[Erik Anschicks]

Hi Larry –

Since you described this is for outdoor work, I would first ask what your general budget, crew situation, and experience level with this type of shooting is. Reason being is that a (relatively) high degree of control over outdoor elements usually necessitates heavy, bulky gear, i.e. butterflies, overheads, combo stands, grip gear. Also, when doing this type of thing, safety is paramount and you absolutely need someone who knows what they’re doing with it! So my first recommendation would be ideally to hire a couple (or more) grips that are proficient in rigging and know the proper ways to tie off/safety items.

Also, what is the programming type? Is it narrative/ficitonal? Documentary? Run and Gun?

In any event, aside from standard grip gear for the outdoors – meaning combo stands, grip heads/rigging, PLENTY of sandbags, etc…here are some of my go-to items outdoors – you can find all of these navigating through the grip section of filmtools.com.

– I love using Ultrabounce. Usually in 6×6 or 8×8 sizes (as I prefer with most rags that aren’t overheads). It provides a very strong, wide bounce that can then be softened with frames if needs be.

– Checkerboard Rags. I prefer the silver/gold combination since I’ve found that it warms up the talent nicely when bouncing direct sunlight.

– Griffylon. Just a standard black/white rag that can be a white bounce or negative fill. Or even raingear over the talent’s head as it is reasonably waterproof!

– For diffusion, I like Silent Frost or Silent Grid Cloth (in varying thickness). As the name suggests, it is diffusion but in more of a plastic-like material that stays silent. It doesn’t crinkle in the wind.

– If you want an overhead, most any standard silk does just fine. Just depends on how thick you want it to be. The size depends on your coverage needs.

If your needs are much smaller, then 4×4 open frames skinned with any type of diffusion (including those above) and floppy cutters will do for the basics as others have suggested on this thread. Anyone else, chime in!

[Erik Anschicks]

Bob, hopefully that was “interesting choices” in a good way 🙂

Keeping interview talent comfortable in the sense you describe is always a case-by-case basis for me. Speaking strictly from the perspective of gear amount I can’t say that I necessarily go out of my way to do so (aside from issues of heat/temperature). I also don’t think I’ve ever heard about anyone expressing such discomfort. I certainly concur with John though, being personable and easy to work with is always a must. Hopefully funny and charming too!

I do usually keep my subject lighting (fairly) minimal, which itself might lessen any potential intimidation factor. I use as large a soft source as I can from one side of the face and often don’t use fill, or if I do it’s a subtle, passive bounce. I never use an actual light for fill on a single-subject interview unless I absolutely have to! I will often times eschew backlight as well, preferring instead to light the background behind the subject’s head, which accomplishes the same task and often looks better to me. So generally the subject doesn’t really have much staring them in the face to be intimidated by.

I’m curious as to what others’ answers to your hypothetical scenario would be!

Erik

[Erik Anschicks]

Bill was correct in his reply to my earlier post that the color spectrum lacking in these LED’s is the key issue and yes, it is more complicated than just putting on minus green. However, your comment seemed like you understood that the lights aren’t great, so minus green is a solution to help with what you have.

To the other question about using them on paid gigs, yes I do. But I rent them. I’ve found that unless the LED is SUPER high-end, and therefore jaw-droppingly expensive, you are going to run into some issues. From my (somewhat limited) personal experience with them, the TruColor or the new Aadyntech ones are great, but you’ll pay and arm and a leg for them and that’s just not feasible for a great many shooters. Anything less than that, I’ve been disappointed with relative to what they cost. I realize that’s painting with broad strokes as bit as I’ve not used every brand out there and some may be great (heard great things about the Locasters, for instance), but with the Litepanels or Dedolight ones for instance, I’ve found them to have some green issues and have had to fight in matching them to other units I am using.

At the end of the day, I love the issues of power/heat they solve, but not at the cost of thousands if it’s not giving me a look I’m very happy with.

[Erik Anschicks]

Not sure about post as it’s not my forte, but an easy on-set fix is to get some 1/8 or 1/4 minus green gel and gel your LED’s with that. The eighth should be all you need for most cases. Much easier than fighting that battle in post and a couple sheets of it will cost you around 15-20 bucks.

[Erik Anschicks]

Hi Bob –

Interesting worst-case scenario…I’ll bite 🙂

Camera gear would be left to other crew member, as I said, I generally don’t bring it anyway. As I also stated, we ALWAYS hire a soundman wherever we go (but if pressed, I’d throw a Sony 77 wired lav in my backpack). So that leaves lighting and grip. I’d have 2 carry-ons, a photo backpack and a small Pelican.

In my Pelican 1510 rolling case, I can fit my 750w Arrilite and two Tiny Moles lamped with 250w. I also generally put a few clamps like mini cardellinis, mafers, and gaffers in there, plus small diffusion/gels. I can generally toss in a 25′ extension cord or 2.

For stands, the most useful lightweight location stands I’ve found are Matthews reverse stands. They can fold as small as 22″ long/ 2.5″ diameter, take an 11 lb. load, and I can clip two to my backpack (which would house my shooting monitor, extra batts, perhaps a few other BNCs, gaff tape, blackwrap, and odds and ends). So at this point, I can load up my Arrilite with diffusion (if my Chimera is MIA) and have a great key and 2 small lights for back/background lights. Put 2 on the stands, find a desk or whatever would work to clamp the 3rd onto a cardellini/mafer. On my home depot run, I’d grab a couple of small line dimmers, stingers, an assortment of 15 – 60w practicals, and some LED cabinet/”puck” lights that are battery-operated.

At the interview locale, I have 3 options: 1: Choose a room where I can use window light as a key and bring up the background as best I can however that may be, 2: find a room, probably an office, that has interior windows that look out to a workspace/cafeteria or something that takes care of a background, then use my 2 moles to fill the gaps, or 3: In addition to the Moles, I scrounge up as many table lamps as I can find, put them on a desk/something akin in the background, and rig them with the practicals and dimmers to get some more controllable background light…probably even use 1 or 2 in the shot. A lamp with a slightly dimmed 15w practical in it can look lovely in the shot, it won’t blow out. If I need some more pops of light, I can temporarily stick a couple of the LEDs anywhere in the background. Tighten up the interview shot to a CU and all this should be perfectly sufficient if it’s a worst-case scenario where my checked gear doesn’t show up! I can then just use the Arrilite to fill in where broll at the workspace is needed.

[Erik Anschicks]

Hi Ben-

I have shot hundreds, if not thousands of hours with the EX-3 over the last 4 or 5 years and I can say that it is a superb camera. One of the only things I don’t love is its native image settings, but if you start playing around with the picture profiles for different looks, you’ll be really amazed at what you can do. I’ve built multiple looks into them to compliment certain environments and in some cases match the look of other cameras and they are pretty effective.

When shooting ENG style, I use it with a lectrosonics wireless lav kit, a litepanels Croma LED camera light, and a Sachtler video 14 tripod and it’s a great little kit.

I could go over more of the pros/cons, but it would be pretty lengthy and might not go over what you’d want. But I’ve spent a TON of time with this camera in about every situation you could imagine (including putting on different lenses), so feel free to ask any specifics.

Erik

[Erik Anschicks]

Yeah, that’s kind of the way I was leaning as well. I figure that it is so seldom that I’ll be required to gel a whole window for the view in a sight unseen circumstance (or at least without prior heads-up that such could be the case) that it doesn’t warrant lugging a full roll. I’ll probably just bring a couple of sheets of it to use it on a portion of a window if needs be, they fit easily into the gelly roll.

I too share your preference for the 85ND gel…it’s really funny, THAT is the piece of equipment in my arsenal that impresses newbies/younger crew the most. Not a camera, lenses, HMIs, nope, that guy! It blows their minds that something like that exists…not to get off on a tangent but I can’t believe how “grip illiterate” so many people on the visual side of this industry are nowadays. Too much worrying about “what light do I choose” and not nearly enough of “how do I control it”!

In the same vein, do you or anyone else regularly use Roscoscrim as opposed to ND? I’ve barely used it but I had thought the other day in a location that the Roscoscrim could “hide in plain sight” because it so closely resembles the sun shades I’ve seen installed in restaurants, offices, and the like. The main issue with gelling windows is keeping them flat, clean, and immobile, and if one just hung the roscoscrim as they would a window treatment, couldn’t it reasonably pass for such without the hassle of the aforementioned gel issues?

[Erik Anschicks]

Hi Bill –

Yes, I agree that a small instrument like a Tota would be good for those applications. I personally prefer the Mole nooklite simply because I like having yokes on lights a bit better than not…and also because I’m a Mole “guy” I guess! Since they take up little space, it might not be a bad idea to just toss one in.

Also (not just for Bill), when it comes to grip gear, do you guys find that traveling with 85ND gel or Roscoscrim (in rolls) is necessary if you don’t know what you’re walking into? I’m torn, because I can think of a bunch of times that I really wished I had it…but was always able to make it work, either by simply not using the window or insisting on another room. For what it’s worth, my background is from the G&E dept, so I can rig/build/gel/problem solve quite quickly.

[Erik Anschicks]

Hi John!

Wow, thanks for such a quick and detailed reply! Allow me to clarify a few things:

I do a lot of work in sports and political doc-type programming for clients like Comcast, Big 10, WTTW (PBS), Lucas Oil. I am not generally the point man for bringing the main camera, audio or anything not related to lighting/grip. I might bring my DSLR as like a C-cam or something akin sometimes, but generally the producer brings the A-camera package they want, including the client monitor. A sound man is always hired. So some of what you had in your example doesn’t really apply in most cases for me (though its a good roster as a reference!).

So I guess what you are saying is that the lighting roster I initially planned is NOT too much? Costs/logistics aside, would the 6 lights (2x source fours, pocket pars, moles/peppers) be a bit of overkill if they’re primarily background lights?

I have no problem fighting for what I would like to bring and I have in fact told one of these clients “no” multiple times when they wanted something that was literally a technical impossibility. I just wanted to mainly see if the initial ideas I had were, generally speaking, reasonable amounts for the type of clients I have and would like to expand with.

As it stands, I would check the following:

1 – large porta brace hard case housing the 2 source fours, pocket pars, and the small tungsten w/ scrims and maybe a couple cords. Definitely going overweight, but not really avoidable.

1 – long case housing a few stands but mainly grip items and gels

1 – case for 6x light stands

1 – Rock n Roller cart

[Erik Anschicks]

I also wanted to add that I discovered this forum by total chance a few weeks ago and have really enjoyed reading through a lot of it. Some great ideas here!