Peter Rummel
Forum Replies Created
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I think I would get more use out of the 2-300 2-650 option. But I’m thinking interview/small scenes. If you’re going to be shooting, say, stage performances or larger spaces then a 1k would be very useful.
A purchase like this is expensive, and you want to get it right, but it’s not your “final” lighting kit. If you need more powerful or specialty lights for the occasional shoot, then rent them until it makes sense to buy. Either Arri kit would make a fine start.
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I bought the Arri kit you got about 12 years ago, and have used it almost every shooting day since. It’s been the cornerstone of my lighting package – a great deal. The fixtures, stands, and case are all good quality.
But I found the open face 1k too much for most situations. That is a LOT of light to be throwing at someone in an interview. I took it out of the case, and replaced it in the case with a Tota (500-700 watts, depending) and a 100 Pepper. The Tota works with the Chimera, but needs a dedicated speed ring. The Tota can also be used bounced or even direct if needed, unlike a Rifa. I bring the 1k along in another bag if I suspect I’m going to need it.
In the Arri case I’ve also put 2 dimmers, 2 extra stingers, grip clips and various clamps, a round foldable reflector, and a large selection of gels and diffusion. Yes, my lighting case if very heavy – but I have confidence I can handle most situations that come up.
In recent years I’ve added KinoFlos and an HMI to my kit. They do many things beautifully – but the Arri lights are still more useful and versatile
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+1 on the safety note. Don’t do anything too dangerous. A tow rig sounds like a great idea.
It’s easy to light a small scene with a generator and a modest light kit. But then you’re left with a couple of lit characters in a dark, dark hole. The traditional big budget hollywood method of doing “night” is to use unbelievably powerful lights on cranes, gelled blue, to simulate moonlight. I’m guessing you don’t have these resources. I’d recommend staging your locations carefully, with some light source in the background. A country road could have a street light in the background. Maybe a farmhouse, or a small town in the distance? Something to give depth to the scene. As for the characters themselves, if they’re near a car they could leave it’s lights on. Or they could have powerful flashlights. Use your lighting package to supplement these sources. Think back lights. A dark shot sometimes simply looks underexposed – but if you have, somewhere in the frame, a bright source (headlights, distant streetlight) then it more believably reads Night.
I heard once that the “X-Files”, which did a lot of night shots, had the largest lighting package in its day. The point is lighting a night scene is much more involved than a day scene. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.
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Lowel has some interesting products. They’ve taken some standard production tools and made their own versions integrated into a modular system (tota clamp = c clamp, tota-flag = flag, lobo = grip head, etc.). Lowel equipment tends to be lighter weight and has a place in a lighting kit.
When I travel I use Lowel equipment because it’s lighter, is compact, and 220v lamps are readily available for Omnis and Totas.
But I wouldn’t call the Lowel stuff robust. I’ve used many a Lowel kit that’s just falling apart. Every time I use my Omni I have to beat the barn doors back into shape. I’ve replaced the contacts on many a Tota. And don’t get me started on the stands (although some new ones are much better). And, to my way of thinking, open face lights are just less useable than a fresnel.
That’s not to say that Arris are indestructable. But, treated with care, they’ll last a long time.
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Rather than using a Chimera with a 2K, I would suggest some fluorescent fixtures. They use much less electricity and produce much less heat. The quality of light produced by a small Chimera and a KinoFlo Diva 400 is similar.
Many studios have inadequate cooling systems, and/or loud ones. With large tungsten insturments you’re paying a lot to power them, and then paying more to cool down a hot studio. If your intention is to soften the lights with Chimeras, I’d say use fluorescents instead.
The advantage of the fresnel is that it’s more versatile. You can use it with or without the soft box, depending on need.
KinoFlo is the best known manufacturer of fluorescent fixtures.
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Email and texting are not really instant forms of communication. The essence of them is the recipient can reply at their leisure. Call it laziness, rudeness, mulling it over, delaying til a better time, jerking you around – the ball is in the recipient’s court and you must wait for an answer. If you need instant then a phone call is the answer.
I suspect there’s a generational divide here. You find phone calls uncomfortable, but texting and emails are natural. I find phone calls direct, warm and immediate.
Some of your clients seem to respond better to phone calls than other forms of communication. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to work with their work flow, rather than expecting them to work with yours?
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Another thing to consider when choosing between lowels and arris is safety. Lowel omnis and totas have bare bulbs with a safety screen. While exploding lamps are pretty rare, I would not choose one of these fixtures for an operating room. I once worked with a producer who did medical projects exclusively, and he claimed the lowel pro light, with its lamp safely behind glass, was the only lowel certified for operating rooms. An arri fresnel should also be safe.
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I’ve seen this effect, and I’ve talked with the grip who helped on the shoot. It was a very light diffusion fabric on a frame – what it was she didn’t know. They were in a relatively small space but they were able to get the BG way out of focus. It took quite some time to set up.
They had to pump extra light on the objects on the far side of the screen so they’d show up. And, most importantly, they had to make sure there was no light hitting the camera side of the screen.
When I first saw the effect I would have sworn it was a chroma key. The foreground was so removed from the background that it looked like a composite. If you want a defocus effect why don’t you just use a greenscreen? It would be easier and faster to light, and you can choose the level of BG defocus in post.
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What John said. Gels over tungsten lights doesn’t always give you a correct color (see “discontinuous sources”). Lamping your video lights with the same tubes as are overhead will at least get all the lights on the same page.
If you go with the overhead fluorescents and the “poisoned” kinos I would highly recommend a Tiffin FL-D filter (or equivilent). This filter is designed to counter the green spike in commercial fluorescents. It looks very magenta, but if you white balance through it under fluorescents it restores a lot of the natural color.
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Duvetyne and gels give totally different effects. If your aim is to totally block out the light, then duvetyne would be what you want. (Or, as John Sharaf pointed out, anything else opaque). Duvetyne is kind of expensive, easy to pack, and is reusable almost indefinately. It’s also treated with a fire retardant coating. Just sayin’.
You would use gels if you want some light to come through the windows, just not as much. You need the large rolls of gels – using sheets isn’t going to work. ND (neutral density gel – gray gel that doesn’t alter the color of the light) comes in various strengths – .3, .6, .9 and 1.2 (1 stop, 2 stop, 3 stop, 4 stop). There is also ND gel with a CTO color. You would use this if you wanted to change the color of the daylight coming in the windows to a tungsten balance (~3200).
On the DIY front, sometimes instead of an expensive gel you can use a black veil from the fabric store or a porch screen material to knock down the light. This only works if the window is really out of focus, or you’ll see the pattern of the fabric.