Always wanted a spotlight...

[CharlesPapert]

I wish I was still irresponsibly spending on legacy products. I always wanted a 5 degree lens with city theatrical yoke, if only to look cool in shot or to have people say what the hell is that?!

I looked into that yoke too, especially after being screwed over by a gaffer on the pilot of Key & Peele of all things. We shot the wraparound interstitials at a 99 seat theatre in Hollywood, and used two Source 4's as spotlights on the guys. I had pitched the concept of mounting them to fluid heads but the gaffer insisted that his guys could operate them perfectly fine on the existing yokes. I was dubious but gave him the benefit of the doubt. On the day, they weren't pulling it off very smoothly, made worse by the fact that the units were hot enough that even wearing gloves, they couldn't keep their hands continuously on the units. We actually got network notes about the shoddy follow spot operation. I was of course NOT pleased. But, subsequent to that it was only sporadically that I needed a follow spot gag and the lashing to the fluid head routine worked well enough that I gave up thinking about a legit yoke, or the previously mentioned custom bracket with integrated touch and go plate.

 

[rob norton]

Damn... ego got in the way of pulling off the effect. You'd think they'd be happy to have better tools to work with.

The follow spot gag seems funny because you're also considering the lamp operator's professionalism and in-house equipment in the scene. The cliche scene with operator being called out for not paying attention or delayed landing on talent, paired with the squeaky equipment sound effect emphasises the lo fi nature of the location.

I guess even if there's a purposeful element of built-in incompetency, you're better off starting with a solid hardware set up then controlling the following to look sloppy rather than the gaffer legitimately struggling to provide any accuracy. But it sounds like your scene was nothing like this and required accuracy the whole time!