Knowing how to determine how powerful of a light you need

Some very good stuff in this thread... but have to give props to Charles for this one most specifically:

CharlesPapert said:
One of the first things I ask when we scout a location of the director is: how wide will be seeing in a given shot? and/or what are the overall sight lines (what is "fourth wall"). The more we need to see at once, or with minimal relight, generally speaking the bigger the units due to distance from subject. You can balance or overpower a closeup with a hot window in the background with a fairly minimal sized unit, but if you need to go head to toe, that will dictate probably 4x the output to cover the spread and distance.

An inexperienced director may be convinced they will only see X and then on the day want to see Y, so it is good to be able to explain ahead of time what the limitations will be so they don't get frustrated when you can't deliver to their whims on the day

To be clear, I'm well aware that many people here are not in a position to order the big guns or numerous units for a given job due to budget. Even at my level I rarely get the size package that I want without compromise. The key is managing expectations and having discussions ahead of time--if a line producer forces my package to be cut down, I will go to the director and explain what the ramifications will be to our creative plan, and sometimes they will take up the battle with the producer. If you say "we'll just see what happens", it is more likely to end up making you look bad on the day.
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Managing expectations - whether it be an end clients, a producer, director or your indie film pal who wants you to help shoot his low budget short - is, I feel, a huge part the job. And having pre-pro discussions /scouts about the creative plan and specific shot selections are imperative. Not to be a debbie downer - but it seems this gets left out more and more with the "up & comers" - or at least I get asked quite often to simply show up & expect to have whatever might be necessary in my SUV. (You can never expect the unexpected without at least a mimimal discussion about the space /area / you'll be shooting in and how wide & what existing practicals there are). This, for me, is what truly separates a guy with a camera from a DP... someone who knows or envisions before the camera ever gets turned on - what he might need to get the job done in the most efficient, cost-effective way. And this certainly requires understanding many levels / facets of the entire production.
 
markfpv said:
Some very good stuff in this thread... but have to give props to Charles for this one most specifically:



Managing expectations - whether it be an end clients, a producer, director or your indie film pal who wants you to help shoot his low budget short - is, I feel, a huge part the job. And having pre-pro discussions /scouts about the creative plan and specific shot selections are imperative. Not to be a debbie downer - but it seems this gets left out more and more with the "up & comers" - or at least I get asked quite often to simply show up & expect to have whatever might be necessary in my SUV. (You can never expect the unexpected without at least a mimimal discussion about the space /area / you'll be shooting in and how wide & what existing practicals there are). This, for me, is what truly separates a guy with a camera from a DP... someone who knows or envisions before the camera ever gets turned on - what he might need to get the job done in the most efficient, cost-effective way. And this certainly requires understanding many levels / facets of the entire production.
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I don’t shoot narrative, but this is something that has been getting worse over the years all over the place. Some people, for whatever reason, just don’t like to give out information about their shoot. They treat the info like state secrets. And it’s frustrating as hell. It’s like they don’t understand that we’re working for THEM and trying to make THEIR shoot as good as possible. And I feel like I keep encouraging ‘bad behavior’, because I’m the type of guy that usually shows up loaded for bear and 99 times out of a 100 we can accommodate the lack of planning/information and pull off whatever is thrown at us. I’ve had several of these shoots lately over the last few months where we weren’t really given an over abundance of information, so the truck gets loaded to the hilt and we end up only needing camera, stix and audio gear.
 
CharlesPapert said:
That's a little contradictory, Mitch. I think we are probably saying the same thing but you are throwing me with the suggestion that "experience" means one never learned the numbers. I can only speak for myself, and yes I did all the book-smart studying wayyyy back too, but mostly what I'm carrying around is the real-world day-in and day-out stuff at this point. If I'm in a situation where I truly need to lock it down by numbers, we'll use whatever means are required, from photometrics to mockup tests.

We all have different yardsticks for the technical side of the craft. There are plenty of people on this board who can talk circles around me with the jargon of color science, codecs and the like. Meanwhile, some DP's who see the setup I use on set proclaim it as "too technical" for them, since they work purely film-style with a meter. I like to point out "you don't think metering 2.8 and 3/10ths and mentally subtracting a stop and a half to set your fill level is technical? that's literal number crunching, can't get much more technical than that".

Lighting to exact numbers and ratios works fine but (as you know), everything needs to be interpreted. A backlight at key on fine blonde hair is obviously going to be hotter than dark hair---but what about slicked black hair full of product vs curly black hair? Are you right at the kick angle or slightly offset? That's where the eye comes in, and the math goes out.

Last year I had to light an interior large day set at night while we were shooting in an adjacent room. Meant to go get my meter, but went as far as I could by eye and then got pulled back onto the first set until we made the company move. The cameras went up on that scene and it was good to go, exterior hallways were lit to believable daylight levels and we were right at the desired stop. Was actually comforting to know I could still do that, that the monitors hadn't made me soft! (was actually a little surprised).

I'm happy to encourage anyone to do it the "right" way--learn the numbers, read the articles, do the tests. Every craftsperson benefits from having a solid foundation. I
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I don’t mean that people need to pull out the slide-rule when they get to set, but the original question was someone asking about a pretty general starting point. Responding to them simply “experience” isn’t particularly helpful. Teach a little technical basics, learn what the numbers mean and where there are some resources and that’s a foundation he can use. After a while one gets used to what certain setups will do and that’s the experience where the math can be left behind, but ya gotta start somewhere. When I want to try to cook a certain meal I like to check out recipes first. At a certain point I know what I like and what certain combinations and techniques do for me, so I can make my own way. But it’s a starting point with a list of stuff needed and how to use them.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Lighting to exact numbers and ratios works fine but (as you know), everything needs to be interpreted. A backlight at key on fine blonde hair is obviously going to be hotter than dark hair---but what about slicked black hair full of product vs curly black hair? Are you right at the kick angle or slightly offset? That's where the eye comes in, and the math goes out.
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Hair that has been died black tends to be the most light absorbing. It can lack shine that natural black hair typically has. Anyway
 
morgan_moore said:
A side note on wides..

One of the reasons I think lens 'sets' like the canon cineprimes are weak and poorly conceptualised (50 .14, 20 1.4, 14 3.5) is the wide lens is exactly where a wide Tstop gets you out of jail if you are under lit. Having a 3.5 wide end is bad news effectively rendering 1.5 at the mid and tele useless.
On tight shots one can move the lights in but for the wide you cannot.
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Getting slightly OT:
I don’t really disagree with you, but outside of “Ultra Prime/Master Prime territory”, you don’t really have a lot of choices of fully matched fast/“super speed” primes from wide to tight(UP’s are 1.9, MP’s are 1.3), . It’s not just the Canon’s. In that class, Tokina’s are all T1.5, but their wide is only 18,which isn’t that wide. Sigma comes close with their 14 T2 and 135 T2 and all the “middle lenses” being T1.5. That’s only 2/3 stop apart.

I love the look of my Canon’s, but if I was starting out today and buying a full set of Cine primes in that price range, the Sigma’s would be very high on my short list. Especially since they seem to match up with my Canon’s very nicely(at least with my limited, unscientific testing of comparing one long lens to a few Canon’s on either side of it’s focal length).
 
Run&Gun said:
Getting slightly OT:
I don’t really disagree with you, but outside of “Ultra Prime/Master Prime territory”, you don’t really have a lot of choices of fully matched fast/“super speed” primes from wide to tight(UP’s are 1.9, MP’s are 1.3), . It’s not just the Canon’s. In that class, Tokina’s are all T1.5, but their wide is only 18,which isn’t that wide. Sigma comes close with their 14 T2 and 135 T2 and all the “middle lenses” being T1.5. That’s only 2/3 stop apart.

I love the look of my Canon’s, but if I was starting out today and buying a full set of Cine primes in that price range, the Sigma’s would be very high on my short list. Especially since they seem to match up with my Canon’s very nicely(at least with my limited, unscientific testing of comparing one long lens to a few Canon’s on either side of it’s focal length).
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Aren’t the tokona’s full frame though? 18mm is pretty wide in FF35
 
Run&Gun said:
Getting slightly OT:
I don’t really disagree with you, but outside of “Ultra Prime/Master Prime territory”, you don’t really have a lot of choices of fully matched fast/“super speed” primes from wide to tight(UP’s are 1.9, MP’s are 1.3), . It’s not just the Canon’s.
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Thats it that is why I dont think canon is a 'cine glass set'.. its not ready, IMO, to make a major motion picture to be shown on at the cinema - Ultra and Master primes are.

Actually its worse because the shoots with the cheaper lenses will be the one with the smaller light package.
 
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Bern Caughey said:
Filmmaking is (usually) a collaboration, & a great Gaffer is a DP’s ‘right hand’.
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I would be interested to know what Charles and others think is the edge of the DP role and the edge of the Gaffer role.

Ive always considered the Gaffer role to execute the commands of the DP.

The DP would do the recces and spec the package, the gaffer would be responsible for safe rigging (of light fixtures and modifiers) and safe use of electricity (that is running lighting fixtures)?
 
It depends on the scale of the production and the relationship between DP and Gaffer. I’ve had jobs where the Gaffer was absolutely on the scout. He had to determine where the trucks would go, where power would come from, how much cabling to bring and how many person-hours it would require. I’ve also worked with gaffers where I certainly did not dictate ever light. I might ask for a certain key and particular fixtures for an effect. Beyond that I would describe what I was going for and the Gaffer would determine the kit used to achieve it. That might be due to space, power or rigging constraints, which I don’t need to bother with. Just like a good Director-DP relationship means that the DP knows what the Director is going for without having to be told, a Gaffer who understands the look the DP is trying to achieve is indispensable.

Every once in awhile my grips or electrics would catch me scrutinizing something they’d done. At first they would think I was questioning their choices and would get insulted. 9 times out of 10 I would explain that I liked it and just hought they’d come up with an interesting choice so I wanted to check it out.
 
On my jobs, the gaffer and key grip come on every scout, or at least their best boys. That is the point of a tech scout! The only way I'll be comfortable without them there is if the job is so small that it will be all house power and no rigging, like a run and gun or very simple or low budget thingie.

Building packages is always a discussion, we'll talk through the critical units and specialty gear but then I leave the nuts and bolts of the package to them.

On the day, I will sometimes be very specific about units and other times talk in more general terms and let the gaffer go about it. It depends on my relationship and trust level with them. Some gaffers I've needed to be very specific about what I want and where I want it, usually because our sensibilities don't match up.

I'm just as picky about my key grip as I am about the gaffer. I've been fortunate to have done the majority of my jobs in the past decade with one key grip (who was with me from the beginning of Key & Peele) and I am rarely as happy with anyone else. It's an integral part of the lighting process.
 
James0b57 said:
Aren’t the tokona’s full frame though? 18mm is pretty wide in FF35
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As are the Canon’s, Sigma’s, Zeiss CP.2’s and CP.3’s(and others I’ve left out). Just because it’s a “FF” lens doesn’t mean it’s being used on a “FF” camera.
 
morgan_moore said:
Thats it that is why I dont think canon is a 'cine glass set'.. its not ready, IMO, to make a major motion picture to be shown on at the cinema - Ultra and Master primes are.

Actually its worse because the shoots with the cheaper lenses will be the one with the smaller light package.
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My point was that there are a lot of existing lens sets that have been around and used for years that do not have fast matching wides. And there are lots of series and movies being shot on lenses other than MP’s and UP’s.
 
Run&Gun said:
My point was that there are a lot of existing lens sets that have been around and used for years that do not have fast matching wides. And there are lots of series and movies being shot on lenses other than MP’s and UP’s.
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Which primes have been around for years? Canon cine? They are brand new to me and I’m not even old school
 
Run&Gun said:
Now you're just f*cking with me, right?
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Not for fun no.

Google says Cn-e were launched in 2011/12.. (seems like yesterday!) thats 'new' in my book - most of my lenses were made in the 80s.


Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cinema_EOS#Canon_EF_Mount_2

Ive thought the lineup was crap from day one. I think they started with a 24 which is no good on S35 as a wide then shoehorned in the 14 3.5, leaving a big gap and a horrific loss in Tstop. Basically they got some fullframe glass and 'cinevised' them without reducing the image circle - completely inappropriate for S35.
 
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Run&Gun said:
As are the Canon’s, Sigma’s, Zeiss CP.2’s and CP.3’s(and others I’ve left out). Just because it’s a “FF” lens doesn’t mean it’s being used on a “FF” camera.
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Oh, the whole can of worms thing.
 
CharlesPapert said:
On my jobs, the gaffer and key grip come on every scout, or at least their best boys. That is the point of a tech scout!
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Thanks Charles and Mitch.

Seems like gaffer and grip on recces - thats a much bigger scale than I work at.. where Im lucky to get a couple of iphone snaps of a location :)
 
morgan_moore said:
Not for fun no.

Google says Cn-e were launched in 2011/12.. (seems like yesterday!) thats 'new' in my book - most of my lenses were made in the 80s.


Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cinema_EOS#Canon_EF_Mount_2

Ive thought the lineup was crap from day one. I think they started with a 24 which is no good on S35 as a wide then shoehorned in the 14 3.5, leaving a big gap and a horrific loss in Tstop. Basically they got some fullframe glass and 'cinevised' them without reducing the image circle - completely inappropriate for S35.
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I think there may have been a little miscommunication/misunderstanding. I wasn't defending the Canon's. I own a set and know their background and shortcomings. I was just pointing out that getting a 14mm or 15mm high-speed(T1.5 or better) wide in a matched set with other fast primes isn't that easy outside of "Master Prime" echelon lenses. And the MP's really aren't that old, either. They were introduced in ~ 2005 with the 14mm added in '07.
 
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