1st time HMI user

[Todd Terry]

Earlier in this thread I mentioned that I’d try to post some stills from a shoot we just did, so here they are (and a rudimentary two-minute drawing of the setup)… from a commercial shoot that we did in a bank…

These grabs were all from moving shots (both talent and camera) so please forgive that the stills look a bit soft…

This is my super-down-and-dirty method of doing daylight lighting with a single HMI. As I previously said, I will often put a single HMI (usually a 1200w fresnel) high and to the rear/sidish of the talent, and blast it into a white 4×4. The 4×4 bounce becomes the key, and I can “steal” a little bit of the direct light from the instrument as a back/hair/side light. It’s not ideal by any stretch… but it is a super fast and easy way to get pretty decent (not perfect, but decent) lighting on someone. If I’m in one of those situations where we have a lot of different setups needed in a single shoot and not a lot of time to really light a scene like I’d like to (because of budget constraints, or just logistics), I often resort to using this method just because I can work so quickly this way…. and the end result is usually fairly natural and looks non-lit, which is usually my goal…

Again, they’re not the “best that I can do,” but it’s very fast and easy… and sometimes that’s what you need.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Muhammad Atif]

Hi,
I am going to use HMI 1st time for a short Video, outdoor shooting on construction site, how can i use HMI in that case, should i use one HMI or need to more than one and should it be key light ?? i need help for this.

[Craig Alan]

What are you shooting? What HMI? What time of day? How big a space? What’s the b.g.? How wide? What type of camera? Are subjects still or moving? Can you afford a lighting designer? One size does not fit all.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Dennis Size]

I lot of questions need to be answered before any advice can be given.
How it is used or how many lights are needed is relatively immaterial when it comes to which source to use.
That would be like saying you’re shooting in a studio and will be using a Source 4 leko.
DS