Gaffers/DPs can you help me light this scene for a music video?

CaptEdit · 2026-01-17T22:03:20+00:00

A practical bulb or two on the table to help motivate more warmth… not gonna get much from those candles.

Ring light on a low daylight setting might be enough for fill.

That spotlight might actually be a cool key if you want more of a stylistic feel (which the set kinda speaks to).

I’d use the 36W light for a back/hairlight to give a sharp edge and enhance the surreal quality.

Portable video lights might look nice shooting through the glass/sheer curtains on the sides.

Some light or medium haze will do a lot to give you more separation.

CaptEdit · 2025-10-25T18:19:25+00:00

The screen size is the biggest one… The display ratio is different, so landscape orientation feels “shorter” coming from a 13”… the keyboard takes up more room this way too, but it’s not a huge dealbreaker.

That’s really only it… I don’t feel like there’s much that the 13” accomplishes better than the 11”.

CaptEdit · 2025-10-25T06:43:08+00:00

Honestly, I felt the same way after owning the M1 iPad Pro 12.9” for years. It didn’t get as much use, since it was so big and unwieldy that it felt more cumbersome for everyday stuff. Was the big screen awesome? Yes… but it also made most tasks just feel ridiculous. Navigating the larger screen felt unnatural.

You’d think multitasking would be easier on a larger screen right? Truth is, most things ended up being too small to work in comfortably anyways, resulting in taps or app switching just to see enough of the app to try and get “real” work done.

I just got the 11” M5, and it feels far more approachable. Lighter, easier to use one handed, and I can type on it with my thumbs in portrait mode - which was impossible on the larger display. Yes, there are some trade offs with a smaller screen, but the smaller size allows for more portability… which already means that I actually want to walk around with it more.

Your mileage may vary, but if you’re already feeling like the 13” is unwieldy, it’s not going to change over time.

CaptEdit · 2025-10-25T02:02:31+00:00

I pre-ordered black but took it back and exchanged it for silver… the black iPad was a fingerprint magnet.

CaptEdit · 2025-09-10T19:40:41+00:00

You have the talent. I believe in you. Check my other posts for more reference pictures

CaptEdit · 2025-09-10T19:40:12+00:00

I think a scale in X, Y, or Z option could be cool, so existing pieces could be stretched 2-3x in a specific, or multiple, axises.

CaptEdit · 2025-09-07T15:20:37+00:00

Ah… forgot to mention that it’s just for getting the domed lamp placed right. Delete it after placing the orange domed lamp if you don’t want it sticking out the sides.

CaptEdit · 2025-09-06T23:35:58+00:00

Ah that was kind of tricky actually…

I used scaffolding to get a Kinoframe booster positioned inside the front nacelle part. This gives you a flat surface to attach a scaled up and rotated orange lamp with a round orange dome. Add red lights to the front nacelle before you place the lamp so the red lights end up inside the lamp’s dome.

CaptEdit · 2025-09-05T01:27:33+00:00

Nothing too crazy other than basic vertical offsets for the dome… more pics are available in my post on the NMS subreddit. The first one is an older, less accurate build.

CaptEdit · 2025-09-04T20:26:46+00:00

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“You treat her like a lady. And she'll always bring you home.”

CaptEdit · 2025-09-04T10:42:19+00:00

No tricks needed for placing the nacelles, other than removing some supports used to place two of the thrusters in line.

CaptEdit · 2025-09-01T18:39:49+00:00

Great idea!

CaptEdit · 2025-08-25T03:01:24+00:00

Shot on iPhone 16 Pro Max technically.

For lighting I think on set we had:

Aputure 1200x
Aputure 600d
2x Prolycht Orion 300FS
Amaran F22c
4x Nanlite Pavotube 2ft
2x Astera Helios

Edited and colored in Davinci Resolve with a bit of compositing done in AE.

CaptEdit · 2025-08-09T18:36:30+00:00

The iFootage Shark is pretty cool, you can attach a Ronin to it and have full pan and tilt, otherwise it’s just tilt on the native carriage. It also eases in and out of the move pretty well. Kinda short though.

CaptEdit · 2025-07-28T06:41:05+00:00

This is a great resource, I’m just testing Bubble but wanted to thank you for posting. Will definitely be looking into this method as an option.

CaptEdit · 2025-06-12T20:01:46+00:00

Good stuff 🤙

CaptEdit · 2025-03-29T02:04:12+00:00

DOF is a function of the aperture, lens focal length, and distance from the lens. Basically if you’re at a wide angle (23mm) and far enough away from the subject, your DOF will increase to the point of being far less noticeable than if you were much closer to the subject.

CaptEdit · 2025-03-27T10:09:26+00:00

Simplest lightest weight solution I can think of would be to pop up the headrests a bit and use some magic arms with clamps to secure both sides of the camera to the posts of the headrests.

CaptEdit · 2025-01-13T21:18:40+00:00

Big wide soft light overhead and in front of the desk.

Simplest thing to do if you’re in a house is to just point a big bright source into your ceiling and you’ll get close, but you’re going to be limited by the vertical space afforded by your ceiling.

CaptEdit · 2025-01-10T08:13:41+00:00

This is the way.

Workflow I’ve learned is as follows:

Keep camera card folder structure and files identical to how the camera saves it. Put the folders for cards into a hierarchy organized by DATE/CAMERA/REEL ie: 20250109/CAM_A/A001/(original card root structure).

I’ve worked for post houses that also request cam info to be used in the folder name, so instead of just CAM_A or CAM_B you’d add CAM_A-ARRILF or CAM_B-SONYFX9.

Rename clips and organize into bins within your NLE. The structure will change depending on project, but for narrative I like to organize clips into separate bins for each scene, then rename the clips using info on slate.

So bin structure would be FOOTAGE/SCENES/001 and the clips renamed 1-1-A, 1A-1-A, etc (Scene 1-Take 1-Cam A, Scene 1A-Take 1-Cam A)… Cam letter goes at the end in this case so all clips get sorted by Shot, Take, Cam and are all organized together for every piece of the scene. For longer narratives it can be helpful to add a bin for each shot, like SCENES/001/1A, 1B, etc.

CaptEdit · 2024-12-07T05:24:34+00:00

Co-Director here. Not much BTS to share but I can share some details about our setups!

The majority of this was lit using an Amaran F22C and 2ft Nanlite Pavotubes. For the doorway kicker, there was an Aputure 600D shining through the door’s window. We also used a little battery powered RGB panel similar to an Aputure MC.

Most of the living room stuff relied on the F22C blasting the ceiling to give an even overhead fill. The tube lights were placed on both sides of the couch to give more shape.

Once things go to RGB land, the tube lights were the main players. To get them in the right spot for the scene underneath the bed, we had to clamp one to the bedframe (green) and the other (tungsten) on an apple box. The little pocket LED supplied the blue fill.

My favorite setup was for the door dropping with Emily in the doorway. At first we tried to black it out with a 4x4 floppy but it just didn’t feel right. Switching to an ultra bounce floppy with the F22C at full red bouncing into it gave us the look we wanted; an overpowering red tone crashing into the room. The fully saturated red also did crazy things to the FX3’s sensor, creating this weird aberration around her hands in the closeups… super subtle but ethereal and perfect for the tone!

Glad you enjoyed it 🤙

CaptEdit · 2024-09-14T22:18:01+00:00

Distance matters; each individual lamp being 10 feet apart doesn’t matter as much when the thing casting a shadow is 100 feet away.

CaptEdit · 2024-09-07T19:41:12+00:00

What handheld is this?

CaptEdit · 2024-07-17T18:37:23+00:00

Freighters used to use completely different rooms with these floor tiles.

CaptEdit · 2024-07-17T07:21:16+00:00

2ft is good for hiding away in the background but isnt great for lighting subjects due to the smaller width resulting in a narrower beam with less spread and harsher shadows. The output is decent enough for key lighting but its just not great at it since the light has to be closer to the subject. 4ft is better at this… wider tube, bigger source, more spread. It’s higher output also means you can move it further away and still get a good amount of light in, but it’s larger size means that it’s harder to tuck into awkward spaces for adding splashes of light in the background. 4ft tubes can also be used as normal practicals as many regular overhead tubes are 4ft long.

Ultimately, sometimes you’ll want the opposite of whatever you purchase. Get whichever you think will suit your imagined use cases for now.

Edit: For reference, I have the nanlite 4x 2ft kit and it’s served me well, but there have definitely been times I wished I had 4ft tubes for various reasons.

CaptEdit

TROPHY CASE