy. Theoretically, it doesn't make sense. I mean, why use an HMI to kill 4.5 stops, and receive a hard reflection? Honestly, nothing about what he says makes sense. But, who knows. Does anyone have info on this "black glass", and its use case? Thanks friends.

I considered obsolete aputure. But I'm building a quote and can't lean on the unreliable avenue of finding all materials second hand. And then there's replacements. Judging from the response, it seems that nobody else has gone through this avenue. Looks like I'll have to source spectrally accurate LEDs, either raw or in tube form, and solve the flicker myself with a 3rd party PWM driver. Or go with cinema florescent and high frequency ballasts. Exciting! I'll return with my findings.

So I'm designing the light for a permentant set outside the windows. And I'd love to have 8ft tubes outside each one. LED or flourecent. Its a tungsten studio, so the tubes would be 4000-4300k. I was advised by the local grip shop not to use kino flo ballasts because of parts and reliability over the long term, and instead look at permanent housings with Duro-test or Kino tubes. My concern is flicker or banding with commercial ballasts. Suggestions are appreciated. On the LED end, I've tested a home depot LED 8ft fixture. Green shift was minimal and it was at 4000k. At 30/60p it was fine, but 24/48/96p it was unusable. The goal is to be safe to to 100-120fps. I don't mind swapping ballasts, but I don't know if its the simple case of swapping it out with a high frequency, or a specific frequency. And so any help would be appreciated. No... Purchasing skypannels isn't an option, for those interested.

I just see lots of makeup and powder.

Specifically for narrative DPs. How involved are you in the storyboarding process? And how do you feel about producing shots or sequences that an artist designed, rather than you? And how common is it for shots to be determined outside of the DP's involvement? Or are they simply the director's soft vision conveyed to an artist, and not concrete? Thanks friends.

Jason Cases is one.

I work with the FX6. 12000 base is noisier than its 800 base. I've found that with the 12000 base, rating it at 6400 produces comparable noise to the 800 base.

That's a lot of cameras. My god. Thanks Gabriel. Yeah, I've done rack mount converters for log multicam shows. I was hoping to hear about a DA box with LUT capability that would fit on the back of a camera. So it sounds like I'm heading in the best direction. Thanks for the suggestions. [edit: answered my own question]

You know, if you have the budget and support, wouldn't you want to try something new? I mean how many can say they used literally celluloid to treat their final print? What treat that would be.

Added reading if you want step-by-step. https://www.instructables.com/Lamp-Part-Wiring-Intro/

Be sure to make the fixture hangable. Hanging bare bulbs and small lampshades work fine on the power cord itself. But really, anything with weight should have a load-bearing cable or chain. Fixtures will include it if it needs it, but creating "hanging practicals" like this where they're used in ways unintended, sometimes you need to prevent added strain on the cord. In this case, you're fine. Happy shooting my friend!

This is easy to do. I've done several hanging fixtures this way and hung from the grid or menace arm. You can get an Edison plug from home despot. After that, it's just knowing the wiring. The image below shows where HOT, GROUND, NEUTRAL are on the outlet. The best way to remember is to know that HOT is always the SMALLEST blade. Modern outlets will always represent this. Some plugs, however (like the gray one on the left), don't represent this, so always refer to the outlet to find where it corelates to the plug. For AC, the wire colors go: Black is Hot (power) White is Neutral Green is Ground Make sure that these fixture wires land in the correct spot on the outlet and you're good. A note about incandescent bulbs and why your fixture doesn't ground to the bulb: Incandescent/halogen lights, heaters, water heaters and those coil cooktops operate by the same method: stick the Hot and Neutral together to make heat! It is this reason why some plugs meant for incandescence have two equally-sized prongs; because they both lead to the same place. Notice the ground wire isn't necessary for this action. We ground the housing to provide the electricity some place to travel if under short circuit (as opposed to through you), and it's included in especially anything with a metal exterior. So the ground will prevent the housing from shocking you if there is a short, that's all. If there is only a screw socket for a bulb and no housing, typically there is no ground, because there is nothing to ground to that could shock you.

Welcome Andre! I shoot commercial, so other folks in the narrative world will have better practical advice. I've give some theory and approaches from my world. Cinematography is so subjective because it deals with what "looks good," which is dependent on the DP/director and the audience you're going for. For me, multiple shadows and bare-hard light is negligent because it doesn't present the products or people attractively. So, you'll have to define what's good and not good. If it's a gritty action, horror, period film/scene, the many shadows might fit the world. Practically, if you can't get away from multiple shadows, you can always throw in opal or hampshire out of frame for closeups and that will blur the sources. And also consider bulbs that don't show the filament, or frosted fixtures. My approach for spaces has been getting more and more natural. So in situations like night interior, I'd throw a quite soft "moon" through the windows that will touch a lot of set, and fake more "window light" out of frame or fake soft warm interior light out of frame (216 frame). Then place practical or practical-motivated stuff. But I also like side-light, which is why I start with those. But this is generally how a house would really appear, if only romanticized, and it takes care of "filling the room." As for Scene 2. Eggcrates on softboxes choke not only the degree of spread, but also the intensity of light at closer proximity. As your subject gets closer to the eggcrate, the slats begin to cut light from the furthest distances. The effect is that you don't get too hot. That would be my solution to your toplight. And as for those practicals playing as backlight. Backlight to me is quite strong, and making those practicals bright enough to edge the characters' back would make them comically hot. If you want a back edge and preserve the practicals, then find a way to place your own backlight out of frame. But again, maybe your look is more like Ocean's Eleven, where you don't mind burning parts of the background. Here's examples of table-lighting. Also consider that you're table will be longer and thus these solutions won't produce the exact same effect. It depends on if you wan't to be realistic to the set with a single chandelier, or cheat a source each for the talent. Remember, that would leave a dark spot in the center of the table, so maybe you'd want three center lights.

I run into situations where my camera can't apply a LUT to the monitor out. It's been happening when post requests HD footage. And the FX9 camera can't downsample from the 6k sensor to HD and apply a LUT at the same time. So in the "HD" scenarios, I and everyone else gets log. Now, I've loaded a LUT into my on-cam monitor and can expose fine. But that LUT doesn't pass through to the director or clients. (It gives the option to pass a more contrasty default LUT, but not mine). You don't want the business end receiving a more blown-out image than you're actually recording. So, as a holdover, I've borrowed an AC-powered Blackmagic Teranex Mini Converter and use it on the director's end to apply a the same LUT. How the heck do you apply a LUT on camera-end and send it to all the monitors? Is Teradek the only option? What other on-cam monitors actually pass your loaded LUT through? Thanks folks.

If 240v house lines are available, then the more power to you! That'd be awesome. Rick, a silk is going to return less light than a solid white surface because it's a porous weave. In addition, I'd be concerned that 1200w of LED will not return a decent light level with an 18ft ceiling or a silk bounce. Consider that can always take light away, but you can't add light if you're fixtures are maxed out. I'll typically run with larger fixtures if I'm put into a situation I'm unsure of. Eye lights is a great point as Guy mentioned. Anything at eye level will show in the eye. But I'd avoid a hard source for the sake of casting shadows on the background. @Guy Holt Your first link directs to an index and I couldn't find the short you mentioned. I did find a dumpster scene with two women and three flatheads, it looked like.

Consumer LED's are hit and miss when it comes to banding. Some are more intense, others less noticeable. And if you use different manufacturers, you'll see banding on banding. Yeah, on Sony cameras at least, consumer LED tints green. My suggestion would be to use brighter tungsten. Mogul base screw sockets are like 5 bucks, and they allow for 500w and more to run through them. I used Mogul with 1000w tube bulbs in studio. There are also 500w versions. Some may say it's a fire hazard, but that is practically a non-issue suspended in the lantern. It's a halogen bulb incased in a second thicker glass shell that runs cooler. It can still "toast" the paper if resting on the surface over an hours period. A great thing about lanterns is they can be lowered easily. A drawback is power distro, which you can't pull from the house. It'll have to come from generator, renting a few Honda 7000s would work. An alternative is to use punchy HMI and bounce it overhead. If using the natural ceiling, I'd go for a couple 4ks. Which would amount to 2 Honda 7000s again. You can bring the ceiling closer by suspending a 12x12 or 12x20 ultrabounce frame overhead and using smaller HMI fixtures like 1200s, or 1600s. I'm no rigger, so I'd consult a rigger or gaffer on that solution. Large spaces with high light gets to a certain expense no matter how you try to do it. The only workaround to the power draw is to use a camera with higher sensitivity. Sony's FX6 has an incredible high ISO of 12000. Those are my thoughts on that scenario.

I forgot to mention. Of course, this is really dependent on the shots too, and you're needs. I can understand the desire to work around bigger rentals or gear limitations. If you can get the wide shot perfect with mirrors, then when you move the camera in, the beam doesn't have to stay consistent. People won't notice a change if you have to wiggle the mirror. I adjust set lights all the time for camera angle changes. No one notices.