Varicam35: Shooting "Cassandra French's Finishing School"

CharlesPapert said:
Yeah Bill, I'm not sure what the 8 refers to in that plot--my gaffer drew it up and this was last August. We may have hung a little mus against the wall but an 8x8 would have been visible in the mirror, and the walls were already a muted off-white so we didnt really need the mus there.

The ED tubes for Lekos are an advanced optic that greatly reduce the color fringe and give a sharper definition to the fixture and perhaps a whiter color rendition (the old optics could go a little warm) . We spec them to come that way in the rental package.
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Thanks!
 
CharlesPapert said:
Mine too, man. Mine too.
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Not to get all cerebral, but I keep looking at the wide trying to figure out why it works so well. That curtain hanging camera left, the camera placement, all combine to give a subtle sense that someone's peeking around the corner, watching her. Which is exactly the revelation that character is experiencing at that moment. Story and camera, same reality. Very cool.

Anyway, wishing you well in your future work.
 
Charles- How much of a role does your Gaffer play in the lighting formulation and execution? Are there times where you go to the Gaffer and ask him or her how they would light a scene? Or is it almost always more a situation where you dictate the lighting 100% and the Gaffer just executes it for you. Are there times where the Gaffer tells you that something you have schemed just won't work or is a bad idea altogether and then provides a suggested alternative?

Do you have a Gaffer that is your regular guy / gal that you work with on most of your projects? Is the choice of Gaffer typically a decision left up to the DP?

This is in no way directed at you, Charles, but I have often wondered what it must be like for a seasoned and highly experienced Gaffer to be paired with a young DP ( or older DP ) who doesn't have a clue what they are doing. If the DP defers everything to the Gaffer, the Gaffer might find that enjoyable since they are essentially acting as DP, albeit not receiving credit for it. But if the DP doesn't realize that they have no idea what they are doing and demand that the Gaffer execute dreadful lighting schemes that are only going to cause headaches, it must be a nightmare for a Gaffer. ( do they let the DP sink or try to save them? )

As to your lighting in the trailer, is there one type of lighting that is most difficult? That is, wide day interior shots, wide night interior shots, wide day exteriors, wide night exteriors. ( I am assuming that wide shots are always more difficult to light than are tights, since, with tight shots you can easily work the lights close to the subjects. ).

Do you ever get what I call "Lighter's Block"? A situation where you are tasked with lighting something that you could not pre-plan and when you go to light it you find yourself stuck as to how to go about lighting the scene. Or, having done this as long as you have, do you most always have some past experience or repertoire to fall back upon?

thank your for the experience and info you shared above. And thank you in advance for any response to my above questions that you are able to make time for.

Few of us here do work where we have the budget, crew, and lighting packages that you work with regularly. ( most of us light with little more than an Arri Kit and a couple of small LED sources ). While the concepts are the same, it really is a completely different world. If for no other reason than you get to scout locations, pre-rig, and come up with lighting schemes in advance. Whereas most of us here are having to come up with things on the fly, impromptu, and by the seat of our pants.

JP
 
JPNola said:
Charles- How much of a role does your Gaffer play in the lighting formulation and execution? Are there times where you go to the Gaffer and ask him or her how they would light a scene? Or is it almost always more a situation where you dictate the lighting 100% and the Gaffer just executes it for you. Are there times where the Gaffer tells you that something you have schemed just won't work or is a bad idea altogether and then provides a suggested alternative?

Do you have a Gaffer that is your regular guy / gal that you work with on most of your projects? Is the choice of Gaffer typically a decision left up to the DP?
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I've had a lot of gaffers over the years. I've got a few now that I really click with, to the point where I trust them to light a set that we've already been in a few times without dictating the master scheme (if I have to deal with something else like looking ahead to future tasks). It's really great to get the shorthand down so that it takes very little discussion to get rolling. It helps when we have the style of the project established because we aren't re-inventing the wheel all day long. Key & Peele was of course exactly that--completely different styles multiple times a day. I had a different gaffer each season of that show, so hopefully that proves that I don't let the gaffers do all the work! Really, it's a collaboration. I much prefer to discuss the plan in broad strokes--which side is dominant, what we want to pick out in the background etc. and let the gaffer work out which units should do what, but if I am working with a gaffer who don't have as much confidence in I'll be pretty specific about what goes where.

JPNola said:
This is in no way directed at you, Charles, but I have often wondered what it must be like for a seasoned and highly experienced Gaffer to be paired with a young DP ( or older DP ) who doesn't have a clue what they are doing. If the DP defers everything to the Gaffer, the Gaffer might find that enjoyable since they are essentially acting as DP, albeit not receiving credit for it. But if the DP doesn't realize that they have no idea what they are doing and demand that the Gaffer execute dreadful lighting schemes that are only going to cause headaches, it must be a nightmare for a Gaffer. ( do they let the DP sink or try to save them? )
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I personally don't see how anyone could call themselves a DP if they can't light. But it happens. Along the same lines, I've worked for directors who can't direct. Pretty much, we all do what we need to do to keep the boat from capsizing...

JPNola said:
As to your lighting in the trailer, is there one type of lighting that is most difficult? That is, wide day interior shots, wide night interior shots, wide day exteriors, wide night exteriors. ( I am assuming that wide shots are always more difficult to light than are tights, since, with tight shots you can easily work the lights close to the subjects. ).
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The toughest space on that show was the basement set, which was built practically (we could wild a few pieces of wall out of the way to open up room for cameras, but that didn't help lighting too much. Trying to come up with an efficient scheme for both day and night was a little dodgy and often elusive. If the show comes back for another season, I'll be able to build in some nooks and crannies to hide lights to speed things up.

JPNola said:
Do you ever get what I call "Lighter's Block"? A situation where you are tasked with lighting something that you could not pre-plan and when you go to light it you find yourself stuck as to how to go about lighting the scene. Or, having done this as long as you have, do you most always have some past experience or repertoire to fall back upon?
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I don't really get stuck in a big way, but sometimes I realize there's a better way to do approach a lighting scheme but it's too late to do anything about it. The bag of tricks is indeed pretty deep. But the fun comes from going outside one's comfort zone!

JPNola said:
Few of us here do work where we have the budget, crew, and lighting packages that you work with regularly. ( most of us light with little more than an Arri Kit and a couple of small LED sources ). While the concepts are the same, it really is a completely different world. If for no other reason than you get to scout locations, pre-rig, and come up with lighting schemes in advance. Whereas most of us here are having to come up with things on the fly, impromptu, and by the seat of our pants.
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Well now, that's exactly the world that I came up in. I lit my first job when I was all of 16 (it looked terrible). In my early 20's I shot hundreds of local commercials and corporates using a Lowel kit and some redheads, a two-man crew and very rarely scouts or preps. Been there and done that. I actually don't get all that much time to scout and prep a lot of the time; I'm certainly not sitting around making plots and figuring out lighting for every set in advance other than what we need to rig on jobs where that is even possible. "Cassandra French" was a low-budget series and a lot of it was as you described...on the fly, impromptu and by the seat of my pants. The scene I've posted here, for instance: I didn't have a plan on how to light it before that morning. Generally my MO is after I've given my lighting notes to the gaffer and shot notes to the operators I'll grab the director and walk through the next set to learn how he wants to shoot the scene, at which point I can start to figure out the specifics lighting plan (we may have already done preliminary rigging depending on the location--not in this set though). So, I worked out the look maybe 2 hours ahead of time. Once I get back to set and we have gotten rolling on the scene and everything's looking good and the director is doing performance takes, I'll pull the gaffer over to the next set so we can talk through it. If he has enough manpower, he'll start getting units over there and in place over the next couple of hours. Then when we see rehearsal of the scene, we may have to make changes based on re-blocking but at least we have a game plan.

That's when things are going normally. Occasionally I'll walk onto a set I've never seen right at rehearsal and have to conjure up a plan right then and there. It's not ideal but it happens.

Anyway...it's fun!
 
Hi Charles

Great work!

New to posting, Just wanted to know how the quasars were working for you and in what situations you prefer using them?

Cheers
 
Carlos Yap said:
Hi Charles

Great work!

New to posting, Just wanted to know how the quasars were working for you and in what situations you prefer using them?
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Hi Carlos:

I see the Quasars as a 100% Kinflo tube replacement. At this point I'd never use another Kino tube again if I could put a Quasar in its place. The efficiency of color adjustability is great, the full dimming capability and above all the more stable color rendition make the Quasars more useful. For the past few years I've found the Kino tubes tended to lean a tiny bit green or magenta depending on the tube and how long it had been burning, plus the old irritation of turning off tubes in a fixture to adjust intensity resulting in a smaller source. I like to have as many units as possible on dimmers (either a full size board or Luminaire), so the fine control possible with the Quasars is welcome.

If one is simply using Kino harnesses and never taking the tubes out to use separately, it's probably more logical to replace with flat panel units with diffusion. However we often use the tubes for specific purposes like lighting under a bar or under a counter or taping a tube on a wall where the size and shape works to our advantage, plus there are may legacy mounts and clips available for that application.
 
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