Blue gels

Eddie B

Eddie B

Active member
I'm buying Arri Softbank I Tungsten 4 Light Kit later today and want to buy a blue gel(s) to go with it, the sort of shade of blue gel used often in the 1970's, memorably in A Clockwork Orange, Halloween, and Alien. The sort of gel was also used in practically every segment of the original Unsolved Mysteries. I'm at work at the moment and can't bother obtaining numerous screenshots for examples, but below is an idea that should serve as an adequate reminder:

clockwork_orange.jpg

TkaC3s8OQYgmtFI.jpg


Brands and color #s are greatly appreciated, links even more so. Additionally and off-subject, if anyone can link me to the type of stingers I'll need for this specific kit, I would appreciate that, as well.
 
Get a set of CTB filters and try them. They're handy to have around for tungsten lights,
you'll have a choice of color intensity, and they look pretty close to your examples, esp Clockwork.
 
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What about gel holders, or will the kit's "filter frames" work for that?

Lastly, can you tell me what stingers I need? I don't want to get wrong anything when it comes to something like that.
 
Filter frames work fine. Lots of people use clothespins to hold the filters to the barn doors.

You'll need a collection of power cables, depending on how long your runs are, etc.
Also you don't want to run all 2600Watts on a single 20A breaker, so you should be able to run from two circuits.
Why don't you just get this book?
 
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What should I look for when buying stingers, aside from length? I want to make sure I'm getting a strong enough cable; I know the department store varieties aren't made for that so what should I be after?
 
Definitely get that book. In the meantime, here are some nice 12 gauge stingers.
Note they use SJOW cable which is heavy-duty rubber, so they won't get stiff in cold weather.

They are rated for 15A, so you could run your two 650s on one cable.
Start out with a couple of 50' and a couple of 25'?

Here's a really useful calculator for thinking about power runs.
Note that when it says 1/2 Total Circuit Length, it means length of the cable.
So if you plug in 2 650s, that's roughly 13amps, and running that through a 50-foot 12-gauge stinger
would give you a voltage drop of 2.5 volts. With tungstens, a 10 volt drop results in a 100°K drop in color.
 
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Gelling tungsten lights? Try to get some gel frames that allow you to keep the gels a few inches to a foot away from the lights. When you stick a gel into, say, a fresnel's gel frame, you'll see that the color fades towards yellow/clear, often in an hour or so depending on heat (wattage). Rosco's seem to hold up better since they're designed for cinema & theatrical lights - stuff you'd buy at a photo store fades fast (and even gets pretty melty).

Check your gels on shooting breaks for fading, too.
 
If you just clip it to the barndoors, you won't have any issues with fading gels. Only for bigger lights, like a 2k mighty would you want to start thinking about a seperate gel frame. I've been gelling 1k open face units all week without any issues.

You should buy CTB and CTO regardless, but you might also want to look into some party gels. My particular favorite is steel blue. Try getting a roscoe gel book, usually can be had at your local expendable shop for free and then you can try out all the gels first and see what you like.
 
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