Making cookies

Steve Laramie

Steve Laramie

Veteran
In order to make cookies is all I have to do is cut shapes out of black foam core and bake on high? I You have better methods pet me know.
 
You can make cookies out of virtually any dense material. Black foam core would be good so when you pass the light through it it doesn't bounce any extra light on the set. But still you could use poster board or particle board. It's a pretty broad range. Best of luck.
 
I have seen some people use 1/4" plywood, they then later attached a metal bracket with 3/8" pin to make it easier to put on a c-stand. I usually use foam core, it is much cheaper and easier to cut.
 
Well I call up Chuck Norris, I write something offensive on the foam core...and when Chuck comes over he punches the wholes for me...
 
Black foam core works well. Cut a slot in one of the narrow ends that's 1/2" wide and 2" long and you can slide the cookie into a grip head on the end of a gobo arm on a C-stand and you're in business.

Try to follow me on this idea, as words are hard to use in conveying it. You should play with the amount of openness you cut into the gobo (the holes) compared to the amount of foam core you leave behind to cast the shadows.

The ratio of light to shadow that your cookie casts gives different effects and you can't exactly duplicate them by varying the distance from the light to the gobo and gobo to the wall.

I like cookies that are mostly open and cookies that are mostly opaque, depending on what day it is :)

Oh, and don't forget to make some leaf patterns and shutter or venetian blind patterns. They work well.
 
I usually just get a tree branch and arm it out there.

You can also get a mirror, cover the backside in gaffers tape, the front side in clear packing tape, then break it. The tape will keep it together, but breaking it will break up any light that you shoot into it. Then just tape a baby nail on plate to the back and mount it on a C-stand.

Try shooting a par into that mirror and you should be good. 1x1 mirrors are pretty cheap too.

Another thing you can do is cut up a bunch of water bottles and tape a bunch of the bottoms all together. Then shoot a light through that.

There's so many weird things you can do, just look at light in every day circumstances and what it's being broken up by and then figure out how to replicate that.
 
Ehh....you'll get em over sorta fast...They are good for every once in a blue moon, but you see some people who just use them all the time and it gets sorta lame.
 
RyanT said:
Ehh....you'll get em over sorta fast...They are good for every once in a blue moon, but you see some people who just use them all the time and it gets sorta lame.
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Very true, thank you for mentioning this. Venetian blinds on the wall is just a cover up for a bad/non-existent production designer.
 
Yeah, that's almost always the case.

The only time I've really seen cookies used for their benefit is for night interior scenes when you just have moonlight. I really don't think it looks right unless you shoot through some tree branches and such.

Otherwise I don't know....In like 2 years of on-set work I've only see maybe 2 situations where a DP has called for a cookie...they just don't seem to be used too often.
 
the cleanest ones I've seen (especially sharp ones i.e. Venetian blinds) have typically been a clean light source projecting a gobo (i.e ETC Source 4 or something like a Dedolight). It's more money than good old foam core or cinefoil, but it's a lot sharper.
 
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