pankcake lantern + hmi?

NewYorkLion

NewYorkLion

Well-known member
Hey all,

so, i shoot a lot of hosted interview shows. the kind where the host does a cold open, and then the rest of the show is her or him doing stand-up interviews of subjects that we shoot 2 camera.

Currently we light with the following kit:
2x Diva 400 for keys
1200w hmi for background
2x lightpanel minis for hairlights
huge tungsten kit for specials, etc.

the problem i'm having is that lighting a 2 shot with divas, when you don't have a ton of time to get them up in the air on a menace arm over your subjects, tends to not work out so great. the divas have tons of spill and you end up basically keying from the wrong side.

the solution i am think of switching to is to use a joker 400 dropped in a pancake lantern, armed out on a menace arm right between and above the subjects.

has anyone been doing this? does it work well? i cant find anyone locally that owns a pancake for me to test it out.

anyone?
 
Why don't you key them with the 1200? That way you'll have tons of power for your key and you can maybe back it off a bit so you can still light your background up a bit with divas. Depending on how flat you want it to be you can steal a diva for fill or depending on how much light they give out you can use your light panels through some diff. Heck, if you shoot your 1200 through a 4x frame or softbox you can probably just get away with a bounce card.

Just sounds like a much simpler setup than having to build menace arms every setup.

Are you shooting these in SF though? You should just go over to DTC and tell them your problem. I'm sure they'll be happy to let you test out whatever you want if you rent from them. Arthur Freyer Lighting is also another very friendly place in the oakland area that will go out of their way to help you figure out what you need.
 
hey ryan, we do sometimes key with the 1200, but usually we are more likely to use it to light up a big background. I know the dtc and freyer guys well. My truck and lights lives in freyers warehouse on the army base.
 
I use a 30inch pancake chimera or mix it up with my 400 joker and a soft tube.
The soft tube does tend to spill a bit , but can be placed over head between interviewer and interviewee.
A Matthews or Bogen mini boom arm, rigged with a sandbag for counterbalance, should be all that is needed for the weight of the Jokerbug 400.
 
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