Light In Eyes Of Music Video Stars

[Todd Terry]

They use a ring light.

Here’s a pic of the one we use….

T2

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

[Joseph Wilkins]

Thanks for the quick response… where can I buy one/how much are they? Any advice on using it?

[Todd Terry]

Well, can’t give you any advice on where to buy this particular one because we built it ourselves.

Kino Flo makes a unit, but it’s a fair bit smaller than we needed so we had to go the homemade route. Their unit is called the “Kamio” and I think it goes for about two grand… but don’t quote me on that.

Ours is pushing twice the size of the Kino, so I can use it with a much bigger camera/matte box combo. It started life as a 12″ aluminum cake pan and maybe $150 worth of electronics parts. We had it finished fairly nicely and powder coated and all so it doesn’t look too embarassingly homemade, if you don’t inspect it too closely. You can swap out the bulb for daylight or tungsten balancing, and it is dimmable down to about 50% (the ballast/dimmer box isn’t shown in the pictures). I think the Kino ring is 12v… whereas mine depends on 110AC. I think I could rig it for 12v, but it’s mostly for studio use and I doubt I will ever use it on a remote location where there is no power.

Use of a ring light is fairly simple… you use it whenever you want fairly shadowless images, a little bit of “fill” to traditional lighting setups, or to put that twinkle in the eye.

The downsides are that they can only be used for medium-or-closer closeups… and yes, they give that circular highlight in the eyeball (sometimes desirable, sometimes not). They are anywhere from “very difficult” to use to “useless” if your talent happens to be wearing regular reflective eyeglasses… you’ll see big nickle-sized circular reflections.

BTW… they still show music videos on MTV????? You learn something new every day!

T2

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

[Joseph Wilkins]

Thanks for the advice… So any way I could pay you to make one for me?

[Todd Terry]

Hmmmm….

Maybe… contact me off forum by clicking here

T2

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

[Vince Becquiot]

You could also simply use a light rigged on or next to the camera, it doesn’t have to be that intricate (although it looks nice 🙂 I even know a DP who swears by a flashlight. I guess it all depends on what you can get away with.

Vince

[David Amphlett]

you should check out kisslite from Gekko Technology

and yes I must declare bias as I’m the MD

lots in rental in the UK but only just into the US
in sales and rental

used on countless pop videos/promos and feature films

http://www.gekkotechnology.com

regards

David