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  1. So I was thinking back to something @David Mullen ASC said on one of my posts awhile ago, about the "the desire to spend a lot of money to own a lot of lighting equipment" and looking back, it brings up something i haven't considered and kinda accepted as a yes uncritically, and thats whether cinematographers should even aspire to own lighting gear. I took it as a yes owing to online spaces beating the drum that cameras aren't important but that lenses and lights are, "Invest in glass and lights" they say, which isn't completely wrong, but just kinda misleading as people say this, but then when pressed on what they mean on lighting, they always mean lighting gear (either in the individual fixtures themselves or in how many fixtures) that is really only good for interviews or really small spaces and not in any filmmaking scenario that takes in larger spaces (as it would defeat the idea of the Ultra portable lighting kit you can have with your personal little camera bag and take with you around the world like all of those travel vloggers), as from the past year I've been seeing lighting setups and the conclusion I've come to is that the amount of light needed is heavily underestimated by alot of amateurs, including myself. I can only see someone hitting ceiling after ceiling with lighting gear and going for more and more in response, which then I ask, why bother? Why not avoid the hassle and just stick to renting what you exactly need? I always answered this to myself by saying that maybe the rental outlet may not have what you exactly need or in locations you may not know what availability you will have access to, hearing about Roger Deakins expansive use of maxi brutes or Sean Bobbit's of six 18ks for a gymnasium really sobered me on this, making me take a step back on whether to really go for an extensive lighting kit to own, even if i was going to rebt it out, let me know your thoughts.
  2. Hello, so I want to have a set of rgb lights like astera titans I can use as practicals to replace existing practicals but the problem is that it seems like it can get very expensive very quickly, even using cheaper RGB tube lights like the quasars, nanlites, or amarans, so I want to go about this so I only get what I need. So that leaves me asking to anyone that has done this, how many lights did you use to replace practicals on location or set? And before you ask, I'm not sure the rental houses in my area would have a sufficient amount of titans or any such light for this, so please help.
  3. Hi, can you fold say a 12x20 or 20x20 piece of unbleached muslin to use on a smaller frames like a 12x12 or 8x8 or 6x6? Also, I was thinking of having a kit of lights I could use as practicals like astera titans or NYX's to replace existing practicals, the problem is scale, I realize I would need way more than a single kit of each's worth so that leaves me asking, can I get away with gelling practicals with color gels for that effect?
  4. Hi, before we start, my main lighting inspirations consist the Hannibal tv series, Euphoria, and the works of David Fincher and Rina Yang for having an ambient based exposure with top or backlight, and movies such as Mandy, Suspiria (1973), Only God Forgives, and the works of Vittorio Storaro and Benoit Debie for having bold splashes and tints of color. Basically I'm trying to compile a set of gear for achieving stylized lighting of a set and my method was to mostly lean on practicals or supplemented practicals with a top light for ambience with a hard backlight. Keep in mind I have only so much power to work with as I'm putting all of this in my car with a small generator so basically I'm limited on space and power and those are my major cost factors for me as I need the space for other things as if I had all the space and power in the world I would probably just use a bunch of arrimax 18ks, Wendy lights, softsuns or God knows how many digital sputniks but I don't have that so I have to make sure with what I can do. For the film lights I would make sure that the company provided photometrics actually line up with the claims made as for equivalency and my source for verification was Arris photometric calculator as I could input distance and approximate beam angle to see what the actual equivalents are. The lights I have chosen for my kit are there to fill in roles for other equivalent lights but at lower wattages and with hopefully good light quality and not just output. And keep in mind these lights would be in near constant rotation in terms of what role they would be playing on set. Also, another factor would be how well I can rent them or resell them for which is why I'm looking at the lights here. 1x hive wasp plasma par 1000 (equivalent to an Arri m18 and considering that light is reputed to be brighter than some 2.5ks it lives up to that but it's nowhere near a 10k tungsten like once claimed at trade shows and on some sites by hive) 1x prolycht orion 675 w/ fresnel (it does seem to line up to the claim of being roughly equivalent to a 5k tungsten if just below it and it lines up with an Arri m8 so I'm satisfied). These would be used with the lightbridge crls c100 kit 2x litepanels Gemini 1x1 hard (these didn't make equivalent claims but according to their company provided photometrics and beam angle they seem to line up with a 400w hmi like a joker with the frosted fresnel lens) Practical/other film lights 1x astera titan 8 light kit 1x astera helios 8 light kit 2x astera nyx 8 bulb kit with impact octacool fixtures 2x litegear literibbon cine five 5m And the full set of rosco Storaro gels. If there are improvements I can make on this let me know.
  5. 1.how big of a space could I light with 2 2.5k hmis and 2 1.2k hmis? I found 2 lights that are equivalent to those and I'm curious how well it would work in terms of versatility for lighting spaces with top light for ambience and hard ba, this would be done in tandem with practicals, speaking of which. 2. For a practicals heavy lighting setup, how many 4 foot tubes like astera titans, how many light bulbs like astera nyx, and how many feet of flexible strip like litegear literibbon xq chroma cine five should I have in my kit to light a large room or space that would use florescent tubes or light bulbs or flexible light? And before you say I should just rent for the project or go to a home depot, 1, the rental houses in my area don't have everything I need, and 2, I'm willing to bet that your average home depot or whatever would have crmx compatible RGB led lights, or if so, in what I want. Also, if you can't give me an answer for this, could you tell me the average size of a club, an office, and the most amount of light bulbs you've seen in a place? 3. Can I use a fabric for a larger frame like a 8x8 and use it on a smaller frame like a 6x6 or 4x4 by folding it? 4. Can I get around the issue of a parabolic softbox not being an inward lit device by using muslin on the front? The main issue I know of on a parabolic softbox is the light is 1. Not inward facing, and 2, is not focusable, I suppose you could use a fresnel to solve the focus issue but I know one of the things that makes the parabolic softbox kinda pointless is the it's usually not lit inwards, considering muslin not only diffuses but bounces (the entire point of the cove light), could I use that instead of magic cloth and have at least some of the light bounce inwards onto the reflector part and would we then have the parabolic softbox that is actually useful? Could this apply to any softbox with a silver reflector like a lantern?
  6. I know it's a softbox light that uses bulbs but I would like to know the specifics of the construction of it, like how many bulbs per light for example. So if anyone could give me a rundown on what it is and required parts that would be nice.
  7. What are some of the most common lighting setups a gaffer , new into the job , must be aware of ? Could you share photographs along with each ? For Eg : Lighting up a green screen studio , Day to night & Night to day setups , Interiors with & without windows , Lighting up the same inside a studio , Lighting for different times of the day
  8. Hi everyone, as I'm involved in low budget filmmaking, I'm interested in knowing what I can do lighting wise, when shooting in houses and just using the regular wall plugs, without the gaffer having to do any setup for bigger lights. It's a topic where I feel quite rusty. In the US, I believe your theoretical limit is 120v*15a = 1800W per circuit. In France, we can in theory go up to 230*16 = 3680W. 1/ At the rental place, is this effectively the thresholds that divide lights that come with regular plugs and lights that don't (32A only) ? 2/ Does that mean that some lights (for example a 2.5k) come with a regular plug here but not in the US ? 3/ What are the brightest lights that you know of that can be plugged into regular home wall sockets ? For some reason I have - for France - the 2.5kW HMI, but I don't know all the lights, and I especially don't know how far LEDs have come in the last five years. Given their efficiency, I suppose a 2K (actual, not "equivalent") LED Fresnel would have an amazing output, if that even exists/could exist. 4/ Do you have a set safety "wiggle room" in mind, for example you would remove 20% of these theoretical max output and end up with 1500W in the US and 3000W in France ? Sorry these questions are a bit all over.. Thanks a lot for reading.
  9. Dear fellow filmmakers, I'm having a hard time finding top notch resources for learning more about lighting. Anyone know of any great (free) webpages, magazines, instagrams etc. ? I'm particularly interested in 'expressive/creative lighting', examples of use of cutter flags, explanations from features, etc, preferably from someone working in the field. All the best from Copenhagen, Malthe Ejlers (see my latest work below for the type of filmmaking I do)
  10. Hello everyone! As jobs get bigger, the need for a floorplan software gets bigger. What kind of software are you using? And on which platform are you working?
  11. Hi, We are two technicians working in the film industry in France (a grip guy and a gaffer) and we just discovered this very interesting forum. We particularly noticed that gaffers and cinematographers were asking questions about light output and what aperture is obtained at a certain distance. It happens that with the help of two IT engineers we developed an iOS app responding to this question about 2 years ago. First and for all, we’re not going to post messages everywhere on this forum to sell our app nor are we going to pollute your threads to gain in visibility. We just think some of you might be interested in what we created and since we’re a really small team working on off-time we can’t do any real advertising, so you probably wouldn’t know our app existed. Our app is called Predilux (for pre-diction and lux for light) and predicts the exposure as measured by a light meter, by choosing a light source and a distance. Or inversely predicts the distance to the light source by specifying the exposure. Predilux takes into account: Camera settings (FPS, ISO, Shutter angle) Source settings (Focalisation, Lenses, Grids, Dimmer, CCT, etc) Gels mounted on or close to the source (All ROSCO e-colour+ range) All results have been experimentally verified by us with a light meter in rental houses. For each source setting we made several measurements at different distances and this took a lot of time. So Predilux does not rely on constructor’s data, but on real data reflecting the state of the equipment as found in rental houses. Our data sometimes differs from the constructor’s data. Here is a quasi exhaustive list of the sources measured and included in the Predilux (12/2019) : Tungsten ARRI 150, 300 Plus, 1K Plus, 5K Fresnel, T10, T12, Rubylight (MFL lamps) Briese 77, 100, 140, 180 with lampes ranging from 650 W to 2K Mole Richardson Softlite 1K, MaxiBrut 16 (MFL lamps) Openfaces such as Redhead, Blonde, Desisti Renoir 5kW and LTM Cyclight 2K ETC Source 4, Dedolight, Zaplight, CMC 20K, etc. HMI ARRI AS 575, 1200, 4K, 6K, 12K, Arri M18, M40, M90, ArriMAX 12K & 18K K5600 JokerBug 200, 400, 800, Alpha 1600, 4K, 9K, 18K AFM 575, 1200, LTM Cinepar 2.5K Fluorescent KinoFlo 2ft, 4ft & 6ft LED ARRI S30, S60, S120, S360 KinoFlo Celeb 200, 250, 400, 450, 850 DMG SL1, SL1 mini, SL1 Switch, MaxiSwitch Mole Richardson Tweenie, Senior, Tener Aladdin Biflex 1x1, 1x2, Flexlite 1x4, 350 Dedolight bi90, Cineroid LMD400, Velvet V1 Balloon Airstar Gaffair 1200, Elipse 4000, PAD 9ft x 9ft, Tube 16K If any of the administrators of this forum wish to try out our app, we would be happy to give them one or several free life-time activation codes. For all the other users, our app is available on the Apple Store (). An Android release is planned. If you have questions or requests, don’t hesitate to contact us at this address predilux@wid.la Thanks for reading this post and we hope you thought it was interesting, Georges Harnack for the Predilux Team
  12. As a DP, how do you communicate your orders to your team on set? (e.g. Light ratios, light modifications, rigging)
  13. Hi Everyone. I am new to this website. My name is Tayyib Mahmood and I am a film student at Birmingham City University. I am writing a dissertation on a comparative analysis between LED and Tungsten Lighting and I need of a few interviewees. This can be done over video call (Skype). I am in need of anyone with industry experience who would like to give me their opinion on Tungsten and LED lighting and which would be dominant within the upcoming years. Thank you, Tayyib
  14. Hi all, I am headed to Louisville, KY (location is close to the airport) to shoot manufacturing floor b-roll and customer interviews. Need a Gaffer with 1/4 ton along with a dana dolly on baby rollers and a Joleko (400 or 800). We shoot on 9/18-9/21. Out of town crews would need to treat as a local. You must have a valid US Government issued ID (a current driver's license will do). My client is a DOD Contractor so if for any reason you are not comfortable working for such please do not respond. Please contact me at sid@firstframe.com Feel free to text me @ 9785010488 - I will not answer incoming phone calls that I do not have in my contacts. Look forward to hearing from you and thanks for your understanding. Sid
  15. Good evening ladies and gents, I just came back from my C&G BS:7671 18th Edition exam and realised that I'm still missing some information regarding the legal requirements to call oneself a lighting designer/gaffer/spark in the UK. I thought maybe it would be a good idea to open a thread about these details especially here where(UK) you cannot just decide overnight that you want to be a gaffer but actually need to get qualified. My questions are What are the minimum requirements to call yourself a Spark or taken seriously as one? (besides BS:7671, I heard that also NA7909(3) is recommended to get things started) Do you need to get certified as an electrician to even begin your journey towards becoming a gaffer? In your experience as a gaffer, which qualifications/courses you absolutely had to get to be part of larger productions? Can you be part of an union if you are not fully certified as an electrician? (e.g. BECTU) How far can you wing it as an unofficial gaffer? (uncertified) Which is the point where the law prevents you from working on set no matter your experience? Thank you for your time and hope other users will find this helpful ^__^ Best, TheDragon
  16. I wanted to add my new book as an option alongside the classics from Blain Brown, Harry Box, and John Jackman. Shaping Light for Video in the Age of LEDs; a practical guide to art, craft, and business of lighting. By Alan Steinheimer. 2018. Available now at Amazon and B&N websites. Shaping Light ... is a practical, hands-on guide to lighting for video. Using a Dummies-style approach, the book explains lighting techniques through real-world examples, including recent updates on the groundbreaking use of LED lighting and wireless control options. This book focuses on firsthand application of technical knowledge, to appeal to cinematography students and video freelancers. Beginning with simple lighting setups and progressing to more complicated scenarios, the book holds the reader’s attention with illustrative anecdotes, and links theory to real-world applications. There is a 30 page glossary/set vocabulary at the end that would be useful to most newbies. The e-book is coming as well as peering into the first 16 pages at Amazon.
  17. Hello Every One! Thanks in advance for checking out my post. So as the title says, my work is building a video studio. I work at a toy company as their in house video guy (1 man department). This is a brand new position and its quickly evolving. When I started, I was making simple product demo videos for retail sites and social media, now we are building a studio with the goal of producing some of our TV commercials in house. That being said, lighting equipment is not my strongest area of expertise. Basically my question Is, If you were investing in lights to build a professional studio. Which lights would you buy? I know its a very open ended question, but in doing research, I'm finding that there is plethora of choices and its making me more confused than anything. I know that there isn't a magical configuration of light that will cover you for every need but what would be a good all around set? Im thinking I want at least one ARRI SkyPanel S60-C (maybe two) What other lights would pair well with it? Here are some examples of past TVC's we've had produced. Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 The studio space itself is 30x30. We are most likely going to install a Ceiling rail system if that makes a difference in selection. Please feel free to ask me any questions. Thanks Again, George Mills
  18. So, I've posted this on a few forums, and if you've seen this already, I apologize. I just bought an old set of Came TV 900 LED panels for a very low price. They are very bright and the quality of light is great, but they have a magenta shift. Do I send them back or just buy some plus greens and go on my way? Does anyone else own these panels, or have this issue?
  19. Hey everyone, I'm currently a student studying cinematography, and have found some dilemma when working with a gaffer. Often times I am very controlling in pre-production; I know exactly what light I want where with what gel and how many foot candles it will read. However, I feel like just handing my gaffer a floor plan is a disservice to them as a part of the creative process. What is your experience/take on the Gaffer-DP relationship? Where are the lines drawn? Who does what when in pre-production? Thanks a million!
  20. Hey all! Newer to the forums here. I'm shooting a senior thesis project coming up next weekend, and like any student project I'm trying to always up my game to the next level. We're shooting a lot of daylight exteriors, and I plan on setting up a lot of 10x's with diff to just get some more control of the light and to keep it consistently soft on close ups. My understanding of the workflow between G&E is still growing, and I was wondering what the gaffers role would be on a daylight exterior scene? It feels to me more like we would only need a KG on a day that we're just flagging, rather than creating light. Wondering if anyone could elaborate more on this.
  21. I'm just wondering if anybody could break down this scene in terms of lighting for me. Im shooting a short film for somebody next week and would love to achieve this sort of lighting set up. what i'm looking for is Light ratio Temperature softlight/hardlight Colour Gels Filters Lights that are believed to be used colour scheme Practical lights lighting position If anybody could help me out it would be greatly appreciated Thanks
  22. How do you hold your gaffer tape? Not using ToughGaff? Come visit us at the NAB, central hall, booth#C12636 Or check us out here, and buy online: www.toughgaff.com
  23. How do you hold your gaffer tape? Not using ToughGaff? Come visit us at the NAB, central hall, booth#C12636 Or check us out here, and buy online: www.toughgaff.com
  24. Owner/operator of a 2 ton lighting and grip package loaded with brand name industry grade tungsten, LED, daylight balanced and fluorescent lighting fixtures together with a full compliment of grip rigging gear, frames, flags, nets, stands and carts to support your next production. Providing SoCal with professional lighting and grip services for over 14 years. All my gear is meticulously maintained, serviced regularly and checked before every shoot. ARRI 1200w and 575w HMI Pars, complete tungsten package from 200w up to 2K open face and fresnel, Chimeras from 16x12" up to 4x3' including the Chimera 5/7' Octaplus...and so much more. ARRI, Mole Richardson, Litepanels, Matthews, American Grip, Norms, Power Gems. Industry grade gear coupled with the latest lighting and grip tools and techniques to enhance the quality of your next production. Only 1.5hrs from downtown LA. Close proximity to desert cities. For more info please visit: Calabrialightingandgrip.com (760) 692-7915 https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholascalabria
  25. Boa Solutions Inc. 222 Islington Ave, unit 13 Etobicoke , ON M8V3W7 Open by app't, to suit production schedules, 24/7/365, but generally there 10am-8pm M-F, unless a booking is happening earlier. Website and pricelist going through huge update, and will all be at http://www.boa.solutions . Before that, please contact me for gear availibility / suggestions, and go to http://www.boastudios.com for the studio spaces I rep. Hi, I am Mir Lada, a Lighting Designer / Gaffer / Grip / Production Still Photographer that is owner / operator of this boutique motion and still production equipment rental house in Etobicoke (west end of Toronto), in one of Toronto's film hubs. Clients come back to me because of my practical and creative problem-solving, advice, and being able to realistically accommodate any budget and any level of filmmaker. Often, after dealing with me for figuring out gear, they will create the opportunity for me to come on board as crew, which then makes things extra easy for them, since I am completely dealing with and taking responsibility for the packing, transport, setup, operation, strike, delivery back, and check-in of the gear to accomplish the look they want. The 4000 sf warehouse space I recently moved has 16' ceilings, 20' wide hallways, adn huge truck docks, is currently still being set up, between shoots and tests, and will be divided half for rental gear storage and half as a technical studio / test facility. That means it has very basic client amenities / creature comforts, but a lot of assets and capability to accomplish a wide range of small to medium shoots at a reasonable price. Perfect for when what is in front of the camera is more important than the style of the facility. Great for music videos, small films, commercials, etc. Standing sets include wall flats, and many installed cloth cycs, including 90' white, 78' chroma green, 60' black, 30; chroma blue, and 8x8 Chromatte system. Power is 200A x 3 phase cam-lok, plus 175A single phase house power. Facility is lit with 1k cyc lights and features a 17x10 overhead lightbox with 10k tungsten and 5k daylight output. I also have a 1 ton van for location work, as well as a good truck rental service nearby, where I can roll in all my mobile carts, shelves, etc to create an up to 5 ton lighting and grip truck solution for location work. I also rep a 1750 sf studio right above me, owned by a DP, with a 30'x 10' hard cyc. Spaces can be combined for same production. Lighting includes, with often multiples on-hand (over 500 lighting fixtures): Arri L7-C Arri Locaster 1x1 LED's Mole Biax KinoFlo 12k fresnel HMI 6k fresnel HMI 4k fresnel HMI 2.5k fresnel HMI 1.2k fresnel HMI 575w fresnel HMI 200w fresnel HMI 6/12k PAR 4k PAR 2.5k PAR 1.2k PAR 800w PAR 575w PAR 400w PAR 200w PAR 1.2k Profoto bare bulb 1.2k soft 575w flood 270w sungun 200w sungun Of course, hundreds of tungsten fixtures from 100w to 10k, including 6K Barger Baglite, 10' Jumbrella. I also carry a wide variety of practical bulbs, stringers, non-LED christmas lights, etc. Grip up to 20'x30' frames and rags, 28x78 digital green screen, 14'x30' black, 90' x 16' bleached seamless muslin, plus many smaller solutions. Besides a very broad and complete arsenal of motion lighting and grip, I have some more basic camera, sound, lens, and camera support gear available. 5DIII, 7DII, 5DII, 60D, D7000, FZ1000, and dozens of the most respected Canon, Nikon, Sigma, and Tamron lenses: 14mm f2.8, 14mm T3.1 cine, 16-35mm f2.8 L, 16-35mm f4 IS, 17mm TS-E, 24mm TS-E, 35mm f1.4 ART, 35mm T1.5 cine, 50mm macro, 50mm f1.4 ART, 70-200mm f2.8 IS, 85mm T1.5 cine, 85mm f1.2IIL, 100mm f2.8 macro, 135mm f2. 300mm f4 IS, 1.4xII, Tamron 150-600mm f5-6.3, Tamron 2x, full cine rig, 7" monitor, Sennheiser & Rode mics, Axis Dolly, Portable platform dolly and rubber track, doorway dolly, 8/12 crane, several good sticks and fluid heads, Manfrotto Fig Rig, etc. If you or anyone you know has time, but limited budget, but needs gear, while I am setting this place up, I am looking to barter with experienced people to help me, in exchange for equipment rental credit.
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