What I'm Seeing Now
For the past few years, I have been seeing the world in a new way because of my interest in lighting. I first learned about film and video lighting at PBS as an intern. In the lighting studio there, we hung around 40-50 2K fresnels in the grid and adjusted them based on the instruction of our Production Manager and the other techs. We also worked with small Arri kits, Kino Flo's, practicals, HMI's, two 5K's, a 9 Light or mini-brute, Source 4's, chimeras, scoops, and broad lights. It was an amazing training ground for the uses of different styles of lights and equipment.
Lately, I was thinking about how we barely ever used 1K's for anything but a backlight and now, they have had to be my main tool at MassArt. As I read the American Cinematographer every month, I see DP's mentioning using 15K's and 10K's just to create an effect. Because they are able to use such high powered light sources, they are able to get images that reflect how real-life lighting situations work with human eyes.
However, it's always seemed like the odds are stacked against me for having non-grainy images. I think that the non-availability of equipment for external at MassArt has also lead me to start considering using alternative techniques to achieve a similar effect to that of the movies that I admire. I build my own practicals and think about light in a very limited way. I do not go out of my means and am able to mor efaithfully represent real life situations than someone of more means because I am forced to think inside a highly restictive box.
Most of my interest in realism comes from my first stint into narrative film lighting. I learned early on in the film, that I had to make the light believable but effective for what I was going for. My tastes back then were far less developed. I tended to explicitly follow what I eventually evolved into from repeated directions from the DP. After the film, however, I was able to go back into my craft and develop preferences for kinds of lights that I would associate with certain moods.
Nowadays, I have a huge vocabulary of lighting styles that I have picked up from other gaffers, DP's on jobs, in magazines, on the internet, from observation of actual lighting principles, and just through deeply thinking about how light wqorks within a space.
As the time goes by, though I am more and more fascinated by the effects of lights outside of my means for achieving spectacular effects. I still have yet to try raising a 20'x20' silk in front of a bank of 10K lights ten blocks away from my subject merely for it dazzling effect. But, I am starting to realize that the more I can work within my means, the more disciplined I will be with it when I am outside of my means. It seems like a lot of DP's nowadays are used to being spoiled by the latest gear and start to get lazy in their approach. I have learned from Sean Carrol especially that one can work to GREAT effect within the meager means of a public art school...it's all in the attitude.
I recently saw Memoirs of a Geisha and was reminded of how one's means can expand infinitely outward even if unreasonable expectations are met. The DP on this movie actually had the largest
Lately, I was thinking about how we barely ever used 1K's for anything but a backlight and now, they have had to be my main tool at MassArt. As I read the American Cinematographer every month, I see DP's mentioning using 15K's and 10K's just to create an effect. Because they are able to use such high powered light sources, they are able to get images that reflect how real-life lighting situations work with human eyes.
However, it's always seemed like the odds are stacked against me for having non-grainy images. I think that the non-availability of equipment for external at MassArt has also lead me to start considering using alternative techniques to achieve a similar effect to that of the movies that I admire. I build my own practicals and think about light in a very limited way. I do not go out of my means and am able to mor efaithfully represent real life situations than someone of more means because I am forced to think inside a highly restictive box.
Most of my interest in realism comes from my first stint into narrative film lighting. I learned early on in the film, that I had to make the light believable but effective for what I was going for. My tastes back then were far less developed. I tended to explicitly follow what I eventually evolved into from repeated directions from the DP. After the film, however, I was able to go back into my craft and develop preferences for kinds of lights that I would associate with certain moods.
Nowadays, I have a huge vocabulary of lighting styles that I have picked up from other gaffers, DP's on jobs, in magazines, on the internet, from observation of actual lighting principles, and just through deeply thinking about how light wqorks within a space.
As the time goes by, though I am more and more fascinated by the effects of lights outside of my means for achieving spectacular effects. I still have yet to try raising a 20'x20' silk in front of a bank of 10K lights ten blocks away from my subject merely for it dazzling effect. But, I am starting to realize that the more I can work within my means, the more disciplined I will be with it when I am outside of my means. It seems like a lot of DP's nowadays are used to being spoiled by the latest gear and start to get lazy in their approach. I have learned from Sean Carrol especially that one can work to GREAT effect within the meager means of a public art school...it's all in the attitude.
I recently saw Memoirs of a Geisha and was reminded of how one's means can expand infinitely outward even if unreasonable expectations are met. The DP on this movie actually had the largest
posted by Harry Pray IV at 3:10 PM
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