Light used in the Movie "Colatteral"

[DVX100Shooter]

I just got done watching the making of the movie "Collateral" on the DVD and they were showing how they lit the inside of the taxi cab with these real thin bendable screen like things that produced a soft light sort of like a Kino Flo! They said it was the same material that is used in cell phones. Has anyone seen what I am talking about? I don't know what the technical name is for that type of light. They didn't mention it on the DVD. They had a bunch of them velcroed all over the inside of the car.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

Re: Light used in the Movie "Colatteral"

From the asc:

After investigating many options, Cameron and his chief lighting technician, Phil Walker, chose a new fixture: Electrolumi-nescent Display (ELD) panels. The thin, flexible pieces of plastic encase laminated phosphors and operate much in the same way that Indiglo watches and mobile-telephone displays do. Walker worked with NovaTek, a manufacturer of ELD panels, to custom-create a mixture of phosphors that would provide an acceptable color temperature for the HD cameras. “In the beginning, Michael preferred a warmer color temp, but we eventually settled on a slightly cool green that looked very natural,” recalls Cameron. “That was the easy part. It then took about four weeks to get the panels made, which left us with about a week before principal photography to set them up in the cabs.”

Adding another dimension to the tight timeline was that the production called for four fully functional taxis and three custom-built trailers with various sections of the cab (one for shooting from the front without a windshield, one for shooting through the passenger side, and one for shooting through the driver’s side), which meant there were seven “sets” that had to be rigged with ELD panels.

“The custom trailers were very interesting — we called them ‘Popemobiles,’” says Cameron. “They were basically sliced sections of the cab that were walled in with large panes of Plexiglas that eliminated wind noise yet still let in available light while we were moving. They were constructed on extremely lightweight trailers that got the cars as low to the ground as possible and still had great suspension. The rig gave us a mobile soundstage, which was wonderful.”

Inside the cab, Cameron and Walker wired more than 30 leads in various positions for the ELD panels. Each panel was about 8"x15" and could be placed anywhere and hooked into a lead in just a few seconds. The leads traced back to a custom-built dimmer board, and each panel could be dimmed to nearly 20 percent without any change in color temperature; the device could also run off either a generator or batteries. “You can cut the panels into any shape, but we made most of them in uniform sizes and just cut a few to slip into tight spaces,” says Cameron. “No matter what the size, all of the panels could run from the same lead, so we could switch a 4-by-4-inch panel out for an 8-by-15 and keep the same lead. In the end, we wound up with about 30 ELD panels in each cab.”

Electrolumi-nescent Display

http://www.novatek.com.tw/english/index.asp

https://electricvinyl.com/shop/products.php?p=368c4a4a58

 

[speedbump]

Re: Light used in the Movie "Colatteral"

You can sort of fake this kind of lighting appliance by disassembling an old backlit LCD laptop, and using the lighting element. See the thread on DIY projector in Hardware.

Don't know what kind of color temperature you'd get, though.

 

[Walter_Graff]

Re: Light used in the Movie "Colatteral"

Or simply go online and buy yourself some ELD material. It's sold on various sites but for general lighting purposes, you ain't going to get much out of it.