Rick Wise
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COW Coin
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A lot of how much power you need for a back/hair light depends on your visual preference. My own is: you shouldn’t see it, but if it were not there you’d see the difference. In other words, very, very light. A 650 is usually overkill, but can be scrimmed down. It’s also useful to have a set of half-scrims so that if the subject is wearing a dark jacket and has light hair, or, the revers (dark hair with light shirt) you can wire off the light part of the scene and leave the dark part full bore.
In general, I find 1/2 blue plenty of correction to a tungsten unit when shooting daylight. Warmth looks great on any hair with red in it. On the other hand, a silver-haired subject will benefit from a slightly blue hair light.
As was pointed out in another post a while back, putting a squeezer (variac or other dimmer) on your hair light and placing the control by the camera allows you to vary the intensity quickly. Just remember that when you dim down a tungsten unit, it warms up, color-temperature wise. Like almost everything else in this biz, there are trade-offs to consider.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Are you sure about the minus green in Lee 188? I can find no such reference on Lee’s web; the effect of a little warming does, in effect, remove some green, but that’s not the same as adding minus green. For the Divas, that little warmth is probably all it takes. For the Cool Lights, you would need to also add minus green, I suspect.
Mixing some soft diffusion with the warmth certainly saves having two different gels. Great idea.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
The main issue could be green spikes. The Divas themselves tend to have a bit of a green spike when they got hot (burning face down, for instance) but otherwise burn true color. I don’t know the Cool Lights first-hand but I strongly suspect they will have something of the dreaded green spike. Their CRI is only 87. That said, if you have some 1/8 and 1/4 minus-green gels, you can mostly correct that spike. The difference in cost is huge.
If money is OK, I’d go for the Divas. Otherwise, the Cool Lights plus some gels. (Beware of over-correcting.)
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
I’ve had no hands-on experience with these lights. I have found almost every non-KinoFlo unit has a green spike. You can roughly correct that with 1/8 or 1/4 minus green. Also, this kit includes full daylight to tungsten conversion gels, but the effective way to go is to replace the daylight bulbs with tungsten bulbs.
Fluro type bulbs can be very useful. However, they are all broad, relatively soft lights and next to useless when you want hard hits, sharp shadows.
If you can figure out that your shooting will be mostly in daylight situations, then you might put together a smaller but more effective kit for a similar price. On the other hand, you can begin here, with this kit. Just be sure to get a bunch of 1/8 minus green sheets (better would be a roll) that you can double or triple to correct the green spike, assuming these units have such. Later you can add a Joker or other HMI, as budgets permit.
For exteriors, it usually takes a lot of wattage to have any impact against sunlight, so you may be better off adding grip equipment. One place to start is the Sunbounce reflective and also diffusing rigs. Or else go for an 8×8 and 12×12 frame with various diffusion (1/2 grid), high-rollers, sand bags, and reflective goods. Any time you use such grip gear outdoors, you need several extra hands to make sure they don’t blow over and cause serious damage to people and objects.
If, on the other hand, your shooting will be mainly night time, or deep interiors without any daylight, a tungsten package would be a better way to go.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Sorry I missed your original post. Two-perf is the same as “Techniscope,” a short-lived but delightful format. I shot a feature on it many years ago and loved the frame. Obviously one of the other advantages of 2 perf is one roll of 35mm film last twice as long as 4-perf. One of the director/cameramen in the San Francsico Bay Area has at least one 2-perf camera which he uses for stylized b-roll. And he has talked Spy Post (https://www.spypost.com/), into figuring out how to transfer this footage.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
If you want to go to AVCHD you MUST upgrade to the latest version of Vegas. I’m not sure what the recording time is on the HG20. But check it out. Probably about the same as recording to tape on the HV30. To my mind, having a physical tape as a master storage medium has some distinct advantages over disk or some version of flash cards. With the latter, once you have filled up the card/disk, you have to download it to some other medium, usually a computer. Then you have to erase the master. After that you can go on shooting. With a tape system, you simply eject the old tape and insert the new, and continue shooting.
There are other options, but given your budget, sounds to me like the HV30 would be a simple and effective solution. If you go for the HG20 you must also factor in upgrading your Vegas, which in itself is not a bad thing to do.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Yes I would.
But you’ve added a complication I didn’t notice, since it was not in your original email to me and I didn’t check whether your first post had any changes: the host rises and addresses the audience.
Fortunately, the dimensions of the church (your newest information) allow you to move the lights much further away from the subjects than I had thought. I would work to get a large soft 3/4 back key for the host set far enough away so that when he/she rises, the intensity of light will stay the same as when seated, and the quality will remain pleasing. Ideally, the key for the other person would be placed equally. But, it can be smaller and closer and scrimmed so than when the host rises he/she does not receive too much of the interviewee’s key. Note that in the cross-back key, the key for one person often becomes somelthing of a side-back-light for the other and usually needs to me scimmed so that the back-light portion has way less intensity. If you use an egg create on the keys, you can probably keep the spill as a back-light to a minimum or remove it entirely.
Equally, the fill light needs to be large and soft and far enough away from the host that there is no change in intensity when she/he rises.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
John,
The more I looked into the details and products I needed to cover, the more it became clear the project was way too big for the few dollars the Cow would be able to pay me. So I canceled it.
8′ x 6′ isn’t small, it’s miniscule. No matter what lights you use, you will have a very hard time making this look good.
The kinoflos or equivalent, and the LEDs are both designed for soft light. They can look very pleasing if placed correctly, allowing some shadow. If you want, you can add a 4th hard light to throw a splash of “sunlight” across shoulders, bodies.
With such a tiny space, you are going to have a hard time getting the lights placed where you want them, and getting equal intensity on both people. I suspect your best bet is to cross-key them from 3/4 back.
Attached is a simple diagram not to scale. Instead of the “soft baby” you could use a 3rd Kino or LED as front fill. Just don’t over power the key. Leave some shadow. Note that you will need either to fly the Kinos with C-stands or rig suspended from a bar stretched across the back, or some other thing.
Note also that what is missing here is any light for the background. You may need something there too. You might consider, if possible, adding a “practical” lamp with a shade on a dimmer between them to make it appear that it is this light that is lighting your subjects. That light could also take care of the background, becoming itself a background element. If it throws too much light on the wall behind it (probably will not) you can tape something to the back side of the shade to slow it down.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Thanks, Spot. Good to hear from you!
Rick
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Canon’s HV30 has been on sale at bhphotovideo ($600) and is a terrific little camera, especially when run at 24 or 30 fps. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/539289-REG/Canon_2680B001_VIXIA_HV30_HDV_Camcorder.html#features) Be sure to order an extra battery (largest size) at the same time. This camera records to tape.
From advance reviews, the Canon Vixia HF S10 and S100 are even better, but they are not yet out and will no doubt cost more than your $800 figure. I am guessing the reason the HV30 has dropped so much in price is due to the fact it will soon be replaced by the Vixia models, which record, by the way, to flash memory.
Do you have a tripod?
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com