Lighting

Lighting is a creative and enjoyable skill.

Yesterday I worked on a corporate video with a young DP.  I was just moving around a couple Astras.  Not much creativity here, or even possible, but this is my job sometimes.

Sometimes, like on a movie, much of my work becomes clerical, making schedules and making sure we have the gear and manpower to do the job each day.  It becomes mundane, and yet stressful.

Sometimes, I'll get a call to do lighting.  Then I'm excited.  There are DPs who know that I am good at lighting and will call me for it.  Many of these DPs want to concentrate more on the camera side and want a gaffer who will do most of the lighting.  These are the jobs I enjoy the most.  I think this is the best use of a gaffer by a DP.

As a gaffer, you can never claim ownership of the lighting.  Ultimately, it is the DP who will ask for a specific look and adjust the lighting.  It is also the DP’s choices with camera, lens, looks, grading, etc., which has so much to do with the quality of the final image.

Here are a couple jobs this year I where did the lighting that I am really proud of:

This is Johnny Bench in a commercial for the Reds.  The director of photography is Patrick Meier of Yellow Haus.  The lighting is a out-of-the-box look that I wish I could say was my idea.  It was not.

The clients had seen a Michael Jordan Super Bowl commercial and loved the lighting.  Patrick asked me to duplicated it.

The most distinctive feature is the ¾ back-key on the open side of the face.  This is opposite of the side we traditionally put the key light on.  The large soft fill light, just to the right of camera, is at least a couple stops down, but with the large size, creates a great eye sparkle which bring life to the scene.  I love this look.

This is for a commercial for a museum center in San Francisco.  I am really pleased with the look of this lighting.  The director of photography is Marty Nowak of Roth Foth Advertising.

The blown-out windows are doing the heavy lifting here lighting the space.  There is an 18K par going in the front window with a 4K, M18, and a 1200 par, in the side ones.  The key grip completely blacked out the right side of the room.  The shaft of sunlight is a 1200 Fresnel in the other room.  I asked for a gobo in it to complete the look of light coming in a window.  The girl is getting some light from a window to the left with 1000H on the window.  She is additionally illuminated by a 4x4 Kino Flo, almost on the ground, with a 40-degree snapgrid.

 

We did somewhere around 20 shots for this commercial.  They all looked great.  Can’t wait to see it.