Lighting change on a stage

[Ray Rushing]

I'm doing a shoot in a couple of weeks where there will be a lighting change during a timelapse shot. Camera will dolly around the subject and the shot will be sped up in post to create the timelapse.

 

So for the lighting the director wants to start out with a sunny look, then go to overcast (not too dark though), then to overcast with rain (again not too dark, more like a spring shower), the finish back at sunny. Now I have a pretty good idea of how to do it with an unlimited budget but that's not the situation. I have about $3500 total for G&E and we are shooting on a stage with green screen so some of that will be going to the spacelights on the stage.

 

Additional info: We will be shooting somewhere between 5.6 and 8. We have access to a DMX board to control the transition. First thought was HMI for the sun and Skypanels overhead for the overcast bit. Then have a book light on the ground to fill in the shadows a bit and a leko to edge the rain. Of course the HMI won't be dimmable but I was thinking we could block it with a 4x4 of black and then uncover it again at the end. The rental house here is pretty limited and their tungsten lights are all pretty small.

 

Love to hear other ideas for this. I'm sure there's something simpler that I haven't thought of.

[Jaron Berman]

Most moving head lights in the theatrical/entertainment world use MSR-type lamps (similar to HMI) and are fully dimmable. They tend also to have color wheels, zoom/iris adjustment and gobos, color wheels etc.. And they're generally cheaper than HMI. Also - you can find movers in every major brand that can do framing shutters like lekos . If you don't need the framing but like the focus of a leko beam then you'll find basically any moving "profile" light will do it (and have onboard mechanical dimming).

 

Skypanels are excellent, but you can find a lot of fixtures in the DMX world that can do what sky panels can (and a lot more) - such as move/zoom for less money. Because you'll be programming a lighting cue anyways - look into theatrical lighting because it's meant to do what you're trying to do (vs. kludging film lighting to do the same thing for more money).

 

If you need just crazy punch and can find them locally - look at Elation Paladins - 1200 LED watts. That's about 3x the power of a skypanel but the paladin also has a pretty huge optical zoom range that's DMX controllable. They aren't moving fixtures, but for about 1/3 the price of a skypanel and roughly 6x-10x the output depending on zoom.... And they're waterproof.

 

Once you add DMX to the mix, you really open-up your options for fixtures that can do what you want.