Erik Anschicks
Forum Replies Created
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As Todd said, color temp doesn’t really matter for these purposes.
He’s also right that this kind of thing could be easier to accomplish with a greenscreen. We’d also need to know how tight your shot(s) will be. I’m assuming you want to light it such that the white behind the talent is even and creates a “white limbo”?
If so, and greenscreen isn’t your best option, the most foolproof way I do this is to use 2 4’x4-bank kino flos. Remove the egg crate, place them at opposite sides of the white background mounted vertically and cross-shot them across the white. The kinos are a large enough source that, properly placed, they can fill an 8×8 or 12×12 white background evenly and without issue for medium or slightly wider shots. I would also place a black sider on them so none of the raw light spills onto the talent, this can be a 4x floppy, or really any black lightproof material.
Unless you have a bunch of them, and place them carefully so they fill in every shadow, litepanels by themselves are not an ideal choice for this as they aren’t a large or soft enough source to fill a background very evenly, unless your shot is a CU where only a small part of the background is necessary to light. A larger and softer source is the way to go and would be an inexpensive rental.
Bear in mind that having enough space to property place lights and the talent so as to minimize/eliminate any unwanted spill from your background and key lights is critical as well.
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Another vote for “It doesn’t matter.” Like Todd said, I am sure there might be SOME reasons people give for doing this and they might well be right….but I’ve lit greenscreens with many different instruments and colors temp mixtures over the years and have never once noticed a problem at all, nor had one reported back to me.
I guess in theory, deeper green hues MIGHT make for a cleaner key in some circumstances, but it’s certainly not enough of an issue that I’d worry much about it.
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[Bob Cole] ” But I avoided it, because it imparted a slight purple sheen to the highlights, which would have “reflected” badly on the printing process we were trying to promote.”
Did you use the actual Rosco View glass Pola, or a different one like from Tiffen, Schneider, etc…? I ask because Rosco specifies that using any other glass Pola in front of the lens other than their specially-made View one will result in unwanted color shift. Of course that could be marketing-speak, but if it’s specifically engineered to play well with the gel, I’d buy that. Wonder if there are any tests out there…
[Bob Cole] “For your interview application, this sounds like one of those good ideas that doesn’t actually work in the end.”
One of my gaffers said almost exactly that when I explained this system to him years ago…and while I’ve never had hands-on experience, I’m inclined to agree. I wonder too if it would still be effective at varying angles of windows in relation to the camera given how light waves have to be shaped in a certain way to most effectively utilize cross-polarization. Sounds more and more like this is one of those “once in a blue moon”-esque methods where the circumstances have to be JUST right.
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Damn, sorry about the double-post!
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I think what he meant by “HMI’s don’t dim”, is that you can’t dim them all the way down to nothing the way you can with a different source like tungsten. He was talking about it within the context of a lighting cue where he needed the light to go completely out so none hit the talent’s face during the shot, live and in camera. This is/can be commonly done with a tungsten or LED bulb because they dim completely to zero but since HMI’s only dim about a stop to 50% of output or so, you couldn’t do the same thing with them.
As for putting it on the light itself, this is apparently one of the main uses for this gel in the still-photo world, specifically to eliminate reflections of the light and specular highlights while shooting things like paintings for art reproduction. I had never thought about doing this before, but it totally makes sense. If a subject is lit at all, you’re going to see SOME sheen or a reflection of the light/light source itself, and a double-polarization system should indeed make that disappear so the subject looks as flat and “un-lit” as possible.
In the motion-picture world, I could certainly see SOME possibilities for this, like in product or tabletop work perhaps, or in specialized situations like the author found himself in. Otherwise, I don’t think it would work as well in general in our realm because that would cut the light levels a LOT, since you’re putting a pola gel on the source itself as well as from using a Pola in front of the lens.
I’m also not an expert on the physics of light, but I would imagine the light waves would bounce around too much for this to be effective if shooting through diffusion or bouncing, so it would really only work (well) using lights raw.
But an interesting trick to have up your sleeve in certain situations for sure!
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I think what he meant by “HMI’s don’t dim”, is that you can’t dim them all the way down to nothing the way you can with a different source like tungsten. He was talking about it within the context of a lighting cue where he needed the light to go completely out so none hit the talent’s face during the shot, live and in camera. This is/can be commonly done with a tungsten or LED bulb because they dim completely to zero but since HMI’s only dim about a stop to 50% of output or so, you couldn’t do the same thing with them.
As for putting it on the light itself, this is apparently one of the main uses for this gel in the still-photo world, specifically to eliminate reflections of the light and specular highlights while shooting things like paintings for art reproduction. I had never thought about doing this before, but it totally makes sense. If a subject is lit at all, you’re going to see SOME sheen or a reflection of the light/light source itself, and a double-polarization system should indeed make that disappear so the subject looks as flat and “un-lit” as possible.
In the motion-picture world, I could certainly see SOME possibilities for this, like in product or tabletop work perhaps, or in specialized situations like the author found himself in. Otherwise, I don’t think it would work as well in general in our realm because that would cut the light levels a LOT, since you’re putting a pola gel on source itself as well as from using a Pola in front of the lens.
I’m also not an expert on the physics of light, but I would imagine the light waves would bounce around too much for this to be effective if shooting through diffusion or bouncing, so it would really only work (well) using lights raw.
But an interesting trick to have up your sleeve in certain situations for sure!
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Yes, it’s called the Rosco View. Essentially it is a double-polarization system, where you put a specific gel on the window and then use the specific View glass filter to rotate and darken/brighten the light outside WITHOUT affecting the light levels inside and on subjects.
Here’s a link to it’s usage with examples: https://www.thehurlblog.com/cinematography-online-rosco-view-new-frontier-tools/
I haven’t personally used it, the main downside of the system seems to be that the gel component is absurdly expensive and doesn’t appear to be widely available in a size practical for anything but the smallest of windows ($246 on BH for a 10’x17″ roll). Perhaps Rosco or some of their dealers might sell larger ones directly, but they aren’t exactly making that easily known. The example link above includes a photo of what the author says is a 4×4′ of the gel in a standard frame so it must be possible, assuming all info is correct. I also don’t think that it would be a very practical item for rental houses to stock with their standard gel expendables, due both to gel cost and the fact they’d have to supply multiple glass filters in varying sizes on top of that for the system to work.
It’s one of those things that I always want to try out but never really get around to putting in the effort to do so since it’s not easily acquirable for testing.
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I haven’t had humidity be a problem in any LED’s I use. Granted, I’m not based in Florida or someplace that has extreme levels of humidity, but besides a large gathering of precipitation, I’ve never heard of standard humidity being a real problem with LEDs specifically, at least not any more so than many other production tools like electronic ballasts for HMIs or something akin to that.
I could see how theoretically fans might let a bit more airborne precipitation into the light, but again, never heard of that specifically being a problem in LEDs. Most suppliers either publish or would answer an inquiry as to the IP rating of their product, that should give you at least a good start on easing your mind with regards to how much weather protection it needs.
I don’t know which fixtures you’re looking at, but I’d personally only consider a handful of instruments that had a fan built in, for both audio and performance reasons. The new Litepanel Astras for instance, have a fan but in my experience the noise is pretty much imperceptible in real-world conditions. They do however, start to cut down on power and thus brightness to the light if you turn the fan off. On some other fixtures, the fan makes a sound you can definitely hear. Fans can also go wrong fairly easily and emit some type of clicking sound or something else that just might make things a bit more difficult. I much prefer units with robust metal heat-sinks. Yes, they run a bit warmer and are heavier, but if you can deal with that easily, there’s much less compromise and fewer moving parts to go bad.
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I’m in a similar position Todd, I have been weighing whether or not to purchase a couple of Astras for a couple months now. I’ve used them as rental items or from other DP’s kits for a while now, and here are the Pros and Cons to me:
PRO – The output and color. MUCH improved from the previous 1×1 panels. The highest-end Astra do indeed put out about 4x the light of the previous one, and it is BRIGHT. I used them last year on a CNN gig to light Richard Branson in his new hotel and in one scene only had time to knock one into the ceiling and pray…and it looked like there was a large skylight in the room, just bathed the whole room in a ton of “daylight”. It is impressive.
Color is also excellent, the previous ones had a tendency to go very green, these are much better. New TLCI scores are in the high 90s, which is excellent.
CONS – Build quality and size. Your description is pretty much correct, it’s basically a large plastic shell on the back and not incredibly durable from my experience, especially around the power pin. If this thing takes a dive, it’s probably over.
The size is also an issue, at least from an owner/operator standpoint. While the main light unit is still indeed 1×1, the AC and battery plate is now below the light itself, which then makes the yoke and overall footprint much larger than a typical 1×1. This makes them very difficult to case without a pretty large hard pelican one or something akin. I’ve seen some guys case them individually in a small bag designed to carry a mixer, but that wouldn’t provide REAL protection and is pretty much unthinkable for air travel.
Hope this helps, I’m still looking at all my options myself!
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Two questions:
When you say two-person interview, do you mean two cameras, like a cam on reporter and talent in two OTS shots or two interviewees side-by-side in the same shot?
Is REAL diffusion of the silk/frost/grid variety off the table for some reason? Or getting, say, an 8x with single and double netting flavors to strategically place behind subject in lieu of gelling windows? Just trying to get a sense of limitations..
Bounce cards could work, though I think you’d have to use both Jokers on the same card to be a key source and then use a bit of foamcore or such to bounce some fill. Unless your background out the window is in HEAVY shadow, I doubt a single 400w Joker would give enough punch when bounced. If you have a LOT of ambient daylight coming in, you can go harder with the light than you might normally since there will be so much natural fill to soften shadows. Negative fill is also a consideration in such ambient-light heavy locations, you maximize your lumens by using both jokers to fight the windows then simply put the negative fill right out of frame to shape the faces as much as possible.
I’ve been able to fight a space like this with a bounced 1200 par and negative fill, Jokers really pack a punch, a dedicated 800w one can more than hold its own with many 1200’s, I’d imagine 2 400w ones would probably get you relatively close to that.
If you’re dead set on really cheap diffusion, bedsheets or curtain shears could also work in a pinch and HMI’s don’t get nearly as hot as tungsten so I wouldn’t worry so much about overheating them.