Film Lighting
Page 8
Matthew Libatique, ASC
On a bigger set I like to use remote control moving light like Martin MAC 2000 Profile II and Washes, or Clay Pakys. They are focusable moving lights, so you can control them from a dimmer board. We use them to bounce into cards, especially when our set is rigged very high and I’m trying to keep everything off the floor. With the moving lights above, we can focus anywhere in the set onto a bounce card.
Len Levine, gaffer
For moving lights I’ve used Cyberlights for intensity. They are huge. They’re almost as tall as I am and they have a big mirror at the end. Also MAC 2000, as a standard, is powerful for a mover and has a great variety of gobos and colors. Vari-Lites are still the top end and the new ones are remarkably powerful. My new favorite moving light is called the DL.2 [now DL.3] made by High End Systems. Like other movers, you operate it from a dimmer board. It projects anything you can feed into it. It can project by itself or in an intelligent array where it can seamlessly double up for intensity or be a small piece of a large array to fill a giant area. You can have a ray of light hitting a wall; you can project rippling water or fire. It has the standard leaves, iris, and gobos. Another one of my favorite lights is the ColorBlast made by Color Kinetics. It’s roughly a 1 ft. by 4 in. LED light that you can control remotely. You can hide them in a set or use them architecturally and program them for different colors. The real secret to moving lights is a skillful and intuitive board operator. Scott Barnes is responsible for most of my knowledge.
PAR LIGHTS
It was inevitable in the development of film lighting equipment that the light-focusing function of the lens and the compactness and light weight of open-face lights should be brought together. Thus a very important and widely used family of lamps was developed. Their general designation is PAR, which stands for parabolic aluminized reflector. The angle of light for a given bulb is constant. To change this angle, the PAR has to be changed for one with a different beam. There are also PAR lamps with a very narrow angle lens that can be changed by the auxiliary lenses with angle characteristics from narrow to extrawide flood beam.
Within the PAR grouping there are many subtypes, each described by a three letter designation that specifies the variable characteristics, for example, beam width, voltage, wattage, color temperature.
The 1000-watt PAR 64 (3200K) became a favorite lamp for situations requiring a far-reaching, punching beam like street scenes at night.
Mole 5K tungsten PAR light
(courtesy of Mole-Richardson Co.)
James Plannette, gaffer
I think that PARs are absolutely ideal for night shooting. They come as medium flat, wide flat, spot, and narrow spot, whether you use them with a step-up transformer or with the normal 110 volts. They are very directional. In Chinatown they did the whole end sequence with a dozen PAR lights on roofs, etc. John Alonzo did the same on Black Sunday. Shooting night-for-night in San Pedro harbor, they arranged clusters of PAR lights on boats. Each boat had a generator. Three or four boats, with maybe ten PARs on each, moved around like light units.
Mole 1K PAR can
(courtesy of Mole-Richardson Co.)
The most often-used fixture with the 1000-watt PAR is the PAR can. It is a simple aluminum housing for a PAR 1000-watt globe, with a tube in front, to which gels and scrims can be attached. A PAR can equipped with a very narrow spot (VNSP) 1200-watt globe is referred to as a “firestarter,” and for a good reason. One has to be very careful where one points this narrow, hot beam.
M. David Mullen, ASC
I use tungsten PAR cans, especially the firestarter, which has a 1200-watt PAR 64 VNSP globe. For example, I can shine one on a bush outside the window on a soundstage set, and it will be hot and overexposed, as if the sun were hitting it. Or I’ll put it through the window and hit a corner of a chair, or a little bit of the floor, and it will look like a small patch of intense sunlight. I could do something similar with a Source Four using a narrow lens, but it won’t be as bright as the firestarter. However, the Source Four beam will be sharper and more controllable. As the name implies, you have to be careful because the center of the beam from a firestarter is extremely hot.
Richardo Crudo, ASC
PAR cans are a cheap but very smart and versatile tool to have in your kit. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a fix on a set or location where you want to raise the fill level in the room a tiny bit without giving away the source. An easy way to do that is to hide one on the floor somewhere and point it straight up into the ceiling, then dial in what you need with a dimmer. Because the PAR cans throw a very narrow beam, you don’t usually have to cut it or flag its effect.
Wally Pfister, ASC
I use PAR cans all the time. We use them a lot for night exteriors. Sometimes we even bounce them into cards and use them as key lights. I love having that really bright, narrow spot, especially from the firestarter. Sometimes I use them as pools of light. It is a much broader source than the Source Four. Source Four I would use to create a very narrow source and to shrink it down. I would use Source Four for pattern light behind somebody, to create a little pattern on the wall. The firestarters are much more for the broader sort of look.
ARRISUN 60, 6000-watt PAR single-ended HMI lamp
(courtesy of ARRI Group)
Matthew Libatique, ASC
PAR cans are very bright cheap lights. If I have to create a big backlight from a hot source, I can take the PAR cans and either use them to blow something out or position them far away as a backlight. By utilizing distance, you blend the shadows together, and you cheat the use of multiple sources.
For daylight use there are PAR 64 lights in 5600K with 1000-watt and even 1200-watt lamps. In the PAR 36 family of lights the fay lamp (5000K) became best known for its use as daylight fill for exteriors or as a key light in day interior locations.
The most popular instrument using fay globes is the nine-light fixture. The dichroic coating of the globes, which provides the daylight color temperature, is applied on the inside of the lens and it tends to be more stable than the outside coating of the past.
When it comes to sheer light power, the maxi brutes, housing nine or twelve 1000-watt PAR 64 globes, and nine-lights with nine 650-watt fay globes, have become the workhorses of film lighting.
36,000-watt Molequartz Moleeno Molepar
(courtesy of Mole-Richardson Co.)
Allen Daviau, ASC
I tend to like maxi brutes because they have tremendous power. Even going through a diffusion frame of 6 × 6 or 12 × 12 you can make a source that has a big whack to it if you need a T/5.6 exposure. Or you can make a big book light and you get tremendous impact and the light can be as soft as it can be. And I like having the individual switches that are on the nine-lights. It just seems to be a very effective way of working. You can rig quickly with them and you can get a source through the window. If you are getting in a situation where you’ve got a lot of daylight interiors and you are seeing the day exterior out there, having lights that are on correct color temperature is just wonderful.
The possibility of multiplying PAR globes in larger and larger ensembles led to the creation of very powerful fixtures like the 36,000-watt Moleeno Molepar, the Dino with 36 × 1000-watt globes, and the British Wendy, housing up to 224 × 650 watts.
ARRI Ruby 7 has adjustable convergence of seven PAR-64 lamps.
(courtesy of ARRI Group)
Mac Tech 12 Mini Dino. A lightweight and powerefficient instrument with parabolic reflectors and interchangeable lenses.
(courtesy of Bardwell & McAlister Inc.)
There is also an ingeniously designed fixture, the Ruby 7, by Luminaria, distributed by ARRI, in which seven linked PAR 1000-watt globes converge on subjects at a wide range of distances.
ARRIMAX on a MaxMover. This extremely powerful HMI light offers an advanced reflector design for controlling the beam without exchangeable lenses.
(courtesy of ARRI Group)
Going back, for a mome
nt, to the powerful light clusters like maxi brutes and Dinos, it is worth noting an ingenious concept of furnishing these fixtures with non-PAR bulbs. Bardwell & McAlister Lighting designed the MAC Tech 12 Mini Dino, which uses the HPL 750-watt bulbs in front of the parabolic reflectors. This fixture uses much less power and yet outperforms the traditional PAR-oriented maxi brute.
ARRIMAX Universal Ballast
(courtesy of ARRI Group)
The marriage of HMI and PAR technologies resulted in an array of daylight fixtures from 125-watt to 18,000-watt. In the strict sense these instruments should not be called PAR as they are not using sealed-beam globes. They are employing single-ended HMI bulbs positioned in front of a parabolic reflector and projecting light through interchangeable lenses (spot, medium, wide, superwide, and frosted). These fixtures deliver a long throw of direct light. A very inventive design was introduced in the ARRIMAX 18/12 light by ARRI. Instead of employing the various lenses, the beam is controlled by an adjustable reflector.
Michael Bauman, gaffer
ARRIMAX 18K PAR, a great light for creating sun, uses a unique reflector design for beam control which eliminates the need for spread lenses. They have an automated yoke system. The reflector opens and closes. They have two types of reflectors: 15–50 degrees and 8–15 degrees. The 8–15 at full spot produces a ton of light! Close to 12,000 FC [foot-candles] at 50 feet.
Harris Savides, ASC
I like the new ARRI 18K PAR. It can replicate the sun in a small space. I compared the intensity of the light with the sun and I was surprised how bright the PAR was.
On the other end of the scale, there are small HMI PARs like the ARRI Pocket PAR 200/400 and Mole-Richardson’s 200-watt HMI Molepar.
OPEN-FACE AND AREA LIGHTS
Whereas Fresnel lights provide well-controlled directional sources, open-face (AKA open-end) lights are valued for their high light output and small size.
ARRILITE 2000 open-face light
(courtesy of ARRI Group)
Richmond Aguilar, gaffer
Open-end quartz lamps like the Mighty-Mole are very good for bouncing. They are very good in small rooms because a Mighty-Mole will cover a 4 × 4 ft. sheet of the foam core at a very close range. Neither a baby nor a junior will do it. Mighty-Moles have a lot of punch and put out as much light as some of the seniors. You do get a slight double shadow with them because the filament provides one light and the reflection from the mirror creates another. When you put a barndoor on, you will see a definite double shadow.
Each major light manufacturing company offers a range of focusable open-face lights. There are ARRILITES 600, 650, 1000, and 2000 from ARRI, 1K redheads and 2K blondes from Ianiro, and 1K Mickey-Moles and 2K Mighty-Moles from Mole-Richardson.
Several manufacturers produce broads, usually used for bouncing light off large boards. Cyc strips are mainly used for an even illumination of a cyclorama, to create a white or colored limbo effect in the studio. Cycloramas and backings are also lit with 1000–2000-watt scoops and powerful 5000-watt dish-shaped lamps known as skypans.
Mole-Richardson 20,000-watt Skypan
(courtesy of Mole-Richardson Co.)
James Plannette, gaffer
Cyc lights are all along the bottom and the skypans are on top. You balance it to the foreground. Evenness you can judge by eye. When it’s overexposed, any unevenness disappears.
Mole-Richardson Molorama six-light cyc strip, used for lighting cyclorama backgrounds.
(courtesy of Mole-Richardson Co.)
Molequartz 1K nook light
(courtesy of Mole-Richardson Co.)
Similar in shape to the cyc strip units is a nook light. Compactly designed to be positioned in places that do not offer enough room for other lamps, it is useful for general illumination and for bouncing off cards, boards, walls, and ceilings.
The largest area light available is the SoftSun by Luminys. The 100K fixture is 118 in. wide and weighs 320 lbs. It employs an enhanced spectrum long-arc (ESL) lamp, which keeps a constant 5400K color temperature that doesn’t vary with age or between different globes. SoftSun is dimmable with a minimal shift in color temperature (not more than 100K). Units come in several sizes: 3.3K, 10K, 50K, and 100K. The same company manufactures Lightning Strikes fixtures, for creating lightning effects.
Dion Beebe, ASC
I have used the SoftSun. We had two 50K Soft-Suns that were used on Miami Vice. I used them once for a day exterior as a powerful fill, because we wanted a high-key feel and extreme depth of field. I also used them for a night exterior. We positioned them in downtown Miami and just shone them straight up in the air, into the low marine layer, to actually light the clouds. That was an interesting exercise and we got just this half a notch of exposure that added a little something.
Janusz Kaminski, cinematographer
Lightning Strikes [now Luminys] is a wonderful company. They designed for us the 100,000-watt light. It is a daylight lamp and you can dim it. We used it on The Terminal to illuminate a very vast expanse of a white cyc that was above the glass roof. We also used it to light the painted backdrop for the airport. We could dim it and very quickly make it night.
Matthew Libatique, ASC
I used a SoftSun instead of bringing an 18K to light through the window. We brought a 100K SoftSun, so we had one source with one shadow line through the windows. And the light quality was very natural. It was remarkable.
Parabolic 3.5K SoftSun has full dimmability without color shift.
(courtesy of Luminys Systems Corp.)
On many night productions, especially when large areas need to be lit, a powerful source of light has to be positioned at a considerable distance. For this purpose several crane-mounted light clusters have been designed. Among them the most versatile are the Bebee Night Lights and the LRX Lighting systems; both have generators incorporated in the unit.
Linear 100K SoftSun utilizes the ESL long-arc lamp.
(courtesy of Luminys Systems Corp.)
David Devlin, gaffer
Bebee lights are HMI PARS. The short story is that Musco Light, which makes stadium lighting, had 6K HMI in their typical fixture. It was very limited in its flexibility to move around and be adjusted. With Bebee lights they started with a completely new product. The new units set up very quickly and have video cameras on each head. One is a light with fifteen 6Ks. So when I talk to the operator, I can say to him, “OK, I want you to have the first row of globes focused here, by this tree, and where the car is I would like the second row, and I’ll put a cone here for the third row, and another cone for the fourth, and I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” And then he will look through the video camera with a crosshair and will point the light there, and since the video camera is mounted in parallax with the light, he can point each light where he wants. And he can dim the light on its ballast. They are open-face HMI lights. Bebee lights come on their own crane. They have generators and it is a self-contained unit designed for that single purpose.
Janusz Kaminski, cinematographer
Bebee lights are basically HMI lights, 6000 watts each, and there are fifteen or twenty-four of them, depending on the unit. You can move them individually, you can spot them, you can spread them in banks of four, so they can give you a very broad source. You can diffuse them. It is a fantastic, cost-effective source, very fast, that eliminates a tremendous amount of labor. A big truck drives to location so you can move it fast from one place to another. Bebees are just like Musco lights but a different company, smaller lights.
The LRX lights offer more variety in combining various HMI and tungsten units on the same crane.
Matthew Libatique, ASC
I like the LRX light. That is by far the best of its kind. I did a film, Gothica, and it was a very deep night exterior and I had two LRXs. Being able to sit next to the person who is remotely controlling the light, having him focus it from the standpoint of the camera, was the most amazing thing. You can spot and flood these lights, and there are six 6K PARs o
n a 120 ft. arm. You can bulb them with three tungsten and three HMI, so you can mix the colors if you want.
Mauro Fiore, ASC
On Bebee lights you can spot and flood each light. I like these lights a lot. But for night exteriors I always use LRX light from Canada. It is basically a bank of thirty-six light Dinos, four of them on an arm. These are PAR lights. It’s really great because it’s a tungsten source and you are able to actually pan the banks individually.
SOFT LIGHTS
A soft light is an open-face fixture where the globe is hidden from view and its light is bounced from a surface inside the instrument. These boxlike fixtures vary in size and light power over a wide range of instruments, from a 750-watt, 8 × 8 in. Baby Softlite to an 8K Super Softlite in 36 × 30 in. size (both by Mole-Richardson). For certain low-ceiling locations a 2000-watt Baby-Zip Softlite was designed in 8 × 17 in. by the same manufacturer.