[Todd Terry]

Well, we’re not there, but go anywhere.

Well almost. I declined a shoot in Calgary in January… I’m a warm weather guy.

Still unpacking from a shoot in Texas last week.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Rick is right, as he most usually is.

In an exterior situation like this, reflectors are your friends. Of course you could use lighting intruments, but in an open agricultural field in broad daylight (especially sunlight) you’d need real REAL firepower in order to do anything. We’re talking HMIs, and not little ones either, I’d say at least an 1800 if not a 4K. And that means big heavy expensive instruments and likely a generator.

There are not any LEDs that are going to have anywhere near enough punch for that kind of use in daylight/sun. Maybe the couple of biggest instruments made by Movofilms and Aadyntech, but that’s about it and those are the only two battery-powerable HMI-equivalent instruments I know of). Unless you can put something like a 4x or 6x LitePanels Astra really close to talent, LEDs are not going to be the way to go.

You’ll be much better off with bounced light. With a small crew, I’m going to suggest much less than Rick was proposing. For wider shots, I’d probably just go with available light. It’s the closeups that I’d worry about, tighter shots where those shaded-by-the-brims faces are in a dark cave. In those instances you can use much smaller reflectors because you can put them relatively close to the talent. I’d try just a plain white 4×4 bounce card or two, there’s no prettier reflected light than that (and don’t order such from Filmtools or whatever your usual vendor is, because both the pricing and shipping will be killer… just go to a sign shop and have them sell you a blank 4’x8′ sheet of white foamcore and have them cut it in half for you).

You can get a great deal of illumination from bounced light like that, more than most people would think. But you need to be very judicious with it, because the easiest way to get light onto faces under headgear and from bend-over talent will be to bounce light up at them. That works, just be very careful with it. Bouncing light up at a person’s face is usually not extremely flattering or natural looking, and if you overdue it even a smidge people will start to take on that creepy Boris Karloff look. It’s a fine line.

As for backlighting, as much as I like backlighting this is probably one of those instances where I’d probably just forgo it, or block shots so that the sun is my backlight. Remember that expecially for exteriors a backlight will need to be quite a bit more powerful than your key light to even read, so it would take an instrument with some real punch. I don’t think a Joker 200 would do much of anything if you have direct sunlight. Maybe a JokerBug 800 with a beamer on it or a 1200w HMI (PAR or fresnel, I personally like fresnels) could help, but you’d still need to be putting it relatively close to talent… and will need to power it.

I think bounced light is going to be your friend.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Bob Mark] “To my surprise they didn’t care about bars and tone.”

This is pretty much the norm these days (99% of what we produce are broadcast commercials, so I deal with this pretty often). In fact, I can’t even remember the last time we delivered something with bars, tone, countdown, or slate of any kind. That would have been back in the tape days… and we have racks of decks that haven’t even been turned on in years.

Not only do most stations/cable outlets not request bars/slates… a great many of them actually forbid them. Uploading of spots, especially for cable systems, is now a very automated thing… and many/most require, for example, that a 30 second spot is exactly 30 seconds. As in 900 frames. One particular national cable system that we upload to daily will kick back a spot that is 899 frames… or 901 frames. They require it to be right on the money.

And yes, different recipients require different specs… so it’s always prudent to find out. We maintain a big “upload bible” which is an electronic document with lots of specs in it. Since upload requirements often change, I leave this document on our server here so anyone in the building can access it and always have the latest version, rather than individuals working off their own personal lists. This master file is a list of every television station and cable outlet that we deliver to (and a few movie theaters), and lists the specs as to whether they prefer 1080 or 720, file type, preferred audio level/type, as well as all of the FTP upload protocols for each. Fortunately I’d say 95% of them or more request exact same specs (usually 1080i upper field first mpeg2 .mpg files) so it’s not too difficult, but every now and then there’s some rogue station that requires something else.

Always best to check…

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Again, another mysterious post.

How would you know the “app looks quite decent”? The OP didn’t give even give the name of the app, any details, or where to get it…. and you coudn’t go try to track him or it down because he is no longer a COW member (deleted user).

But yet here is an out-of-the-blue positive response to a 6+ month-old post, from a brand-new just-signed-up first-time poster with absolutely zero “about” user info.

Sniff sniff… what’s that Mom’s cooking? Ah… smells like Spam….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

1) Yes your grid can be close to the ceiling, as long as it is not RIGHT up against it. You need room for electrical connections, hangers on instruments, etc. In the “olden days” you had to worry about heat as well, but you might be creating a space that uses only flos or LEDs so heat is not a real concern. A grid is just criss-crossed pipe or even electrical conduit, usually held together at the intersections with U-bolts (or regular bolts drilled through). The benefit of a grid is that you can put lighting instruments anywhere. If you went with your permanent attach points, you’d be limited to putting instruments exactly at those places… and you have no way of knowing where you’ll be needing instruments ahead of time. Especially since you are creating a space for rental use, you have no way to predict where your renters will be wanting to hang lights either, so that’s not a good solution. A grid is the way to go.

2) 10′ is the common width. I’m not aware of any wider. That’s what I use.

3) That kind and size of studio space would be most useful for commercials (which is what I do), and corporate type work. You probably won’t be getting any feature filmmakers in there.

4) Just depends on what kind of look I’m going for. If I want a black “limbo” look I use the existing black cloth cyc. If I want a white or gray seamless look, I roll down a backdrop. If we are compositing, I roll down a green or blue screen. Those are the permanently-installed ones… other backdrops or set pieces we put up as needed. It just depends on the project and what the concept is and the desired look that is needed.

Back to where you were talking about what lighting instruments to buy… since this is rental space apparently for other people’s projects and not your own… you can always rent your stage as “dry,” meaning just the space, and without any lighting or grip equipment. That is commonplace especially at big studio-rental spaces, where their base rate is really just to rent the space and nothing else… and the renter provides all their own camera, support, lighting, and sound gear. Many of them also have lighting/electrical/grip departments where they can rent you lighting or whatever à la carte, or refer you to nearby grip houses that provide exactly what you need. It’s actually a little unusual to rent stage space and it automatically come with all the lighting, grip, and support equipment included and ready to go.

And yes you can include a picture… just click the “image upload” icon just above the reply box (it’s the next-to-the-far-right one in the row of icons), select “Choose File” to find the picture you want and then hit “Upload Image.” After it uploads, make sure it is selected in the column of things on the right-hand side of the pop-up window (although since this is your first upload, there won’t be any other things there), and then copy all the text in the box that says “embed.” Then past that text in the window when you are writing your reply. Sounds like a lot of steps, but after you do it once you’ll see that it is easy.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

1) The height is ok. A lot of big stages have 20′ ceilings or more, but there are plenty with 14′ and you’re in that neighborhood. If you ever watch The Late Late Show with James Corden, that is shot in Studio 56 at CBS, and even though that is a network show with a sizable studio audience, in reality that stage only has a 14′-deck-to-grid height, but it looks much bigger because of how they shoot it. Basically the bigger the stage the higher your ceiling should be, and while you have a pretty decent size there, it’s not 10,000 square feet either, so realistically would you ever be shooting something so big and wide that your ceiling is too low?… probably not. I think you are fine there, it’s certainly a better stage situation than I have here at my place.

2) I have no idea what kinds/types of things you are planning to shoot, so it’s hard to say… but it’s probably adequate for many uses. If you are planning to do automotive shooting with multiple vehicles then probably not… but for many things it’d be fine.

3) Hire a DP or gaffer to come in and look at the space and give you recommendations. I can’t stress this enough. Asking that question lets me know you don’t know much about lighting (not that there is anything wrong with that, we all can’t know everything), so you are asking a very basic starting-from-scratch question for which there is no easy answer. It’s a bit akin to saying “I’m building a building, what kind of pipes should I buy?” Get a pro in there, pay them for at least a half-day’s work, talk about your potential projects and kinds of productions that will happen there, hash out a budget, and see what they have to say. Getting that consult will be the best money you can spend.

4) I don’t know of any “paper cycs” in existence… other than seamless paper rolls. We have a number of those in a roller system for quick backdrops. Seamless photographic background paper is typically 10′ wide.

5) Yes, textiles are often used for both sound and backdrops. Our stage has a curved “L” shaped black cloth cyc that runs along two sides.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

And… does it have to be whole milk?

We usually buy 2%.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

With the internet these days and all the roaming spiders, there simply is no “under the radar” anymore.

And the “I have a dream” footage is, as Mark noted, one of the most heavily protected (and expensive to get) clips out there. And in that instance, the rights holders are very very very litigious about it.

Play it safe.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Yeah, I’m with Mark.

Sorry Blaise, but I’m not buying the defense. It may have become a common practice, but to my eyeballs it is still very very jarring and very wrong.

I suppose I’ve gotten used to seeing worse things before, still don’t like it though.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well Mark… couple points…

1) First of all, I totally agree with you, that technique is “wrong” and just plain jarring. I believe that goes a bit hand-in-hand with the other cutaways we are often seeing, the behind-the-scenes or “setup” cutaways, where a talking head of someone being interviewed is cut away to a wider shot that shows the whole room with the myriad assortments of lights and cables and grip gear. The first time I saw that I wanted to scream “Why????” because it made no sense to me… although I did on occasion like seeing how the lighting plots were designed. At least though it doesn’t break any “rules” and does follow the language of film. It is still weird though, nonetheless.

This other technique, though, I just can’t wrap my brain around. Why you would ever cut from talent speaking to camera to another shot where they were not does nothing but baffle me. It’s a puzzler. And it’s just plain wrong. I’m a huge fan of “Dateline” on NBC (and I would gladly listen to Keith Morrison read the phone book for an hour), but we’re beginning to see that “wrong” technique on the intros to each segment of that show. I haven’t noticed it happening with Lester-Holt-hosted weekly prime time shows… but they have now syndicated Dateline into nightly versions and have new non-Lester-Holt talent doing the intros, and they always do that gawd-awful cut to a “B” camera while the talent is still talking to the “A” cam. Wrong wrong wrong.

2) Rant about it as much as you like, but I don’t think this technique is going away any time soon. I think it is unfortunately gaining traction rather than losing it. But it still makes zero sense to me.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com