Frank Otto
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ADO cube, squeeze-zoom and quad bus split. And the ever popular chromakey over cheezy Liquid light-wet show/pop art that the art director of the label (a child of the sixties) was insistant about being so hip.
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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Not a problem, Todd…
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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Matt:
Within your budget and experience, I’d check out the kits online at B&H Photo. In addition to the prices, you’ll get an idea of what goes into a kit and what some of the fixtures and accessories look like and are used for. Also check out Lowell Light for more ideas on kits and information on use.
After you get an idea of what’s out there – use the net for some comparison shopping.
Some of us on in this forum are big proponents of the flouresent systems – Kino Flo, Biax from Mole and others. These type of fixtures give off a soft light with virtually no heat and are great for interviews and product work where you need a wide, soft source. At this point, probably out of your budget, but worth learning about.
To translate the jargon from Todd’s information:
“maybe a small fresnel w/ barn doors-100 to 300 watt for a kicker or special”
A kicker is a light that give a highlight or a kick to your subject- can be from the side , top or back. A special is any light used for effect, such as a slash or a glow on a wall – even an eyelight might be described as a special. Sometimes even a hairlighgt is refered to as a special if it has an effected color or other device attached. Projectors, disco lights strobe, cop flashers – those are all specials as well.
“a couple of china balls for key”
Orignally a derivitive of the “Chinese Lantern”, a circular shade surrounding a lamp, a china ball is a globe like device – sometimes made of paper or heat resistant cloth or thermoplastic – with a lighting fixture or lamp inside. The effect is a soft, omnidirectional light.
Another way to get the soft source light is to use a ‘Chimera” or a soft box. This is a device that attaches to the source light, and looks much like a box witrh a large front area of a diffusion materal.
“a roll of black wrap and c-47’s(clothspins)”
Blackwrap is a higher density aluminum foil that has been annodized black – used to cut light, stop light leaks, make flags, extend barndoors and even make the occasional effect as a cukelotoris or ‘cookie” – a device used to make interesting shadows or break up light into patterns.
C-47’s are just standard wooden clothespins, used to clip sheets of diffusion, gel, foam core or blackwrap on to lights.
“a couple of special color gels and some diffusion, 250, opal, etc..”
Gels are color media that are placed in front of the light to create a look or, to correct and balance the color of the light. Balancing gels are usually blue (to correct incandescent – quartz light) to daylight color ( 5200 kelvin color temp), or a varient of amber/orange/pink to correct daylight sources to incandescent-quartz (3200 kelvin color temp) Those colors are also used to cool down or warm up a light as an effect. Most lighting guys also carry “party colors” – these are sheets of pure color gels used for effects like an orange slash on a wall, a magenta kick or hair light for a redhead or blonde hair type…
Opal is a kind of diffusion. You have two types of basic diffusion – spun or hard. Hard is a gel like material, usually more dense. Spun is softer, like cloth. Both have similar diffusion properties but vary in amounts of light transmitted and softness of the light on the subject.
“oh get or make a couple of dimmers that you can put practical lights into”
You can purchase individual dimmers or as many do, build them…use a single wall box fitting, then a 600w to 1kw dimmer is then fitted to the box and a set of “pigtails” – a set of in/out ac cables with plugs are attached to the dimmer and thru the box.
Hope this helps…
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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Check for a ground issue. You may have a difference of “ground potential” between the machines – one of the symptoms of ground problems is a moving horizontal band..
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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The Kramer is your better deal.
As far as stripping cale – make pigtails – bare leads to rca/in and attach those to the switcher then attach your rca cables normally.
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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Regardless of the delivery method – online, off-air, newspaper/print, etc., if you didn’t create the image, you don’t have any right to use it other than to view it for your personal enjoyment.
Public domain only occurs if 1: you give up the rights to your works and specifically grant unfettered use to the work; or, 2: The work has lasted the life of the creator PLUS 75 years and has not been reassigned.
A work published is just that – published.
An alternative would be to buy a royalty-free set of the same type of images – there out there and will save you problems in the long run.
Of course, you could alweays use them and take your chances…not smart given the current trend toward pursuing copyright cases…but…
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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[Kinzilla] “Do I have to go into the garage to build Batteryzilla?”
Yes…unless you’ve got the big bucks for a solar array. Then you’re back to not being portable. There are commercial alternatives to the home brew unit – but they’re not cheap.
Seriously – MCL had a cart I built for E.N.G. use that had 4 12vdc/120amp Marine batteries, and 2 2000w. (1750w. actual) Triplite(c) solid state inverters (designed for communications systems – filtered ac output).
Each inverter had a quad box attached to the cart for distro. Cart was a modified vertical hand truck with a vented enclosure on the base/tongue for the batteries – charger and inverters were mounted via rack rails welded to the cart frame and a marine switchover was wired to the system for the charger and to use the rack as a distro for ac/shore power when charging.
A marine shore power t.l. connector fed ac – one of two 50′ ac cable ran power, one with a pbg connector, the other just tails. Overkill – yes, but it was designed to work for many odd situation, including being strapped to the top of a van, back of a truck, helicopter mounted or on a boat.
We ran up to 4 500w. lights (2 per inverter) and the occasional 1k pan – sometimes a microwave hop was part of the rig.
Total available output was around 3200w. with a full load running time of aprox. 4 hours continuous.
I believe you can do it simpler and for less. Our cost in 1979 dollars was around 800.00 for batteries, 600.00 for the inverters and around 200.00 for the hand truck and modifications. Conversly, the ENG Corp sold one that had half the output for around 2500.00
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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Try to get a filtered power supply – a slight flicker possibilty exists with the “multivibrator” types of dc supplies.
And, of course, be sure that the output of the supply is adequate for the amperage of the light(s).
I used a set-up like that years ago, with up to four 25w. Cool-Lux heads off a 200w. filtered DC supply. Additionaly, I punched four holes in the case, disconnected the barrier teminals in front and added four fused 4-pin XLR connectors. Sort of like a power supply for an original Dedolight.
The biggest problem will be with the the cable – too much of a run from light to power supply could put too much resistance on the connection. I used coiled communications cable, 12/2/shielded/ – 7’extended/3’retracted on each fixture with no more than 10′ of extention ( 12/2 straight, shielded w/xlr-4’s on each end) per light. The shielding may have a purpose such as grounding to the power supply if you wire it that way and it may reduce r.f. — I just used it because it was available and had the right sized internal cable.
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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Voltage.
ARSDB1K is a 120 vac unit, ARSDB1KX is 220 volts – sockets,plugs and lamps are different. Note the 650 watt lamp – CP89 is rated at 220vac, FRK is rated at 120vac.
Cheers,
Frank Otto
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Altman makes a good product.
I’ve used Altman fixtures off and on…it’s always been a matter of cost or availibility for the project – some studios and facilities also in the budget mode bought them as a less expensive alternative to the Century units. Sometimes you just use what comes with the box you’re in or the truck that’s sent to you.
Historically, Altman has compeated with Century, Kleigl, Ianiero, Times Square and Colortran, primarily in the area of theatrical light – just recently they’ve been producing “portable” fixtures for television. The Altmans’ structural quality compares well with the Arri fixtures – neither are as robust as a Mole unit.
The choice of kits is really dependent on what your needs are – do you need two equal wattage lights or do you need a mix of wattages? The Jr. Softlight is adaquate for some set ups and it has an eggcrate as an accessory which will help in the control- a soft box on a larger wattage fixture would be a better choice, again a cost issue.
– but for a first kit, it works.
Cheers,
Frank Otto