Bloop Light ?

[djbobbyrhodes]

Hey guys,

I'm currently working on a VFX heavy show, and I'm trying to wrap my head around something. We have a scene coming up where we will need to sync up 6-8 cameras visually in post. While we were trying to figure out the best way to go about this, someone mentioned that a bloop light will do what we're talking about.

I've done a bit of research, and it seems that bloop lights are mainly used for motion control rigs these days, but they don't really seem to be set up to work with 8 cameras.

I guess what we're looking to do is possibly walk out into the middle of set, flash our light, and have all the cameras capture it in a set number of frames (one frame?) and then duck out as quickly as possible.

That way, when we hand over the shots to our VFX guys, they can line up all the shots quickly and easily through this visual cue.

Note: I have no idea why using timecode or a slate won't work. But, the boss wants what the boss wants.

Please help!!!

 

[clang]

I've never used a 'bloop light', but it sounds pretty much like the visual version of a clapper board's 'clap', although is perhaps more precise than a clap due to being shorter in duration. Doesn't seem a terrible idea, just in case other synch methods (such as time code) fail for any reason. Worth a quick trial, at least, but I wouldn't like to absolutely rely on it.

 

[ian dart]

i would use a professional camera flash gun. from memory you can control the flash duration.