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Does this HMI exist?


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Just a quick thought here, you can try this out if your budget allows if not don't sweat it. You can use all three of those lights as one source if you so desire, bouncing or diffusing it can even out the beams so they act as one. However, it can get to be a huge pain to have to hike all three of those around when they're on separate stands. If you're able to afford a roadrunner or similar type of outdoor crank stand and a junior triple header, you can mount all three on it and roll it around as if it's one light. This is something I wound up having to do once when our 6k failed, so I took three M-18s and was able to approximate the output with 3 lights but still have them one stand. It worked out pretty well, you just need to be sure you have some good grips if you plan to go up with it and enough head feeder to give you the slack to dance it around.

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Just a quick thought here, you can try this out if your budget allows if not don't sweat it. You can use all three of those lights as one source if you so desire, bouncing or diffusing it can even out the beams so they act as one. However, it can get to be a huge pain to have to hike all three of those around when they're on separate stands. If you're able to afford a roadrunner or similar type of outdoor crank stand and a junior triple header, you can mount all three on it and roll it around as if it's one light. This is something I wound up having to do once when our 6k failed, so I took three M-18s and was able to approximate the output with 3 lights but still have them one stand. It worked out pretty well, you just need to be sure you have some good grips if you plan to go up with it and enough head feeder to give you the slack to dance it around.

That I would most definitely want to do! Unfortunately, our rental firm does not have those junior triple heads nor crank stands. They do have overhead stands and combo stands with wheels. Could I use one of those and rig the lights some other way, or does it require a more heavy duty stand?

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To be honest I'm not exactly sure what an overhead stand is, but gathering from the context it sounds like you're referring to what we in the States call Hi Rollers...either way that scenario presents some challenges for a couple reasons. First off, the rollers have flat, narrow bases in comparison to combos or cranks, so they're going to be quite top heavy and as such I would rule them out. But even with the combo stands, the combo wheels are great but they're small and hard - best used as an indoor studio toy, or at least on a perfectly flat surface...could be a pain to roll around on those brick streets you depicted. Roadrunners have big pneumatic tires that can handle surface undulations well, that's why they're well-suited for outdoor use. They're also heavier at the bottom.

Also, if you need to go up on the stand the weight's going to be an issue, same as if it were one big light on a non-crank stand. Not saying it can't be done, but only you know your gear and your crew and your location, so you be the judge on whether it's going to actually save time/labor or not.

 

Weird that they don't have triple headers...crank stands I can somewhat get, those are kind of expensive and heavy duty, but triple headers are a pretty cheap, standard grip item.

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...missed the part on trying to rig it another way other than the triple header. Sure, many things are possible if you have the right rigging tools, but I don't know your package so I can't say for sure. But aside from that at a certain point it becomes an issue of "is it worth it?" If it saves a lot of time and effort in the long run then sure, but consider how much of that you're going to be putting into an elaborate rig cause you didn't have the right gear to start with, versus just doing it the traditional way and putting each light on it's own stand.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a fun challenge and I love getting creative with the gear for on-the-fly MacGuyver style rigging projects...but it's generally best to not do it on production's time unless you have to.

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Hi Rob,

 

chiming in a bit late, not sure if you already shot your film.

 

About the Cine Mobil 1200, it's a german made HMI from the (as far as I know) 80s. I've seen them on numerous Indie film sets in Germany in the 90s and 00s as they are usually available for rent cheap. The ballast tends to run a bit hot after a few hours, some of them started smelling a bit like melting varnish. The ballast is a big mass of iron, so they take some time to cool down again. The case has ventilation holes on all four sides, so blowing a small fan into it can improve things if you run into that problem. If the ballast is humming/buzzing, sometimes it is just the main relay buzzing. The relay is mounted just beneath the top cover. Sometimes giving it a small hit by setting the ballast down to the floor hard (not that hard!) while operating can cure things.

 

It's not an ARRI robustness wise, but it works.

 

Kind regards,

Marc

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