Robert Primes: A Quick Word on Source 4's

From American Cinematographer, Big City Girl by Stephanie Argy (February 1999)

"The Source Fours are a very hard light that you can bounce into a card, and then contain the spill. They're just 575 watts, but they're 95 percent efficient, so sometimes they'll do the work of a 5K light."

- Robert Primes, ASC

Alar Kivilo: Beveled Mirrors

From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)

For moodier moments, Kivilo used hard light reflected into the sets using beveled mirrors.

"I'd pick a dead corner of the set and have Joey black it out so no light was there. I'd then aim Par cans or sometimes HMI Pars into the mirrors and splash light into random spots on the set. I'm always searching for the best kinds of slashes, which have an organic feel, and these beveled mirrors provided that. It was perhaps the only slightly stylized addition I made to our otherwise simplistic regime, in that there was no logical source for that kind of light; my thinking was that it was perhaps coming from a streetlight outside or something. Those scenes were about mood, and it was great to use the mirrors rather than backlight an actor. I'd just bounce a slash into the background and silhouette them against the set."

- Alar Kivilo, CSC

Alar Kivilo: Snow & Contrast

From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)

"We wanted to avoid blue skies and sun, and we were lucky for the most part. On overcast days, I would simply employ some negative fill so that the light wouldn't bounce around as much from the white snow. We covered the ground with solids and brought in more solids on one side to give the light more direction. Then, for close-ups, we'd shape and refine the light slightly with a bit of bounce fill off a card. During the few days when the sun did come out, I wanted to bring in a big crane with a huge silk to take care of the situation, but again, budgetary factors didn't allow it."


- Alar Kivilo, CSC

Guillermo Navarro: Source Four Pars

From American Cinematographer, Fly Girl by Andrew O. Thompson (January 1998)

{[Set is on Location: Interior of a small beach apartment. Multiple leading actors in a Steadicam scenes.]}

"One shot brought Sam Jackson and Pam Grier in the front door of the apartment and out to the balcony in a 180-degree tracking pan, which hinged around Robert De Niro sitting on a couch in the middle of the room. The camera was on the Steadicam with a very wide lens; of course, the lens revealed everything in the room, so there was nowhere to hide the lights except for right over the couch. To light him, we put silver cards just out of frame along the walls; over the couch, we rigged 12 Source Fours with 3/4 CTB on them, which we bounced into the cards. Even with the filtration, they were bright enough to get us to the level we needed, but they were small enough to be rigged overhead and remain out of the shot. The control they gave us allowed us to focus them precisely without using a lot of flags for spill. When De Niro sat down to do the scene, he looked up and saw all of these lamps suspended over his head and gave a little shudder."

- David Lee, Gaffer for Navarro on Jackie Brown

Matthew Leonetti: "Croney Cones" and "Phoney Cones"

Pat Blymer served as Chief Lighting Technician (gaffer) for Matthew Leonetti on Star Trek Insurrection.

"Above the Bridge set, there were 12 pie shaped ceiling pieces made out of muslin, and we had a 5k senior hitting into each one of them-- this gave us about 12 foot candles of ambient light throughout the entire set. We then hung lights as needed to accentuate the actors, usually tweenies with special diffusion cones on them. Jordan Cronenweth [ASC], who shot Blade Runner, had these devices called 'Croney Cones'. They were 5' long and made out of tinfoil, and he put them on the front of seniors and 10Ks. The paper diffusion on the front, either 216 or 250, softened up the light. Through the years, we made our own version of them out of showcard, which we call 'phoney cones.'"

-Pat Blymer

Conrad Hall: Approach, Source Lighting, Practicals & Roomtone

"Source lighting is something that the inventors of cinema brought forth as a technique, and it's a good starting point when you're telling a story, but that doesn't mean you have to follow it. If I have an interior daylight scene, I usually struggle to use one light coming in through a window. Inside, I use smaller units and practical lights, and I also figure out how to take light away and create the little separations that provide depth. I can use practical lamps a lot as lighting sources, but will often add to that with additional 'movie' lights. However, you have to make sure that the additional lights you're using on an actor are not also lighting the practical. Finally, I add the proper amount of fill light, which I call room tone, to give the blacks the right tonality. Light bounces off of every surface in a room-- the walls, the floor, the furnature-- and that's what room tone is. I usually hit a white card above the set or directly on the ceiling so that it doesn't cast shadows on the walls. If you were to turn off all the other lights, you'd barely see anything, but everything would still be visible. There's no directionality to it. Room tone is very improtant, and you can use varying amounts of it depending on the speed of your film."

-Conrad Hall, ASC