LOS ANGELES—The HPA Awards Committee has announced that a trio of recipients will receive the 2023 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence at this year’s HPA Awards gala on November 9 at the Hollywood Legion in Hollywood. 

“In the midst of a revolutionary time in media and entertainment, it was exciting to see the caliber and number of entries to the Engineering Excellence awards this year,” said HPA Awards Engineering Committee chair Joachim Zell. “Our esteemed judges remarked on the true innovation and advancement in our industry depicted in the presentations. Sincere congratulations to the winners, and we acknowledge the remarkable achievements represented by every submission.” 

The HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence are a coveted and competitive honor, denoting outstanding technical and creative ingenuity in media, content production, finishing, distribution, and archive, HPA said. A distinguished panel of industry judges review materials and video presentations before gathering to hear presentations from submitters and then vote on the top technologies.

The winners of the 2023 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence are:

• Adobe for Adobe Premiere Pro Text-Based Editing. Premiere Pro is the only professional editing software to incorporate text-based editing, revolutionizing the way filmmakers approach their craft by making dialogue editing as simple as cutting and pasting text. Powered by Adobe Sensei, Text-Based Editing analyzes video clips and provides transcriptions that identify individual speakers. Using an in-app text editor, post-production teams can search for words or phrases, cut sentences, and rearrange dialogue to automatically shape rough cuts directly in their timeline. The feature is designed to help post-production professionals create a rough cut faster, increasing efficiency and eliminating traditional bottlenecks in locating, trimming, and moving specific clips.
• Flanders Scientific for XMP550. The XMP550 is a 55" UHD resolution HDR and SDR reference mastering monitor built around a groundbreaking new QD-OLED panel featuring 2,000 nits peak luminance, 4,000,000:1 contrast, and FSI's widest color gamut to date. The XMP550 qualifies as a Dolby Vision mastering monitor, bringing an end to the days of compromising between smaller reference-grade HDR displays and larger non-reference client displays. The XMP550 delivers the best of both worlds with truly reference-grade performance and professional connectivity in a form factor large enough for both the colorist and clients to view. The XMP550 is OLED without compromise.
• Kino Flo for Mimik 120. The MIMIK 120 is a full spectrum image-based lighting fixture that can synchronize to a XR volume to provide foreground lighting. It can be assembled as a wall or ceiling or be used as individual fixtures. It’s a 7200 pixel, 10 pitch lighting tile that converts a 3 color RGB video pixel into a 5 color pixel consisting of RGB, 2700K & 6500K phosphor white LEDs. The 5-color pixel ensures better tonal and color reproduction of foreground elements. It also operates at a high frequency enabling camera speeds of up to 960 fps.

HPA also bestowed an "Honorable Mention" on StypeLandXR. 

HPA said that StypeLandXR is an innovative Unreal Engine 5 plugin, revolutionizing virtual production. This trailblazing tool, used for the award-winning FOX Sports Live MULTICAM XR Set, which won the Sports Emmy - The George Wensel Technical Achievement Award, uniquely corrects color shifts on LED walls and resolves inherent delays between LED walls and set extensions. It enables the creation of extensive virtual spaces, offering accurate color matching, seamless transitions, and precision calibration. By enhancing visual impact and immersion, StypeLandXR opens new frontiers of creative potential.

The Engineering Excellence Award will be presented at the HPA Awards gala on November 9, 2023. Nominations honoring creative artistry in 19 categories will be announced in early autumn.

The HPA Awards are made possible through the generous sponsorship of diamond title sponsor Blackmagic Design and supporting sponsor Colorist Society. More information about the HPA Awards and the Hollywood Professional Association can be found at www.hpaonline.com.

SUNRISE, Fla.—Chauvet has announced its acquisition of Kino Flo, an LED lighting systems and color science technologies manufacturer. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

“This represents an important step for our company in our ongoing mission to expand our broadcast, studio and film lighting capabilities,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet.

“Kino Flo has a longstanding tradition of innovation and a commitment to excellence, which makes the company an excellent fit with Chauvet’s own philosophy," he continued. "We are excited to invest in the future of Kino Flo and build on their technologies, while adding resources to accelerate product development and commercialization.” 

Kino Flo will continue to operating from its Burbank, Calif., offices. Founded in 1987, Kino Flo has developed a series of color technology innovations, and earned an award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for its development of cool, tube-based arrays with color corrected tungsten and daylight balanced light. 

The company’s LED tubes, light panels and True Match firmware dovetail with the Chauvet’s ellipsoidal, Fresnel, par, cyclorama and special effect fixtures used in broadcast applications.

“Based on our shared longstanding commitment to our customers and cultural alignment, I am confident our customers will benefit from our new partnership,” said Frieder Hochheim, founder of Kino Flo, who will continue to lead Kino Flo.  “The combined solutions from Kino Flo and Chauvet have limitless possibilities.”

More information is available on the Chauvet and Kino Flo websites. 

SEATTLE—COVID 19 upset the market for lighting equipment, the same as it did for other broadcast and motion picture gear. But though vendors were unable to push their new offerings in-person at trade shows and traveling road shows, they have been able to introduce products already in the pipeline.

Although the emphasis in recent months has been on remote production—which in the early days of the pandemic forced a number of stations to bypass their studios—the market for studio lighting is still expected to be healthy as broadcasters return to their facilities. Nevertheless, with the lines starting to blur between what defines lighting for studios and remote production, vendors are also stepping up their efforts to add features for IP-based remote control for the professional facility as well as for those broadcasters still working from home.

SET UP AND LEAVE

Last month, ARRI announced that its new Orbiter, a single-point source, six-color light engine, will be shipping soon. The new light is “very versatile,” according to ARRI systems engineer Patrick Schulze.

“The Quick Lighting Mount [QLM] in Orbiter allows for optics with vastly different properties to be connected to the fixture,” he said. “These include open face, 15, 25 and 35 degree projection lenses, fabric sphere for omnidirectional light and softboxes.”

Orbiter features ARRI’s new Lighting Operating System (LiOS) programmed into the fixtures. LiOS includes features from ARRI’s Skypanel and other lights.

Schulze added, “We’ve been working on ways to control fixtures remotely through the internet. Our Skypanel series and Orbiter have a lot of IT-based technology in them. Basically they’re computers that put out light.”

Schulze says COVID-19 has really driven development for new features for its fixtures.

“All of our new lights are going to be IP-controllable,” he said. “They’ll have DMX control, local control, but we’re really working more toward IP connectivity.” In the pandemic workflow television production and motion picture studios are forced to work under, “you can’t have 12 people in the studio at once. The lighting people will set it up and then go somewhere else to control it.”

IN THE PIPELINE

BB&S Lighting’s co-owner Tobi Sali said the company is finding a lot of customers for its Pipeline Reflect System lighting fixtures in studios that are putting in video walls.

“When people put in video walls, they have to go to daylight,” he said. “Then you get your true blacks out of it, and you get real good color separation. That gives you real usable wall. If you use tungsten, you don’t get good color separation.”

The original Pipelines were 1-inch diameter tubes that used remote phosphor technology to provide high-quality 95 TLCI color rendering, according to Sali.

“The Reflect Series is the Pipeline in a wedge with a special reflective aluminum material on both sides,” he said. “This allows a Reflect fixture to provide 150% the output of the original Pipeline for the same power draw.” The Reflects are available in 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, 6- and 8-foot lengths, and a choice of 3200-degree K, 4300-degree K or 5600-degree K color temperatures.

When the anchor from home revolution hit the television industry, BB&S had a ready solution in its “Reporter Kit,” a ready-to-go two Pipeline arrangement complete with stands and a dimmer that had been developed for webcam correspondents.

A VARIETY OF USES

After virus-caused delays, Cineo Lighting has started delivering its R15 1500W hard LED lighting fixture, according to Rich Pierceall, vice president of operations for NBC Universal, parent company of Cineo.

“We’ve explored a lot of new and patented a lot of new technologies with the Reflex series, specifically with immersion cooling,” he said.

The R15 is a high-output, focusable-beam, fully dimmable hard light. The beam angle adjustment from 15 to 75 degrees is accomplished without mechanical movement, making it remotely adjustable. The reflector can be easily removed and replaced with a variety of soft accessories. A 500W R5 “little brother” is in the works.

Being part of NBC Universal has given Pierceall a perch with quite a view.

“There’s such a diversity of different productions going on, broadcast and streaming, and feature film, what new techniques are being considered to help production get underway,” he said. “And ‘virtual’ is top of mind for just about everybody.

“To be honest with you, we don’t see any dividing line between lighting and virtual lighting, between LED light sources and LED walls,” Pierceall added. “It’s all kind of one environment for us.”

COLOR TEMPERATURE

As far as color temperature is concerned, Ing. Jose Maria Noriega C.A.S, chief revenue and marketing officer at Fluotec in Laredo, Texas, said the studios they’re lighting are falling more or less equally between fixed daylight, fixed tungsten and tunable.

“Though there are customers who want the color temperature tunable feature for their studio lighting, there are studios around the United States that are specifically designed for either tungsten or daylight,” he said. “We have sold thousands of daylight fixtures, and thousands of tungsten.”

Noriega adds that they’re finding a lot of demand for sky lighting, as well.

“We have met that demand with the CineLight line,” he said. “That’s the kind of light they need to light the whole studio.”

But there’s still a healthy market for Fresnel fixtures. Fluotec’s Fresnels avoid color shift between the center and the edge of the beam utilizes the company’s NEBULA technology to emit powerful, high-quality, full-spectrum white light beams, according to Noriega.

TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION 

Kino-Flo has just activated the RDM (remote device management) control communication protocol to enable two-way communication in their lighting fixtures.

“Existing DMX lighting control is one-way,” said Scott Stueckle, Kino-Flo sales manager. “DMX only allows sending instructions to the light, but you can’t see all the settings on the light. With RDM you have two-way communication between the fixture and the control board, which is important.

“With DMX, if you want to change a setting for, say, ‘special effects,’ you have to go to ‘special effects’ on the fixture and adjust the ‘special effects’ setting,” Stoeckle added. “But with RDM, through the control board you can just hit a button on the control board and change the menu setting to whatever you want. That’s really a big deal for board operators.”

The computer chip that runs RDM is built into existing Kino-Flo LED fixtures, but if you just turn it on, “chaos” could ensue, he said.

“So what we did was spend all this time reconfiguring all of our software so that when RDM did come out it’s very intuitive, user-friendly, and with as few bugs as possible. And it will work with our older software as well.”

MORE PUNCH

Pete Challenger, who manages U.S. business development for Italian light maker Lupo says he’s spoken with a number of customers who want a full color panel light that’s also got some “punch” to it. In response, last year Lupo launched the Superpanel Soft Full Color 60 RGBW LED Panel.

“Most panel lights have a kind of ‘soft, wraparound’ type of light output to them,” he said. “If you are needing to use the light particularly close in, it can be quite attractive. The problem with it is getting that level of softness with massive amounts of light.

“So what we’ve done with the Superpanel Full Color 60 is to put a lens over each cluster of LEDs,” he continued. “That gives you a powerful, color flat panel with a 40-degree beam angle.

“If the light is working close to the subject, the effect can be harsh unless diffusion is applied,” Challenger added. “But in most cases in a really big studio, you want some throw. And in that case, having more raw power to start with gives you more flexibility.”

WASHINGTON—Like almost every other part of our industry, suppliers of professional lighting have seen the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on manufacturing to customer support. And with industry trade shows cancelled for the foreseeable future, vendors are having to improvise the way they market, support and sell to their customers. 

BB&S

Tobi Sali with BB&S Lighting said that his company moved operations to employees’ homes and worked hard to maintain a consistent and reliable point of contact and support for their customers.

“I kept my office open two or three days a week. I was always available 24/7 on the phone and on the website,” he said. “And we were handling orders. Our warehouse in Las Vegas stayed open the whole time.”

Since BB&S products are manufactured in Denmark, Sali said they took extra precautions when taking deliveries.

“When we got a shipment in from Copenhagen, we would isolate it for four or five days before it ever got opened,” he said. “We added an additional week of it sitting there sprayed with alcohol to make sure that we didn’t have any problems.”

For the NAB Show, BB&S was going to debut its Compact Beamlight BiColor (CBL), a lighting unit that offers a range of 2,700–5,700 degrees K and 98 TLCI. The company has also upgraded its Area 96, adding a fan and upping the output, according to Sali.

“It’s about 10–15% more output than an ARRI 360 Sky Panel at less money,” he said.

CINEO

Cineo had planned on launching the ReFlex, a production-oriented 15A, 125,000 lumen LED-based hard light, according to Rich Pierceall, vice president of LED operations for the NBCUniversal-owned company.

“All productions have gone on hiatus so we’ve delayed the launch and instead we’ve been doing a series of beta tests to customers to basically try to get a more refined product,” he said. “So, that’s how we’ve been spending the time in terms of that product that we were going to release at the NAB Show. And so we’re anticipating releasing that product probably by the end of July when production comes back.”

Although production may be on the way back, many installation projects have been put off for now, he added.

“We found that most capital relighting projects have been postponed,” he said. “So, we anticipate fewer projects that were scheduled to be green-lit, even in the second half of 2020, to be pushed into 2021.”

With trade shows cancelled for the foreseeable future, Pierceall said he personally thinks the dynamic of the events will be changed.

“This is an interesting test period, how can we effectively market products without relying on trade shows, which is something that lighting people really rely on to bring out new products and to show people how things work,” he said.

In terms of future product development, Pierceall says R&D continues to be an important focus for the company.

“We’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking at things like VR, which is going to be a bigger thing in production than we’ve ever seen before,” he said. “And we’re looking at how can we do more with less in terms of smaller crew sizes and automation and control.”

ARRI

Business has been steady for ARRI despite current events, according to Jason Inouye, technical sales representative for the company.

When the lockdown started, “a lot of marketing executives reached out, telling me they needed to get cameras for marketing TV shows, commercials, but couldn’t have anyone in front of talent because of social distancing,” he said. “So we developed this remote solution where we can bring in our ALEXA mini LF camera system, or any of our ALEXA AMIRA camera systems, and be allowed to use cellular network bonding to send a stream out from the camera and it could be recorded offsite somewhere. A remote start would trigger the camera as well from anywhere in the world.

“Then people wanted to remotely control the lighting. And so you can use our camera through this box as an access point to actually put your SkyPanels through there as well, and then control the lighting system via IP,” he added.

Integrating IP control capabilities to its cameras and lighting equipment has been standard for ARRI for a while now, according to Patrick Schulze, lighting systems application engineer.

What products are now most in demand for home studios? According to Schulze, it’s ARRI’s SkyPanel series. “The S30 and the S60 would be the most popular version for home studios and remote locations where you don’t want to have somebody in the space,” he said. “If it’s in the talent’s home, it could be something that could just be set up and all controlled remotely through IP.”

KINO FLO

Kino Flo, which has a large presence in both film and television has had an “up and down” spring, according to Scott Stueckle, sales manager for the Los Angeles-based lighting provider.

“More people are lighting themselves as they have migrated back to their homes or to office spaces that are depleted of crew people or lighting people,” he said. “We’re still doing a number of two- and three-light kits for those markets. We’re also doing a lot of work with CNN, QVC, HSN, all those types of companies, broadcast news, small web studios. We’re still doing a fair amount of those in two ways, fulfilling old orders that were in the system, but also quoting a lot.”

Stueckle says they’ve seen increased interest in the company’s diva light series.

“The diva light 21 is an LED version of our older, more established legacy diva light fluorescent systems. And it’s being used quite a bit for studio, location and interviews,” he said.

After the NAB Show was cancelled, Stueckle said it gave the company the opportunity to review its new products rather than launching them outright.

“We were going to introduce a new ribbon light line of products; they’re the only five-color ribbon lights in the market,” he said. “They’re designed with the same firmware and LED emitter technology that we have in our other fixtures, so it allows you full compatibility. You don’t have any drop off in colors or any drop off in white light quality when you’re using our ribbons and they all have individual control.

“We also have a new individual controller for our tubes that allows you to run up to eight tubes individually in different kinds of pixelation sequences and so forth,” Strueckle added. “But I’m not showing that until people come out and start doing business again. So in the process, we’re refining those, improving those, adding features, just trying to time it for when business comes back into play. We’ll go ahead and probably have a new version, compared to the one we would have shown at NAB—we’ll probably have a more evolved version and that will probably show starting July or August.”

As TV and film production begins to resume, Stueckle said the process will be similar to what is being seen in public health efforts as well.

“When the stay-at-home orders and essential business orders were passed down, it was like a light switch essentially went from ‘everything on’ to ‘everything off,” he said. “Coming back into it, from what I can see here in Hollywood, it’s like they’re ‘dialing it up’ a little bit and then they ‘dial it back.’

“It’s going to be a slow incline, I think, as we return to the set.”

LOS ANGELES—A new generation of lighting designers and project integrators is bringing premium lighting tools behind the big budget looks of television productions to small video broadcast stages.

At Jaz Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based production studio lighting and design company, we often have corporate clients who repurpose existing office space into studios with confined stage area and low ceilings. One of our go-to fixtures for lighting in tight zones is the Diva-Lite 41 LED fixture, one of many LEDs from Kino Flo Lighting Systems. Designed by Kino Flo to produce a long narrow soft light source, the Diva-Lite 41’s shallow form factor and full range of color correct white light works perfectly for these situations.

Most of our clients have multiple studios globally and rely on mission critical hardware that can be obtained same-day if need be. Being able to source Kino Flo products locally in any country or from Kino Flo directly allows us to ensure our customers are fully supported.

THE RIGHT FIT

A recent installation at 110 Football studio in Los Angeles reflects an ongoing challenge to lighting small spaces from behind the camera as well as within the set design. The company broadcasts online, specializing in interviews and news covering the Los Angeles Football Club. Properly backlighting subjects and separating them from the walls is always one of the most challenging aspects of lighting small studios.

In the case of 110 Football, we designed two sets in a 12x25-foot space. One set is a two-person news desk, the other is an interview area. Lights were rigged in key and fill positions from the ceiling, 9 feet above the stage floor. We used eight Kino Flo Diva-Lite LED 41 center mount systems (which were great for tucking up as high as possible into the grid) and four Kino Flo FreeStyle 4-foot LED tubes, called T44 Systems.

Working around cameras and other equipment is also a problem. We had to light in the same space as a robotic camera arm; the only way to avoid shadows on our subjects and to achieve the proper key and fill levels without creating “flat” images was to create a one-to-one lighting ratio.

There are five Panasonic AW-UE150 PTZs covering the two sets, and a soon-to-be installed Panasonic AK-UB300GJ that will live on the robotic arm. All of the lights are controlled via the Luminair 3 iOS application on an iPad Pro 12.9 inch. Having the wireless flexibility allows the engineers to not be tied down to one location. The engineer’s room is in a separate building from the studio.

MATCHING COLOR

Kino Flo’s reputation as the king of color balanced white light for all levels of motion picture, television and video production is well documented. I find that the company’s Diva-Lite’s color management firmware and proprietary LED luminaires ensure that when choosing a correlated color from 2700 Kelvin to 6500 Kelvin, our white light harmonizes with the sensors of the HD video cameras.

While the Diva-Lite LEDs were hung for key and fill, the FreeStyle T44 LED tubes were operated as bare lamps placed around the set as accent lights near the interview couches. The tubes were tuned to a rich yellow color to blend with the LAFC’s gold and black team colors.

PLUS: Red Wings Change It Up With ARRI Cams

My client said that he had an “idea of what they wanted the studio to look like but had never imagined it would look as amazing as it does.” To have the liberty to focus on your passion and craft and have your client love the outcome brings great satisfaction and joy to me and the Jaz Entertainment team.

Jaz Entertainment provides turnkey audio & video installation services for facilities of all shapes and sizes. Contact Jaz Entertainment at www.JazEntertainment.net.

For more information, visit www.kinoflo.com or call 818-767-6528.

LAS VEGAS—As the NAB Show approaches, here’s a sharper focus on some of the products that will be on display.

Broadcast Pix

Commander allows remote switching on mobile devices using Chrome, Safari, Firefox or other web browsers. The touchscreen control platform for BPswitch integrated production switchers, Commander now offers full-motion viewing of all cameras and production elements, as well as access to all workflow tools, through a standard internet connection.

The Commander platform allows BPswitch customers to switch live productions from any location using a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Ideal for corporate, government, religious and educational facilities, Commander allows live productions to be switched from a seat in the audience, office across town or even a satellite facility across the country.

The control-over-IP option offers low latency and is accessed through the BPNet IP ecosystem, which is powered through the ioGates cloud-based media management platform.

With its streamlined user interface, Commander makes it easy to execute sophisticated productions. An integrated PTZ camera control overlay is well suited for touch interfaces.

www.broadcastpix.com
Booth: SL4210

Embrionix

The emFUSION-6 SDI-IP gateway features support for HD, 3G and SMPTE ST2110 UHD. The software-defined gateway is ideal for remote broadcast production—a simple, cost-effective way to ensure smooth interconnection of baseband equipment, and supporting all resolutions from SD to UHD-IP.

For remote production, one of the emFUSION’s 4x ports can be configured with a 1GE Ethernet connectivity, which is embedded in the 25GE or both. Signal return is then carried out over just one fiber link, reducing extensive cabling and streamlining costs. Hitless redundancy (ST2022-7) is provided through dual network connectivity, while an optional frame synchronization on encapsulation eliminates the need for genlocking cameras. Easy control is achieved through Ember+, RESTful or NMOS protocols.

www.embrionix.com
Booth: N2508

Kino Flo Lighting Systems

Video media product reviews are calling the new Diva-Lite 21 “the Swiss army knife of pro lighting,” “the number one, all-in-one,” and “the go-to interview light.” By any name, the Diva-Lite 21 LED softlight marries award-winning light quality with advanced design features.

Like Kino Flo’s cinema production lights, the electronic field production Diva-Lite comes loaded with camera LUT software that syncs the light to HD cameras for a nearly 100 percent CRI match. (The default setting is already at CRI >95/TLCI 98.). The Diva-Lite 21 operates on batteries and house power, and includes a 90-degree focusing louver, white, RGB, lighting effects and other firmware modes. It weighs in at 10 pounds (5 Kg), displays 30FC at 10 feet and has center mount for location work, and yoke and pole-op yoke versions for studio lighting.

www.kinoflo.com
Booth: C5344

Signiant

Signiant Jet is a brand-new SaaS solution for automated, reliable, system-to-system transfers of large data sets between locations around the globe. Built on Signiant’s unique and proven SaaS platform, Jet brings powerful, lights-out, enterprise-grade capabilities—previously only available to the largest media companies—to small and mid-size organizations with multiple locations, or that regularly exchange large data sets with partners, customers and suppliers.

Capable of multi-Gbps transfer speeds, Jet employs a new patent-pending, intelligent, self-learning mechanism that optimizes recurring, time-critical, long-distance transfers. Jet’s unprecedented speed and intuitive visual interface make the process of automating and monitoring file transfers fast and easy, while its simple pricing model scales to the needs and budget of any size company.

Offering the industry’s highest security and performance standards, including Signiant’s fastest transport mechanism yet, Jet enables the next evolution of automated, global workflows.

www.signiant.com
Booth: SL10216

VidOvation Corp.

Turner Sports recently used the AVIWEST HE4000 HEVC encoder to transport 20 live camera feeds from Paris to Atlanta for the Ryder Cup. Designed for the distribution and contribution of content over unmanaged networks such as the public internet and cellular, the HE4000 uses AVIWEST’s Safestreams transport protocol to cuts costs in multicamera, live-action REMI and at-home productions.

The HE4000 is a reliable and more cost-effective alternative to satellite, fiber and telecom. The challenge is maintaining perfect video genlock and lip sync across multiple cameras. AVIWEST’s HE4000 4K UHD & HD HEVC live encoder and PRO Series bonded cellular transmitter with SafeStreams technology can do just that. Bonded cellular capability can be added to the HE4000 using the optional QUAD CellLink active antenna.

www.vidovation.com
Booth: C3205

The 2019 NAB Show takes place in Las Vegas from April 6-11. To register for the NAB Show, visit www.nabshow.com.

SEATTLE—When a news photographer jumps out of a vehicle to cover a breaking news story, the last thing they need is a science project when putting together the video gear. Makers of camera support, portable lighting and battery packs go to great lengths to make their gear on the go quick and easy to deploy.

CAMERA SUPPORT

Tripods have always been important for steadying the camera shot, but they’re even more important now to support the camera while the video journalist also reports the liveshot.

Miller Camera Support addressed the need for one-handed tripod deployment with its Sprinter tripod. “We have a dual, independent locking system with two levers that are side-by-side at the top,” said Miller Regional Manager Gus Harilaou. “That allows opening the tripod with one flip of the lever, and it deploys both the bottom and the top stages of the tripod. The tripod is opened in a few seconds.”

The Sprinter tripod is paired with Miller’s Compass X18 fluid head. “This is basically for any newsgathering where guys have little cameras, whether that would be handheld or full-blown shoulder-mount cameras,” Harilaou said. “CX18 has a capacity range to take any payload from zero to 35 pounds.”

Vitec brands Vinten and Sachtler co-developed the flowtech tripod family designed for fast moving news coverage. “What makes it so appealing to the news folks is the speed of deployment, which can determine whether you get a shot or not on a breaking news story,” said Tobias Keuthen, director of global product marketing management.

Keuthen noted that the flowtech’s unique clamping mechanism was placed on top of the tripod where the head fits, helping news photogs deploy more quickly. “You don’t have to bend over; you can open the braking clamps for all three legs from the top of the tripod and extend the legs easily,” he said. “You can close the clamps also without bending over, and you can adjust the legs for working on stairs or uneven ground.” The company just added a 100mm bowl version of the flowtech for larger payloads.

Several years ago, Libec launched its Hands Free Monopod (HFMP) designed for free stand operation, according to Jose Larios, manager of sales and marketing for the company. “Our monopod is different by the fact that the base is wide, and it allows the user to put it into a vertical position just by simply stepping on the base,” he said.

The HFMP can stand on its own on the wide base to allow a oneman- band photojournalist to securely position the monopod then step in front of the camera for a liveshot standup. Libec conducted some focus groups to determine what users wanted from a monopod, Larios said. “And when we found out what were the best features, applications and benefits that are going to our product, we put that into place when designing the Hands Free Monopod.” This included placing a fluid head on the top.

Shotoku found that stringers and news departments at smaller stations were turning to lower cost camcorders and even DSLRs to capture video, which opened its market to lower cost, simpler tripod systems. “Our tripods for these customers vary from the SD 20 with really basic level features like fixed drag and counterbalance,” said Graham Ramsey sales director, manual and robotic products for Shotoku.

Two slightly higher level versions—SD 80 and SD 150—can handle higher payloads of 8 kilos and 15 kilos, respectively, and feature a step counterbalance system, and step drag system. To keep things simple for working faster, “with the SD 20 you can leave the balance and drag settings exactly where they are,” Ramsey added. “You don’t have to change anything, take off tensions or lower drag settings, or anything like that.”

LIGHTING

Lighting equipment has come a long way since the introduction of LED fixtures, with time-saving features like dimming without color shifts and the ability to dial in a desired color temperature.

Video journalists are not necessarily lighting experts, according to Kevin Crawford, vice president of engineering at Frezzi in Hawthorne, N.J. “A lot of these people don’t really know about how to light up a scene, so our Skylight product provides a wide, flat, optical field,” he said. “This thing is brain-dead simple to use, and throws a lot of light.”

For working fast in the field, the Skylight can be powered by a broadcast brick battery pack or off AC. It provides high CRI single source 5600K daylight light without pixelation or color fringing.

Fluotec’s StarMaker color-tunable panel fixture has found a home in ENG vans for a number of years, and the company’s upgrade to the StarMaker HP model will make it even more desirable to news crews said Fluotec Chief Marketing Officer Jose Maria Noriega.

“The StarMaker HP now has the same technology as our Cine Light, so it has a much better CRI of 97.7, and it now delivers an output of 37 percent more light than the previous version,” he said. “Incorporating our NEBULA Diffusion Chamber Technology makes a 70 degree throw and softer light than when it’s used without this attachment. And this allows you to use barn doors. Although most panel manufacturers put the barn doors on the light, but they throw a multi-shadow on the background. Our diffusor attachment behaves as a single source point of light, which is very controllable by barn doors.”

With the built-in battery attachment, there’s no need to run cables.

Litepanel’s most popular ENG light is its Astra Bi-Color, according to Byron Brown, program product manager for parent company Vitec Videocom. “It can be easily hand held or put on a stand, it can be installed with a battery adapter, you slip the battery on it and you’re ready to go.”

The color agility of the Astra Bi-Color is another feature that allows for working fast, Brown added. “What we find oftentimes is that guys out in the field will start off with the light dialed in to daylight, and then warm it up to taste,” he said. “The color temperature dial on the Astra also has color temperature readings, so if you know your favorite reading is 4500K, you just dial it to that number and you’re there.”

For situations where a photographer needs a longer throw of light, Litepanels also has the Astra Bi-Focus, with lenses to narrow and intensify the light.

Tama Berkeljon, managing director at Outsight in Australia, said its most popular light for ENG shooters is the bicolor Creamsource Micro. “It’s punchier, and you’ve got more options for diffusing it or softening it back,” he said. “It’s extremely flexible and can be deployed in seconds with a battery attached.”

Accessories include diffusion and lensing, Berkeljon added. “Dropping in lenses changes the beam angle from 30 to 60 to 100 degrees,” he said. “Unlike most bi-color fixtures, the Micro maintains constant power output across the whole CCT range, so users always get the unit’s full potential. There is no reason to have to choose between a bi-color or daylight system. And because of the Micro’s wide 10-32V operating voltage, users can power the fixture from a single 90WH battery, or directly from a car.”

Zylight spotlights its F8 200 LED Fresnel as its most popular with ENG camera crews for its durability and outdoor IP protection. Charlie Collias, director of fixture sales for the Cypress, Calif.-based company.

It’s also very quick to deploy when breaking news is happening. “Its 5 inches thick and packs into a milk crate, pelican case or in padded travel cases we sell,” Collias said. “In other words, the F8 200 is easy to find space for in a van to bring it along, and doesn’t take up much room. The camera person can pull it right out of the bag, place it on a stand and throw a camera battery on the rear and it’s good to go.”

BB&S Lighting recommends a pair of fixtures for speedy ENG work, one for closer work and a second when some throw is needed. “Our Reflect 1-foot or 2-foot wedge-shaped LED fixtures feature an internal reflector system that spreads a 160 degree beam angle,” said Toby Sali, partner in BB&S. “They can be used singly or ganged up in banks. They give you instant and soft lighting.”

Where the subject is some distance away, he points to their Compact Beam Light. “the front is 6 inches, and it’s 5 inches across. It is a 40W draw, like the other one, and it is a 7 degree, 11 degree, 14 degree or 17 degree beam light. So it isn’t a hard light. It doesn’t give you a ridge like a LEKO ellipsoidal profile light. It’s got 15 percent roll-off on the edges.”

During the fluorescent lighting era, Kino Flo sold a lot of its Diva lighting fixtures to news shooters who liked the soft modeling light it produced. “As LEDs took over, we developed a fixture called the Diva Light 21, which is the latest version of our LED Diva Light,” said Scott Stueckle, who handles sales and public relations for the Burbank, Calif.-based company. “It’s lighter weight from any other Diva Light we’ve had. It still has all the functionality. You can pull it out of the case and you can run full daylight and tungsten.”

One high-end feature of the latest firmware for the Diva 21 is the ability to color match the light to a particular camera. “Cameras have different sensors, different spectral curves that they use to see light—they don’t all see light the same way,” Stueckle said. “We’ve pulled out all those spectral sensitivity curves of those cameras, and we’ve downloaded them onto our software profiles. You can also go in and pull up a Panavision or Panasonic or Sony or Canon camera, and lock those color profiles in.” If a news shooter has to change cameras, it’s easy to change the Kino Flo fixture’s color properties to match, Stueckle added.

POWER SUPPLIES

A news shooter can have everything else going fine, and when the power runs out the shoot rudely and quickly comes to an end. Battery makers have gone to great lengths to provide high-capacity battery packs that are also feature rich.

Anton/Bauer unveiled its Dionic XT battery family last year and it’s found a quick market for news photographers, according to Chris Gaughan, product manager for Vitec Videocom’s Anton/ Bauer brand, who said Dionic battery packs are designed to live on the back of a camcorder “and you’re ready to go at a moment’s notice. You pick up your camera, push a button, and it’s running.”

Another feature that assures the shooter isn’t chasing a news story with a nearly empty battery pack is a fuel gauge display. “When the battery’s not under load it tells you how much battery is left, gives you a percentage,” Gaughan said. “When the camera’s running, it gives you the run time you have left, based on the load. And by touching the back of the battery you can cycle through and see what kind of current you’re drawing and temperature of the cell pack.”

Jet-hopping news crews were the focus of IDX System Technology when it designed its Dual C 98 battery packs. “Because it’s at 98W—under 100W—you could carry 15, 20, 25 on the plane,” said Jun lshizekai, associate manager of marketing & regional west sales. “It features two D-taps and one for USB, so it has enough accessory ports to fill all of a camera guy’s needs.”

Dual Cs have a five LED fuel gauge on the side, and because the individual LED is either fully lit, blinking or dark, it actually indicates battery power remaining in 10 percent increments, lshizekai added. “There’s also an LED on the Vmount side, and if you’re in total dark and it’s hard to see to change batteries, you can turn this LED on. It stays on for 30 seconds to let you maneuver around when remounting a battery pack on the camera.”

PAG’s PAGlink batteries provide the ability to gang several battery packs together on the back of a camcorder, creating a number of advantages, according to John O’Keefe, marketing consultant for PAG. “Unlike the conventional Gold Mount batteries, a single battery with a single capacity, PAG makes 90Wh and 150Wh battery packs that can be linked together,” he said. “For most guys who are shooting news, they would probably want just two, and that would let them shoot for eight hours without having to change batteries.”

PAG’s Power Hub sandwiches between two battery packs, and will let the shooter power a light, wireless microphone, small monitor and similar accessories off the camera when both batteries are linked. “The battery closest to the camera acts as your hot swap and the camera drains from the rear battery,” O’Keefe added. “That power hub is in the middle, and you can remove the rear battery without interrupting power to the camera and accessories.”

Frezzi’s FLD 100 battery packs are 100 Wh capacity, the company’s largest legally transportable battery. “It’s got a push to test fuel gauge, so it doesn’t drain the battery when it’s not being used,” said Crawford.

“It’s weatherproof, fully sealed. It can be charged with our existing desktop chargers; and it has a small port that’s used with a portable power supply to charge it, like a small desktop charger, a single channel. So if you have a little go bag and you don’t want to bring a desktop charger, like a four position station, you could use this little power supply to charge it that way.”

SEATTLE—Light emitting diodes (LEDs) were invented in the early 1960s, and have been used in television and video lighting for about the past dozen years. Advances in LEDs have prompted the technology to go in a variety of new and interesting directions.

“What we’re seeing is definitely a move to RGBW [red, green, blue and white] LED lighting that allows for a fully tuneable fixture,” said Mike Wagner, senior product manager with the lighting division of ARRI.

ARRI has been making nothing but RGBW LED fixtures since they introduced their first LED light, the L7 in 2011. That and subsequent ARRI lights like the Skypanel not only are able to match ambient light temperature, “but also are able to set the magenta point or select vivid colors that will allow more versatility in the studio, whether that be different types of setups during their day, or one-time-only special events,” Wagner said.

Another trend Wagner sees is firmware updates for light fixtures. “These aren’t just updates that fix bugs or something like that,” he said. “We are adding new functionality to our lights. That has been our commitment to our customers.”

ARRI’s latest firmware provides the ability to create professional level lighting effects without the need of a lighting console, and adds different kinds of communications control as well.

DYNAMIC LIGHTING EFFECTS

Rich Pierceall, CEO of Cineo thinks the trend building color into LED fixtures is not going to go away. His company has built a number of fixtures that include both tuneable white light and saturated colors, including the Standard 410, just released at the recent Cine Gear Expo.

Pierceall thinks the next wave is dynamic lighting effects. “What’s now happening is that a lot of larger fixtures are made capable of being carved up into small fixtures,” he said. “In other words, I can actually get light movement across the face of the lighting fixture.”

Cineo has developed the LightBlade fixtures in partnership with NBCUniversal. The larger LightBlade fixtures utilize Cineo Zone Control technology, which provide for 10 zones within the fixture being independently controlled. This gives users the ability to change color and intensity between LightBlades simultaneously.

Another area to watch is lighting control. “People are going to be branching away from traditional DMX universes and getting into far more elegant, far more advanced control systems,” Pierceall said.

LIGHTING DESIGN

Not everybody is climbing aboard with RGBW light fixtures yet.

“I’m not too sure that trend is right,” said Ing. Jose Maria Noriega, chief marketing officer for Fluotec. “And as with every trend, sometimes it stays and sometimes it goes away.”

Noriega doesn’t think talent should be colorized. “You colorize the set, or you colorize the background, the stage,” he said.

And while he says it might be convenient having saturated color capability in every fixture, “I don’t know if all TV stations would be willing to just follow that trend, especially the cost, if they are going to use this feature 2 percent of the time they’re going to use it for pure white light. Can you imagine 30 years ago that you would look back on the television industry and say ‘Hey, let’s have some lights that cost $17,000?’”

There is one trend in professional lighting for broadcast that Noriega is noticing.

“Lighting designers for cinema are now getting into lighting design for television,” he said. “These people are asking for pure white light, they are asking for reliability, they are asking for power, and they are also asking for a good price.”

LESS POWER

Litepanels’ Gemini 2x1 soft panel fixtures provide RGBW capability in the fixture, and the company sees more of that in the future. In addition, LEDs are getting more power-efficient, according to Byron Brown, product manager for Litepanels.

“Our LED technology today is roughly 30 to 50 percent more efficient than it was even three or four years ago,” he said. “The technology advancement of LEDs gets us even more efficiencies and better brightness per Watt in the LED world, let alone compared to tungsten and other sources.”

Because the company’s first 1x1 LED panel lights were introduced 10 years ago, a direct efficiency comparison can be made to its current Astra 6X, which is 6x brighter than the original 1x1. Complicating the math in this comparison is the fact that the Astra 6X uses 50 percent more, so the efficiency itself is about double.

Brown also notes that although the Astra 6X fixture is 6x times brighter than the original 1x1, it sells for about half what original 1x1 did.

[Read: Despite The Hype, LEDs Haven’t Revolutionized Broadcasting]

“So it’s 6x brighter for even less money than we were selling the 1x version 10 years ago,” he said.

Brown credits a number of factors for the lower cost: “All manufacturers have needed to find better ways to manufacture the product more efficiently. I think the volumes have also gone up, not just in terms of components, but also manufacturing processes. The number of units we sell today is substantially higher than the original 1x1 panels as well, so I think volume, efficiencies, component costs, all of those have contributed to the lower prices. And obviously competition has played a part.”

MORE FEATURES

Similarly, Scott Stueckle, sales manager at Kino Flo Lighting Systems sees the industry pressing to offer more features in their lighting fixtures for less money.

Kino Flo is a pioneer in fluorescent television and motion picture lighting equipment. They’ve transitioned their fluorescent fixtures such as the Diva and Celeb into LED lights, retaining the features that made them popular.

“Kino Flo is still focused on the white space, shooting in the color space that cameras can see, the full color spectrum, trying to keep our color on the black body curve,” Stueckle said.

And just as the company worked with fluorescent tube makers to optimize color rendering for their original light products, they’ve done the same thing with its LEDs, working with LED suppliers on both the design and manufacturing process, so that the LEDs perform exactly as the company specifies. “And we have proprietary technology to actually apply a spectrometer that reads a camera’s color sensitivity,” Stueckle added.

Stueckle says the combination of software and hardware has changed the development of professional lighting technology.

“In the old days we just used to make lights,” he said. “We’re now basically designing and programming computers that have lights on them. And I think you’re seeing more of that, and more people are getting involved with that, and things are getting better and better and prices are dropping more over the next few years.”

Professional lighting manufacturers are betting their companies on their ability to chase the right trend.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIF.—The KF21 (NiMH) battery system from Kino Flo and BlockBattery is an on-the-go system designed for Kino Flo’s line of LED lights. The KF21 works specifically for Kino Flo’s FreeStyle 31 and 21 LED DMX; Select 30 and 20 LED DMX; Diva-Lite 30 and 20 DMX; and Celeb 250 LED DMX.

The new battery features Nickle Metal-Hydrate chemistry, which is unrestricted for ground and air transport. In use, it allows for a runtime of one-plus hours at full brightness, or longer when fixtures are dimmed. The battery provides 140 W hours and a 28.8 volt output. It also has a charge time of 1.5 hours.

Additional features include adaptability to 14.4 volt applications, including A/B mount and V mount, via 2F1-ABA and 2F1-VMA adaptor mounts respectively. There is also adaptability to previous Kino Flo lighting systems through other BlockBattery adaptors and accessories.

BURBANK, CALIF.—Kino Flo’s latest LED fixtures now have full access to the color wheel, according to the company’s press release. The new Diva-Lite and Select LED fixtures feature professional cine swatch book presets, as well as full hue and saturation color control, as part of Kino Flo’s new 360-degree color system.

Both fixtures feature the new 2.71 software, which adds a layer of color lighting choices to the lights’ white light menus. The full chromatic spectrum is available through a dial. The software can also recall favorite color gel settings through a push-button. In addition, the white light menus come with built-in green/magenta filters for color balancing. Customized profiles can be saved in the Diva-Lite and Select fixtures.

The 360-Degree Color Mode joins White Light Mode as available options for Diva-Lite and Select. White Light Mode allows open, unfiltered white light to shape and model subjects to reproduce real world colors faithfully and with a mired shift of 2700K to 6500K. The 360-Degree Color Mode offers a Kevlin range of 2500K tungsten to 9900K daylight with the ability to select menu filter color presets from a RGB color wheel; Kino Flo included some custom proprietary gel color presets as well.

Additional features of the new Kino Flo fixtures include a smoothing option to control light flicker; improvements to dimming curves; a partnership with LumenRadio Wireless DMX for built-in receivers and support of up to 512 channels and compatability with W-DMX transmitters; a variety of kit options are also available for both the Diva-Lite and Select fixtures.

NEW YORK—Rick Siegel is a New York-based DP with a long career in shooting TV interviews, among his numerous other projects. Despite the fact that we have more choices in cameras in all price ranges than ever before, Rich asserts that “what has remained constant is engaging story telling through my hands on creation of handsome portraiture.”

With this evolution of smaller and faster cameras has come an evolution of field lighting kits as well. So I set out to find shooters and producers interested in talking about the kits that they carry these days.

So much of today’s remote lighting is driven by advances in LED technology which not just produce units with higher CRI but also more uniform response across the spectrum.RUN AND GUN
Rick remembers the days of ISO 100 color negative film with 16mm zoom lens at about f/2.0 moving then to the far less sensitive and far less dynamic range Plumbicon tube cameras. It would not be atypical to carry multiple tungsten fixtures from 200W all the way to 2K.

Today, typical cameras can be rated from ISO 800 and up, with LOG gammas and even RAW (author’s note—few people would actually shoot interviews in RAW; I did it once as more of a “proof of concept” than anything else).

Rick uses what he calls his portable “Cab Kit,” which allows him to mix LED, flo and tungsten, with two Litepanels Astra Bi-Color, one Lowell Rifa 500W, one Arri 125W Fresnel and a couple of 18-inch paper lanterns using standard household bulbs.

“The stands and stingers are the largest component of my lighting kit,” he said, adding that “my only issue mixing LED, florescent, plasma, HMI and/or tungsten lighting units is that they tend to have some differences between each bulb type, especially in the green/pink vectors. Therefore my goal is to keep the interviewee’s key and fill light in the same bulb family.”

BUDGET DRIVEN
Matthew Blute, a cinematographer for Open Road Pictures in Los Angeles, was recently DP for the CNN documentary series “Declassified,” an interview-driven show that included recreations, source material and stock footage, focusing on recently declassified U.S. government cases. Each episode contained three to five interviews, each of which resulted in six hours of raw footage.

Matthew’s experience typifies today’s shooting situations which are as much budget-driven as content-driven. It consisted of a crew of two—Matt plus one G/E person hired on each location. They would show up in a hotel room or conference room—or wherever else intelligence agencies might find themselves—with no prior knowledge of room size, logistics, windows or power situation. Shooting was “conversation across the table” style with a Canon C300 shot about six feet from subject with “a wideish lens.” Producers were striving for a “mysterious late afternoon feeling,” he said. “We tried to have a window or daylight source in the frame if possible.” For this ambitious project, Matt went to LiteGear, a new Los Angeles-based LED manufacturer. They used three of their units—LiteMat 2 for edge/kicker/hair light, LightMat 1 for eyelight/above-camera fill as well as a prototype unit 4x4 LightMap (eight 9x19-inch panels hung in a 4x4 breakdown frame). Diffusion was from a magic cloth 4x4 rag from Rag Place in North Hollywood, Calif., in front of an eggcrate. “This gave us a big 4x4 source which was ‘wrappy,’ quick to set up but controlled for 200W and 5-inches thick,” he said. At a distance of eight feet, this enabled shooting the C300 f/8 at ISO 800.

Just for good measure, they carried a Dedo kit for background splashes and highlights. The result? “After shooting thousands of hours of interviews, this was the first time I wasn’t nervous about the size of the space or the power,” Blute said. “It was a real bonus.”

Jeff Halperin owner of ZenVideo, a Phoenix-based high-end production house specializing in 4K (and HD) acquisition, uses LiteMats from LiteGear on-set.TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES
A consistent pattern emerges from shooters and producers: Tighter budgets, smaller crews and less predictability of scenarios is not necessarily a liability. These so-called “constraints” can turn into new creative opportunities. Nobody says “fix it in post” or “let ‘em get a colorist to relight the scene,” anymore. Rather, old school values still remain even in this digital age. Light it properly to create the desired look, choose the tools that fall within not just the budget but physical size for the smaller crew, and creatively rig that lighting.

So much of today’s remote lighting is driven by advances in LED technology which not just produce units with higher CRI but also more uniform response across the spectrum: You don’t necessarily need that magenta gel when shooting today’s LEDs.

But still, the world has not shifted entirely to LED’s.

Like most DPs, Jeff Halperin, owner of ZenVideo in Phoenix, has streamlined his kit over the years. His larger productions might use a rental house or gaffer, but for ENG environments, his choice is LiteGear’s LiteMat 1 which he can power via eternal battery or even AAs. In this scenario, weight is the deciding factor.

But for interviews, he still prefers his Kino-Flo Diva-Lite 200’s and 400’s.

Control of lighting is an important issue, of course. He is awaiting accessories for his LiteMat 4 to enable a much tighter grid, perhaps as tight as 60 degrees, to focus on subject and keep light off the background. He also makes another point about his LiteMats—“they are so thin you can hang them with tape or Velcro and hide them against walls and ceilings,” he said.

These few discussions of approach as well as hardware specifics reinforced much of what I sought to discover when embarking on the quest for today’s location interview, ENG and production lighting packages.

Cameras are indeed faster with far greater dynamic range. We are less concerned about blasting light than shaping light. Larger and well-funded remote production still exists. Mega-produced news and information programming still have the ability to carry and rig what we have come to think of more “traditional” lighting.

But the advent of improved technologies and budget-conscious producers allows leveraging the technology with the creative lighting design of the DP or gaffer.

The bottom line here is not to fear the new realities of economics and technology but rather embrace these changes, to find the right products from acquisition to lighting to light control, and to compelling stories.

Ned Soltz is an industry veteran who shoots, edits, produces and writes about products and industry trends. He also writes for NewBay Media sister publication Digital Video magazine.

Part of the author’s toolkit

In the very early years of my career and during my second film as a cinematographer, I lit with a Lowel “DP” kit, a handful of 500W Altman Fresnels and Lekos and various practical lights. Inside the Lowel kit were two “DP” 1K open-face fixtures: one Omni 500W open-face fixture and one Tota 500W broad source. That was my full lighting package.

Why did I choose to shoot that film with that small lighting kit? Because that’s what I could get my hands on.

The Lowel kit belonged to the camera operator and the Altman fixtures I borrowed from the high school where I taught.

There was no deep artistic choice that went into choosing these fixtures. There were no photometric measurements calculated during prep based on scrutinizing location scout notes... No, that was what I used because that was what I had access to.

I’ve written several times before about an Arri kit that I’ve used on a number of occasions with four Fresnels: 650W, 300W and two 150W. That, in addition to a Kino Flo “Gaffer” Kit with two 4-foot x 4-bank fixtures have worked with me time and time again. Why? Because I own them. They’re handy; they don’t cost me anything to rent from anyone else and—they emit light!

A good portion of my career was spent utilizing only the tools and resources I had access to, which were typically limited by budgets. Beyond that, when the sky is the limit, how do you decide what fixtures to use?

So much of that starts with how most of us begin our careers, just as I did. So when you get to choose your lighting fixtures, you start with what you know and build from there. It’s the same for first year cinematographers and 20-year veterans—we work with what we know. As the budgets improve, access to more fixtures grants us the ability to play and learn.

I had the good fortune of “coming up” through the electrical department and I worked with some great gaffers as an electrician before I started gaffing myself. This gave me the time to learn the fixtures and their abilities; to learn an instinctual difference between a 2K and a 1K Fresnel and when to reach for one or the other; and to learn the benefits of HMI fixtures and how to utilize them.

Even as your budget grows and you have access to more toys, how do you decide if you’re going to use a 12K HMI PAR or a 12K HMI Fresnel, a Tenner or a 9-Light MaxiBrute in a condor for a nighttime exterior sequence?

How do you decide if you are lighting your green screen with Kino Flo super green tubes or tungsten tubes? Maybe Sky Pans and Spacelights? There’s no shortcut to gaining this knowledge.

GAINING KNOWLEDGE
Sure, you can read about what other cinematographers and gaffers do in publications like this; or you can talk to your peers and find out their personal choices (always ask them “why!”), but nothing beats just trying something new on your own. That, however, can be very scary when you’re most often dealing with a client or a production that isn’t your own.

The next best way is to study photometrics for new fixtures. You can’t always completely trust the manufacturer’s published photometrics, which are often measured in “laboratory” not real-world settings, but they’ll give you a rough approximation of how a fixture will behave. Next month, we’ll delve deeper into photometrics and how to read, interpret them and plan ahead.

If you’re in a major production metropolis like Los Angeles or New York, look up the local lighting dealers and ask for a demo. They’ll be more than happy to introduce you to their fixtures and to what makes them special.

If you’re not in a major production center, take the time to journey out to the major trade shows: NAB, Cine Gear Expo, CCW, Government Video Expo, etc. There you’ll get a chance to go hands-on with new fixtures, learn their features and start to become more comfortable with their uses.

I’ve seen the world’s greatest cinematographers reach for a trick they learned in their first years or a tool as common as the humble batten strip. My first book, “A Shot in the Dark: A Creative DIY Guide to Digital Video Lighting on (Almost) No Budget” is aimed at making your own tools at home with supplies you can find at the local hardware store.

Read. Experiment. Reach out to manufacturers for information and demos and consult your peers. Happy lighting!

Jay Holben is a cinematographer based in Los Angeles. He can be reached via TV Technology.