Orbea Ordu

Sometimes the challenge of a job has nothing to do with lighting.  On this Orbea Ordu commercial the director wanted a spinning bike on a green screen.  After fumbling around the grip truck for awhile I found a solution - goal post, chain viced power drill attached to a rotary dimmer and some high test fishing line.

The rest of the day was easy.  We side-lit the green screen with some divas, dropped in a soft top source (2 4banks through a 216 4x4 frame skirted) and popped out the more interesting parts of the bike with 650s and 300s placed around the room. 

Here is a link to the final product:
http://vimeo.com/47911218

Lightning on the cheap

Normally I write off LED lights as a necessary evil.  Something a gaffer would feel forced to use for a fast pace drama or reality tv show.  They are a light source everybody hates and everybody uses.  I'm talking about you LitePanels! With your green shift and multiple shadows.  If I do find myself having to use a 1x1 LitePanel, I always make sure there is a chimera in front of it.

Today I got a chance to check out two new LED lights by AAdynTech (ECO Punch and Jab).  Right out of the pelican case and on to the stand I noticed some differences that made me think twice about LED lights.  The construction of the housing was very comparable to that of a 2.5 LTM HMI (strong and durable).  The barn doors were industry standard and the lights came with several different lenses.  When the tech turned the light on it struck up instantly and I was amazed by the output.  These are LED lights you can use outside!

 The Jab, only using 1.7 amps of power, would be perfect for indie feature car rigs.  The light can be powered by a cigarette lighter inverter and has the same output as a 400w joker.  No need for a process trailer if the production can't afford one.  Another thing worth mentioning.  I can't count how many times during driving scenes that we've had to pull over and drop or pull a scrim on a light because of spotty cloud cover.  With a little handheld DMX controller you can ride the brightness level on the light depending on the external environment (Going through a tunnel, under a bridge or through some clouds) allowing the actors to stay in character and giving the director better footage in the edit room.

The Punch, running at 5 amps, is equivalent to a 2.5k HMI.  Once again the light strikes right up.  No more having to wait for the globe to come up to temperature and because of its low heat output you can aim this light straight down (great for condor rigs).  Can't say the same about HMIs. They need to be slightly angled up to allow for heat release.

Now to get to the title of the post.  The punch has a controller with several different functions built into the back of the light.  My favorite function, the one that makes me the happiest as a gaffer, is the randomized lightning strikes.  It has a built in sporadic function that changes the intensity and duration on its own.  Life like lightning for a fraction of the cost!  Next time I gaff a scene with stormy weather I'm putting this green beast on the truck.

Anyway I could go on and on about these fixtures.  I'll just wait till I finally get to use one on set!

Mrs. Novak's 5th grade class

Today Patrick Durkin (Key Grip) and I taught a 5th grade class at Saint John Catholic Church about special effects in film.  I started the class by showing them this demo reel montage from Stargate Studios on their smart board (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k).

They watched in amazement and almost every kid had their hand up wanting to ask a question when the video was done.  We talked about Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter, The Nutty Professor, Jurrasic Park and Ace Ventura.  Each film had something different to teach.  Lord of the rings and Planet of the Apes used motion capture suits with lazer guided helmet cameras tracking their facial expressions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i6f7H8SVFQ).  They liked how they used trampolines to make the humans jump like monkeys.

Jurrasic Park of course had animatronics (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4J9TBlFxAg).  In this clip the kids noticed how much noise animatronics makes over special effects.  One kid thought the dinosaur was real!  The Nutty Professor used make-up and prosthetics while Ace Ventura used live animals with trainers.

We finished off the class by passing around an old wind-up 16mm Bell&Howell automatic cinecamera from the 40s, a super 8 camera from the 80s and then a modern day cellphone which we used to take this picture.

I try to do something like this whenever I can.  In 2012 I worked with a teacher at Berclair Elementary on a short documentary about alternative teaching techniques in the classroom (http://vimeo.com/50169895).  We also did one the previous year in 2011 which the Memphis City Schools then showed to other teachers (http://vimeo.com/12060976).

At the end of the day doing something like this gives me a huge energy/creative boost.

Happy Birthday Joe Horn

Just wrapped up a two day PSA shoot with former Saints football player Joe Horn.  You might remember him as the wide receiver that was fined 30,000 dollars for making a phone call to his family after scoring a touchdown against the Giants (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zrcAGkuk_o).  On this shoot he played the famous son to a single mother.

Unfortunately we encountered nothing but a mixture of freezing rain, ice and snow throughout the shoot, but key grip Patrick Durkin kept the outside together and safe.  Never forget your rain gear and always bring lots of socks!

The first bit of work involved a young woman in a hospital waiting room.  The director wanted the scene to feel hopeless and dark, while still accentuating or actor.  We hung a couple of 300's overhead to turn eye sockets into black caves for the extras, popped out the table in the foreground with a spotted 650 and rimmed the actress with a 1.2 HMI coming from outside.  We color corrected the window with 1/2 CTO.

Then after a quick company move we found ourselves in the bedroom of the young woman - thirty years into the future.

For this scene we used two 1.2 HMI's outside acting as moon light.  One was a direct source to pop out the forest in the background and the other a high bounce bringing some soft light back into the room.  With such large windows this proved to be a task of "where can we hide the light," but after a couple of tweaks we found the goldilocks zone.  Scenes like these make you wish for a condor and at least a 4k but we made it work.

On the inside, down low on a beaver board, I had a 650 covered in 1/2 grid cloth bouncing into a 2x2 bead board.  This acted as a practical glowing from out of frame and edged her out nicely on the profiles.  Sometimes we get lucky and this time set decoration provided us with the perfect mirror for the scene - It had some built in tungsten lights.  To add a bit more punch to this source, off frame I placed a fat boy kino heavily diffed out in light grid.  This gave a nice creamy look.

This was our martini scene for the day.

One of the first scenes of day 2 involved our actress being escorted by a shofer to her sons limo. Once again we got a bit lucky with the architectural lighting that was already in place.  I decided to use this as our motivating factor for our fill light.  The challenge was finding a place to put our light.  The whole house was in frame and there were no condor cranes coming to our rescue.  A quick solution was placing a 2k Junior in the second story window aiming down through a 4x4 opal frame.  This covered the whole walk very evenly.

Now to keep the moonlight look going I used one 1.2 HMI bounced up high and backed up on the same axis as the camera.  I find placing the moonlight source right behind camera keeps the architectural shadows from showing, which decreases the sourciness of the light.  This also acted as the key source.  As a final touch I barely popped out a house deep in the background with another HMI.

LIMO IN THE RAIN

For inside the limo the cinematographer wanted a nice wide shot, which left very little room for lights.  The space was already cramped enough with everyone in there so besides from the existing rope lights I decided to approach this one from entirely outside the vehicle.  The only problem of course was the heavily tinted windows that took away about 3 stops of light.  The cinematographer made one concession for me that made this set up possible.  Gotta love cinematographers that leave room for collaboration and compromise.  He angled the frame away from the windows on the right side allowing me to bring in a key source that looked like it was emanating from inside the limo. 

For this I used another 2k Junior with 1/2 CTO on the doors.  I knew with this much ND on the windows I'd get a magenta shift but I really liked the way it looked on camera.

For a backlight I punched a 1.2 HMI through each of the left side windows.  I flew them high and angled them down all the way. Two more lights and we were done.  A 200w Joker came in on the right side as a moonlight wrap and I had a guy up on a later with a Leicho to act as a street light.  After a couple of people got on car pushing duty we were off.  The scene looked great!

Here are a couple of more shots from production.  Oh and if you like BBQ sauce, look for Joe Horn's Bayou 87 in a grocery store near you:

Product spot for Van de Kamp's fish fillets

Last job of 2012.  Most of the production staff and higher ups flew in from New York the day before - the rest of us were local.  I love Memphis filming.  Over the years we've all grown to know and work with each other to a point that it has become symbiotic.  Set dec, camera, wardrobe, make-up, lighting all working together as one, with minimal confusion.  I always wonder if it is strange for out of towners to come into a group so close-knit.  This commercial spot afforded me the luxury of a pre-light day - something that is quite rare these days.  The 2nd AC has all but become an endangered species anywhere outside the production triangle (LA, NY, NOLA).  Hopefully my job title won't be added to that list anytime soon but eventually.... That day will come.

The DP and I hit it off pretty quickly.  Neither of us wanted to goal post the room and we both felt it wasn't necessary.  No need to do something just because it looks cool.  We blacked out the windows and went with a tungsten look (a couple of 650s to pop out the cabinets, a nice big soft key source and a duvey teaser over head to cut the spill off the background).

The next day we found out that the creatives wanted daylight but they were so happy with the look that they rolled with it.  Another rarity in the commercial world (especially when dealing with product placements).  I brought my cell phone charger for the day of the shoot.  You always drain your battery on shoot days with a pre-light the day before.  It really becomes a game of mastering boredom; however, there were some important tweaks to be made in-between products.

Unfortunate note:
After backing the grip truck down the very narrow driveway the pass van carrying the higher-ups followed suit.  As I was pulling away the pass van driver managed to back the vehicle into the homeowners brick mailbox, knocking it to the ground like a pile of laundry.  I'm sure he got a tongue lashing but at the end of the day I guess you could call him a job creator (someone has to repair the thing).

So long 2012 hello 2013.  I'm flying to Austria in a week to spend Christmas and new years with my girlfriend.  See ya in the new year :-)

Lincoln is alive and working at a bank in Arkansas

Second to last job of the year - A quick drive to Jonesboro Arkansas for a bank commercial.  In December I thankfully find myself packed with work, so I never got a chance to go over the creative with anyone.  I was going into this job blind.  After a quick bite at the local Waffle House I headed over to the location early.  I like to unload most of the gear before the cinematographer shows up.  Looking around it appeared I was the first one there, until a man got out of a parked rental car in front of me.  He was really tall, had a long dark beard and was skinny as a rail.  I thought to myself, "This guy is trying awfully hard to look like Lincoln."  This was right around the time spielberg's movie was coming out in theaters.  Turns out, he was an actor for the spot (playing Lincoln).  We were doing a series of three commercials over a two day shoot.  All the spots were pretty funny actually and I had several laughs on set.  The last day, as I was packing up the truck a huge rain storm rolled in from the west promising tornados.  It was a slow ride home on the interstate ;-)

When it's just me and the truck I usually keep my lighting arsenal small and efficient - 1.2HMI, 400w Joker, and a matching pair of 4ft and 2ft kinos.  Anything more than that and I need a second guy.  I bought an IceLight from Westcott and I've been very surprised by its performance and rendering of color (CRI). It always come in handy in a pinch.