FloLight CycLight: experience / opinion ?

[Michael Hurwicz]

Also, how far in back of the screen have you put the tubes, in order to get an even dispersion of light across the screen?

[Mark Suszko]

If I was going to make one like that? Translucent vinyl shower curtain-type material, maybe, or a sandwich with green gels and rolux, perhaps. Something with diffusion properties.

[Mike Caruana]

Forgot I was even on the waitlist for this (been using a pair of Ghetto Flos). Got a call a few weeks ago, ordered it, and it’s now setup. Here are my impressions, without playing around too much:

First, there is no way to place this light a foot away from the screen, like the video shows. It will not light evenly. Standard rule of half the width back works best — with my 8ft screen and the flowlight 4ft back, everything is perfect. I did have to flag off reflections from the ceiling since I don’t have much height to work with.

On the plus side, it is very easy to set this up. Even though the light is 4ft from the screen, talent can get closer than flos, since there is little to no spill (just so long as the divas I am using are positioned so they don’t hit the screen). I like the green LEDS, in fact, I was able to use this light without a screen on a white wall and key it perfectly. I was about to replace the Ghetto Flos with Tegras so that I could have more control, but that’s not necessary now.

Dimming is nice. Let’s you get it even, a little closer, and slightly darker than talent. Keying is a breeze. Was able to simply use default settings in ultrakey with CS5 and get it perfect with no tinkering.

Overall, I highly recommend the flowlight, especially if you are using a cheap setup (ebay umbrella kits, ghetto flos, etc) or need to start from scratch. What I would love on the next version, if it is even possible, is to be able to control beamspread height and width so that you can get it closer without hotspotting or having to flag off reflective surfaces in tight spaces, but I’m happy with mine and keeping it.