{"id":27370,"date":"2012-09-27T18:17:01","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T18:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philipbloom.net\/?p=27370"},"modified":"2012-09-28T01:55:04","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T01:55:04","slug":"raindance-2012-how-to-light-a-spanish-galleon-set-with-the-underwater-realms-eve-hazelton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philipbloom.net\/blog\/raindance-2012-how-to-light-a-spanish-galleon-set-with-the-underwater-realms-eve-hazelton\/","title":{"rendered":"Raindance 2012: How to light a Spanish Galleon set with the Underwater Realm’s Eve Hazelton"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The 20th Raindance festival has just started. It’s 2 weeks of indie features and shorts in competition. It’s the largest indie film festival this side of the Atlantic. Last year the documentary I shot “How to start a revolution” won the best documentary award and this year I am very proud to be on the jury for the shorts section. There are loads of films to go see, and each day there is a screenwriting workshop covering a different topic held by \u00a0Bill Martell<\/a>…it’s just \u00a35 for each class. A crazy bargain!<\/p>\n

If you want to check out what films are showing, click here. They are showing at the Apollo in central London on a spiffing 4k projector!\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

I will be seeing as many films as I can…one thing I really can’t wait for is the screening of the incredible slick series of short films “The Underwater Realm” on Sunday where they still have some tickets lef<\/a>t….I have been a big supporter of them since their fantastically inventive kickstarter campaign. A template that I hope others follow rather than just begging for money!<\/p>\n

My friend, Eve Hazelton, the super talented DP of the films did three guest posts here, giving some valuable lighting tutorials. You can check them out here<\/a> and here<\/a> and here<\/a>. She’s written a nice in depth blog post again, covering one of here biggest lighting set ups…a Spanish Galleon! Over to Eve!! You can follow Eve on twitter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

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LIGHTING A SPANISH GALLEON SET WITH EVE HAZELTON<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hey guys – it’s been a while hasn’t it?!<\/p>\n

I have been super-busy this year working on the various challenges\u00a0that have been thrown my way during ‘The Underwater Realm’. It’s been\u00a0a long hard journey, but with just 5 days of shooting left this year I\u00a0can see the light at the end of the tunnel!<\/p>\n

Ever since last year’s lighting masterclasses I have regularly been\u00a0asked one thing over and over:\u00a0“But what is it actually like, lighting on set?”<\/p>\n

So… nine busy months later I’m back again at philipbloom.net to talk\u00a0you through a real life shooting challenge – lighting and lensing our\u00a0Spanish Galleon set!<\/p>\n

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So let’s set the scene. The boys have finished an incredible set\u00a0build – it’s a 10 meter long gun deck that rocks violently from side\u00a0to side. We start shooting in 4 days, and I have to figure out how the\u00a0hell I’m going to light the thing, shoot it, and of course find all\u00a0the right kit…<\/p>\n

The first problem on my mind is power. With such a long set build we\u00a0couldn’t afford to go to a studio, so we made one ourselves in a\u00a0disused warehouse. The only trouble (other than the lack of heating\u00a0water, lighting, toilets…) was the lack of electricity. We had\u00a0fitted a temporary power line, but it was limited to 40 amps.<\/p>\n

Quick power lesson for the uninitiated: 40 amps on a 240 volt supply\u00a0gives me 9,600 watts to play with – not very much!! Especially when\u00a0you consider that we have to run the entire unit, including hair and\u00a0make up, catering, video village… I set myself a limit of 7,000\u00a0watts to leave some room for everybody else.<\/p>\n

Now ordinarily, 7KW should be enough to light a set that big – but\u00a0this was no ordinary set…<\/p>\n

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Have I said how awesome this set was? Absolutely beautiful – the whole\u00a0thing was built on top of a 5 tonne concrete see-saw that allowed us\u00a0to rock the thing from side to side (with the help of a digger). The\u00a0cannons would roll, the ropes would sway and the actors would stumble, all creating the illusion that the ship was rolling on the seas.<\/p>\n

The entire set was even constructed inside a steel scaffolding cage,\u00a0so there were infinite places to attach my lights…<\/p>\n

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Except – if I mount my lights to the set, they rock with it and the\u00a0illusion breaks down.<\/p>\n

I needed to get my lights outside and away from the ship – and allow\u00a0them to beam though the various port-holes and grates so that the\u00a0light and the ship could move independently of one another. The only\u00a0problem here is that with my lights that far away, we lose a lot of\u00a0power as the they struggle to punch in from such a distance.<\/p>\n

I started off by testing with tungsten lights. I opted for 7x1000w\u00a0PARS, because they are designed to throw light a long way and are very\u00a0cheap.<\/p>\n

Once I had corrected the PARS to daylight with some CTB gel to match\u00a0the ambient light in the space, it became very obvious that we weren’t\u00a0going to have enough light. Even with the epic shooting wide open at T\/1.8 we were struggling to get down below 3200 ISO for a decent\u00a0exposure. It didn’t help that the walls and floor of the set were very\u00a0very dark – noise city – yuk!<\/p>\n

So – I was already at my 7000w limit, I couldn’t bring my lights any closer, and I couldn’t lose that CTB gel without getting a nasty\u00a0daylight\/tungsten colour mix.\u00a0The answer was obvious – I needed to get my hands on some HMIs. These\u00a0wonderful (and wonderfully expensive) lights would give me much more\u00a0\u201cbang for my buck,\u201d their fresnel lenses would allow them to punch in\u00a0from a long way away, and the icing on the cake is that they are\u00a0already daylight balanced!<\/p>\n

The big problem now is that we start rolling in three days and I have\u00a0no HMIs – they are really not easy to come by without a budget!\u00a0Fortunately after a shout out on twitter, I was rescued by the\u00a0wonderful Tom Smith @videoeurope whom I had met at Philip’s event in\u00a0March. Tom and the team at Video Europe are really up for helping\u00a0indie productions – they have lots of nice toys!<\/p>\n

Tom sorted me out with some lovely Arri HMIs to fit my ‘power budget’\u00a0perfectly: a pair of 575s, a pair of 1200s and a 2500w key. This kit\u00a0would give me the flexibility to light from various positions without losing the obvious primary light source.<\/p>\n

So I’m now just a hair over 6KW – and I have enough left to fire up\u00a0our new improved DIY LED lights to flood a greenscreen if I need to!<\/p>\n

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I had the boys rig a rope system to mount the 2.5K just above the set\u00a0beaming down through the grates in the ship. This gave me really\u00a0strong, harsh columns of light that would tear across the deck of the\u00a0ship as it rolled from left to right. This was such a bold lighting\u00a0statement I decided to make a feature of it with a little bit of haze.<\/p>\n

This haze would mix with the smoke from the cannon fire (yes they\u00a0really fired!) to create a light so strong you could almost reach out\u00a0and touch it. The haze would also help to scatter the light and help\u00a0spread it around the inside of that dark box.<\/p>\n

The other lights were positioned high and back to throw light in\u00a0through the portholes on the sides and help backlight the talent and\u00a0the wonderful production design.<\/p>\n

The epic was much, much happier with this light level – allowing us to\u00a0get down to 500-800 ISO and get a much cleaner, sexier image.<\/p>\n

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In order to make our young lead feel like a little mouse that was\u00a0about to get trodden on, and in order to make our set feel even bigger\u00a0I decided to shoot the entire piece on an 18mm Red Pro prime lens. Shooting this\u00a0wide actually helped us expose, because it made a t\/1.8 aperture\u00a0acceptable for focus pulling.<\/p>\n

Dave wanted a very panicked, hand held, Ridley Scott feel, which meant\u00a0we needed a decent wireless follow focus. There was no way we were\u00a0going to get a focus puller in the set along with all the scurvy\u00a0sailors and firing cannons!<\/p>\n

Pete Hoare at HocusProducts came to our rescue here with the prototype\u00a0of his awesome new Axis focus system. This thing was such a joy to use\u00a0we have since gone on to work with Pete to adapt his system for\u00a0underwater use!<\/p>\n

So there we have it, another shoot in the can. Then it was on to the\u00a0really complicated stuff – lighting underwater!<\/p>\n

If you want to find out some more about the project, or you just have\u00a0a question, come down and see me and the rest of the team at our sneak\u00a0preview and Q&A this Sunday at Raindance: http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/cbmt8or<\/a><\/p>\n

And don’t forget you can grab yourself a copy of my hour long lighting\u00a0Masterclass on Vimeo:\u00a0 https:\/\/vimeo.com\/channels\/evehazelton<\/a><\/p>\n

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Photo credits go to the crew and Angus Young – http:\/\/www.production-stills.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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