#Dark and light taming chimera series#
#Dark and light taming chimera tv#

However, adding flags and C-stands and black drapery became disruptive. I thought that I had a good grasp of the intricate dance that is the cameras, mic booms, lighting stands, props, script assistants and floor crew moving around each other on a drama set. I was also fortunate in being able to convince the set designer to paint the walls of the sets in very dark tones to hide the spill light and give the scenes more atmosphere (just like the perps' apartments and crime scenes in 'Hill Street Blues').ĭespite all the support and cooperation extended by the entire production team, it really was just too hard to shoot.

#Dark and light taming chimera series#

Fortunately, I once worked with a young and adventurous producer on a children's fantasy drama series and was given the chance to experiment with the softkeyed look. Serious spill control is required if you want to light anything more than an isolated talking head or a simple product shoot.įrench flags, cutters, C-stands draped with black tabs-indeed, the entire repertoire of beam control grippery is necessary if you want to make softlight sufficiently directional to light multicamera production. Aside from being horrendously inefficient and bulky, the spill light from the diffuser simply blasts everywhere, hitting everything from the walls of the set to the glass on the Autocue and lenses of the cameras. (click thumbnail) Lights outfitted with Lighttools Soft Egg Crates fabric grids.Although I had found a source with naturalistic soft-edged shadows that was directional and sufficiently punchy to use as a keylight, my troubles were just beginning. If you keep the minibrute more than six feet from the subject (so he light doesn't wrap too far ), it has many characteristics of indirect daylight. However, two or more layers of tough-spun diffusion clipped to the barndoors turn this luminaire into a softlight that retains some of the directional characteristics of the PAR 36 medium flood lamps inside. When used for close-ups and talking heads, the minibrute has all the subtlety and finesse of football stadium lighting.

#Dark and light taming chimera tv#

I finally found the light source I was looking for when I stumbled across heavily diffused nine-light minibrutes (molefays) used in TV commercials. When I switched to television, the softlights I encountered were employed to fill hard shadows from Fresnel keylights or create that abstract shadow-free studio look that characterized so much of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am era of live television. In junior high school, I became involved with stage lighting, with its hard-edged ellipsoidal light, Fresnel spots and broad shadowless washes from banks of floodlights.

Ever since I first picked up a 35 mm still camera in my late teens, I have been passionately attracted to the look of strong, directional softlight.