[Todd Terry]

Since the window is tinted, one suggestion be to skin the back window (from the outside) with green vinyl, and backlight it. Green vinyl is readily available by the foot on a roll from any place that does vinyl signs. You just put it on with a squeegee, heat it with a hair dryer or heat gun to get it to conform to shape, and then peel if off later. If you do it that way, you can backlight the window with however big an instrument you need to get the tinted window at approximately the same brightness as the “bare” greenscreen you see through the open door. If you are a novice at working with the vinyl or afraid you can’t put it on well, drive the vehicle to the sign shop and they’ll do it for you.

I’m not a huge greenscreen fan and would generally rather do a shoot practically if possible, but I just directed a commercial where we had action/dialog in two different cars and I decided to go the greenscreen route rather than tow the cars or have our actors actually drive. One of the cars was a convertible (a sweet ’67 GTO) so that one was no trouble, but I ran into a bit of the same situation as you with a modern SUV…the rear windows were a bit tinted whereas the front ones were not. Even though the green visible through the rear windows was much darker, I still didn’t have any trouble getting clean keys… although we did do it in two layers (one layer keying the lighter shade of green, and another layer keying the other), and just garbage matting out one of them around the window.

Shouldn’t be too hard of a setup and I think you’ll get good results.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hey Mark was there a link or a video or something?

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I’m not sure of the actual brightness of the newest Astras… I’m sure LitePanels has photometrics available on them, probably on their website. B&H probably does too, listed in the specs section for the item.

I find these days (with modern camera) having lights that are “bright enough” is a rare worry. Unless I’m using them on very extraordinarily brightly-lit sets, it would be unusual that I’d use an Astra as a key light in a talking head situation (in a softbox) cranked up more than 30% or so… sometimes a lot less. It would be unusual for me to turn the FotodioX up more than 50%. I rarely if ever use an Astra full blast except for exteriors.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Well I haven’t used the 100-C, but I know enough about them and I’ve used the Astras enough (use them every day) to give a few thoughts about them.

They are both good instruments… I’d say it comes down what what you shoot, how you want to light it, what look you are going for, etc… because the 100-C and Astra Soft are radically different instruments… in fact they are pretty much polar opposites of each other. The Astra Soft is a very soft instrument… very beautiful light, but it is soft and will always be soft, can’t be anything but. It has almost no punch. But if you want a soft head that can be used close to the subject, it gives a great look. The 100-C is the opposite… it’s a hard light, like a fresnel would be. Actually, it’s more like an open-faced tungsten instrument than a fresnel. Hard light. Of course, it could be made soft with modifiers, or bouncing it, but it is naturally hard. As I said, I haven’t used it, but it would obviously be much more punchy than the Astra Soft.

So… as I said, it just depends on how you want to light. Both LitePanels and Hive are great companies and make good products, so there’s no real advantage there brand-wise.

Instead I might suggest the regular Astra, not the Astra soft. It can be made soft, I do that all the time… I recommend the D-Fuse softbox for it. There’s not one made specifically for the Astra, but their generic one fits the Astra perfectly. They are also a very cool pop-up design (just like a reflector), and are dirt cheap to boot. This would allow the Astra to be used for beautiful soft interview light, or take it off for a harder punchier light. Now, it will never be a hard hard light, but it will have a lot more punch than the softened version. They are also very bright… the Astras I have are four times as bright as the original LitePanels 1×1 heads, and I believe they make a 6x version now. And go for the bi-color, it’s worth the fairly insignificant difference.

If you want a dedicated super soft head (like the Astra Soft), I’d consider one of the round flapjack bi-color heads from FotodioX ( https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=C-700RSV ). They are awesome, lightweight, beautiful light, not battery hungry, and just a really neat design…. perfect for soft interviews and head shots etc. I have one that I bought just on a lark, and will probably get more. They are also about a third the price of an Astra.

Just my two cents….maybe someone who has actually used the 100-C can chime in…

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Oh Ben… it’s no crime to mix color temps. Whatever looks good.

Before I went all-LEDs I used to do that frequently… I’d often have a daylight instrument as a key (usually bounced HMI), but a tungsten fresnel as a backlight… often the warmer temp looked very good so I would frequently do that in regular practice.

I usually shoot/DP for myself, but a while back we had a producer in from Vegas that I was shooting for (on an all-tungsten shoot), and he wanted me to CTB the backlight because he liked a cooler look back there, rather than my usual preferred warmer look.

If it looks good, do it!

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hi Ben…

I own a set of two of those Boltzens identical to those. I haven’t had them too long (maybe a couple of months), but the are actually pretty awesome. I have a lot of soft LED fixtures, but was looking for something to give a more fresnel-type usage. These are pretty darn good, and extremely ruggedly built. Nothing cheap or flimsy about them at all.

A couple of notes… I wish they were bi-color, but are daylight only. Not a huge deal. The beam is pretty narrow, even at it’s widest setting. For flood-type usages you can unscrew the front and take out the lens and you have a pretty broad and hard light. The yokes do have built-in umbrella holders. I haven’t used these as we typically use other softer lights for headshots and interviews (usually LitePanels Astras with small D-Fuse softboxes), but that would be a useful and easy way to turn these into soft lights on the run.

They are pretty darn battery hungry when using them full blast, so keep that in mind. In addition to the on-board NP style batteries, you can also power them off bricks (they include a powertap connector), and AC. Some reviews mention the fact that the 55w versions have fans in them, and people bought the lower-power fanless 35w versions instead. Don’t do that. Go for the 55w. The fans could not be more silent, they are practically undetectable. In fact I would say they really ARE undetectable. I was showing these instruments to a friend earlier today, and if you put your ear RIGHT up to the housing you could SLIGHTLY tell there was a fan in there, but not much.

I give them a solid “A” review. I’ve been really happy with them.

If you are looking for soft light instead but still want to travel light, look into the “flapjack” lights by PhotodioX. They are unbelievably thin round LED panels, lit within from the edges. Very beautiful soft light. I have one that I just bought on a lark because I was really curious about them, and fell in love with it pretty fast. Plan to get a couple more.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Dennis beat me to the punch but his advice is right on the money, as usual… I will second everything he said.

I would use real (or prop) neon lights as dressing and set elements, but I’d never use them as my practical light sources. I’d use conventional instruments for that. And Dennis’ idea of using RGB LED fixtures is a genius suggestion, you can dial in the color you need to approximate your neons. And as a plus, because you wouldn’t be worrying about super clean high CRI light, then even cheapo RGB fixtures would be fine… and since the lower-end ones are targeted to the DJ crowd (instead of the deeper-pockets cinematographic crowd), there are very inexpensive ones out there that should do the job nicely.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Tom is on FIRE these days…..

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Bouke Vahl] “Now, did you do your homework?”

Only for the past 30 years.

I typically shoot video 23.976 unless there is the rare occasion that I am shooting for a legitimate film print-out (rare), which I then shoot at true 24fps. Or when shooting 35mm film (also rare these days) I shoot at true 24fps but it is telecined at 23.976. My reference to 24p footage meant, obviously, 23.976.

Homework complete.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Steve Kownacki] “What I figured you would do, Todd, is to BNC your SDI signal for video, and then use a RCA to 3.5 mm plug for your audio direct out of your camera.”

Hey Steve…

Yeah, i get the workflow, and had previously considered that (also considered a component-to-HDMI converter… but I’m trying not to jump through hoops or create a Frankenstein rig). More importantly (and sadly) though, as I said above Canon in its infinite wisdom (along with not embedding audio) chose not to output 24p footage via HD-SDI, only 30/60. So while the audio has an easy workaround….video, not so much.

Fortunately I did find a couple of Firewire recorders… DataVideo still makes one, as does one other company that I was not as familiar with.

Thanks for the input!

T2

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