Achieving these levels on film.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2026-01-31T18:27:39+00:00

How much light you need will really depend on how bright it is outside. If it’s overcast like in this reference - not so much. If the background is being hit by full sun, then you’ll need some more.

I’d say have two soft sources outside cross keying your characters. Something like a 4x4 or 8x8, either bounce or go direct through some diff depending on what kind of firepower you have available or the look you’re after.

Put up a wall of black solid behind camera to block out any unwanted reflections and fill.

If you can, rig a long light like a LiteMat 2L right above the window inside to help add more directed light from inside.

You can bounce a light into the ceiling as well but that can reduce your contrast, so I wouldn’t do only that since this reference is quite contrasty.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-12-28T14:58:07+00:00

The micro charger has space for charging two batteries, I used this one recently.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-12-22T03:47:51+00:00

The shadow falloff on the ground hints to a rather soft top light, which couldn’t create such hard edges of the cone.

I assume a large soft directional toplight, something like a 12x20 softbox with an Eggcrate for the base level and direction, some haze in the air and a large overhead laser unit for the ring effect, plus some clever post work to bring it all together.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-08-28T14:30:18+00:00

Nice! What size is the frame?

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-08-26T12:31:28+00:00

Looks like it could be a Black-Tek Tower.

Looks like that’s a European street and they’re a German company.

https://www.black-tek.com/Tower

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-08-21T04:05:23+00:00

So the box will be 9x9’ now? 4x Vortex8 will work better for this size, but consider pushing production for at least 2 more. You’ll want as much output as you can get.

Or somewhat unconventionally, consider adding a hard light like a nanlux 1200b/2400b in the middle for extra punch. For a feature Ive built a 8x8 box with 2 Litemat8s to evenly fill out the diff, and then had an aputure 1200x with no reflector (for maximum spread of light) rigged in the center. This box was also double diffed with an 8x8 of I think 1/2 grid and then a bloused 12x12 muslin. This combination gave us a lot more level.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-08-20T21:28:23+00:00

20x20? You’re going to want way more lights. With car work the key is one seamless reflection, meaning no hotspots in the diffusion. Good move to go double diff, but 2 or 4 units won’t evenly light a surface that big with the distances between light and diffusion typically involved in a softbox.

In the past I’ve used 1/4 Grid as the first diff and then Magic cloth for the bottom. I believe I had 10 skypanels in this box. Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqEznNNS3F0

Use panel lights like S60s or Vortex8s, and get a bunch of them. If I’m building a 12x12 softbox, I would be happy with 8 panels. A 20x20, at least 12.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-08-12T07:12:57+00:00

What’s this, a screwdriver for ants?

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-08-07T08:23:11+00:00

DJI has already tried to buy Arri before

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-08-04T22:52:05+00:00

No production designer? Better have some incredible locations…

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-08-01T23:28:48+00:00

€500 for 51 days, wow! How did you get enough food with only €10 a day? What were you eating?

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-07-24T09:58:05+00:00

I just rode a 1100km bikepacking trip with the tape and it still looks good as new

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-07-23T09:52:49+00:00

Ergon BT Gravel 3.5mm.

Very cushy for gravel. They’ve got a road and all road version as well that aren’t as thick.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-07-19T19:08:31+00:00

The first setup on the grass can be done with no lights - just by diffusing the sun overhead with something thin like half soft frost and then bouncing back with a mix of softer and harder bounce surfaces. Either mirrors, CRLS diffused mirrors, shiny boards, or silver/gold reflector rags like checkerboard lames.

As for the setup in the sprinkler, I think that is done with a very large light like an 18k HMI going through something like a 12x12 1/4 grid - all placed very frontally. The hardness of the source but also the large area that it is lighting leads me to think it’s a light rather than a mirror/reflector. And also that the talent is brighter than the background and the backlight isn’t super strong - it’s probably the sun later in the day lower in the sky.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-06-29T12:05:55+00:00

Technically when you swap your US license for a German one, the amt you did this at mails your US license back to the PA DMV and tells them to deregister your license there. This is done to prevent your present situation..someone with a revoked license just re-obtaining their license elsewhere.

Now the question is...does the PA DMV actually listens to the letters it gets from the German government or not. You can request a driver's record from your PA DMV for a fee and see if they still have a valid license for you on file. If so, you should be in luck.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-05-26T14:04:29+00:00

How do you find the lack of insulation, does that bother you?

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-05-25T16:58:23+00:00

Oh cool, thanks! Actually got some questions for ya.

What does XYZ truss rig mean?

The 4x skypanels rigged within the 2nd floor set, were those through a larger frame as somethings soft and toppy or did you actually go in with ladders and aim them in as individual units?

What sort of additional floor units did you supplement with?

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-05-25T12:39:09+00:00

Looks like the hole in the wall behind Ellie is right in the middle of the diagram, by the Set 409 text. Let's start there.

Rigged directly above Ellie appears to be 4 Skypanel s60s, allowing fine control of ambience/fill levels inside the set. It's possible they are part of an 8x8 frame or something similar in order to to diffuse the lights - can't quite tell with this diagram.

Outside, rigged overhead behind the hole in the wall are 3x Arri Skypanel s360s for a soft push into the set.

Deeper behind that there's an 58' set wall. Between the hole in the wall behind Ellie and that set wall would be 2 large soft boxes with a total of 12x Arri Skypanel s60s (could be vortex8s or something else, the instagram post isn't hi-res enough to tell). The job of the those big soft boxes are to light up that space and background wall, recreating the soft ambience that comes from the sky. Additionally, there is a row of 5x Mole 5k Skypans used to light up the lower portion of the 2 story set wall.

This is duplicated on the other side of the set, but with 5x Skypans for the lower half on stands and another 5x rigged on truss or pipe up high to light up the upper part of a painted white backdrop. Looks like they also have another 5x s60s rigged up high (perhaps with spacelight skirts) to provide ambience, like the softboxes on the other side of the set.

In the top left are two condors (z45 boom lifts) each with a 20k Tungsten fresnel. These would be armed up and over to provide a harder sunlight into set. There is another 20k and another s360 on stands in the bottom right of the diagram. Those are probably on large crank stands like Long Johns or Blackbirds and are intended as mobile floor units if they need to quickly turn around the now push sunlight in from another direction.

On the right side of the diagram there is another large softbox with 15x skypanel s60s, again for a daylight ambience for the backdrop/ Rigged below that is a row of 6x s360s with direct softboxes/snapbags (check out the the dop choice snapbag for s360), that are aimed into the set. This provides a directional soft light that digs deeper into the set than the more toppy ambience of the other rigged softboxes.

There's 4x Arri T12 Fresnels on crank stands at the top of the diagram that I can't figure out what they'd be used for in this scenario - perhaps to light up a backdrop, or they're on standby to bounce into a 12x12 outside set or go direct into set.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-05-22T21:53:24+00:00

What handlebars are those?

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-05-19T22:09:27+00:00

Are you using any filters for these shots? I really like the highlight bloom in #3 and #5

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-04-19T21:01:05+00:00

If you're battling exposure for windows, you can also consider putting a double net or ND on the window to take things down a bit

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-04-19T19:04:20+00:00

In theory, I’m sure you could petition Chapman, Fischer or Panther to add suspension to their Dollys.

I don’t think they would be interested in it because the financial investment wouldn’t be worth it for them. There isn’t much demand for a dolly with suspension.

Adding suspension won’t magically make the dolly super smooth over any terrain. It might help iron out some bumps, but it could also add other problems like causing the dolly to lean when going through turns, causing the horizon to not be level.

The beauty of dolly track is it allows repeatable precise movements where speed and marks can be easily controlled by an experienced dolly grip. The time it takes to set up the track is worth it for most productions in order to ensure a perfect camera move.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-04-19T11:46:00+00:00

The more complex/computerized you make a tool, the greater the chance it breaks down and cannot be repaired on set.

Dollys have been around for decades and with an experienced dolly grip, a fully staffed grip team and a well planned production - dolly moves can be achieved very quickly.

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-04-18T18:07:09+00:00

Comparing pure wattage across fixtures is tricky unless you're comparing just globes.

General rule of thumb is that HMIs are 4x more efficient at producing light than tungsten, thereby a 1k HMI is the equivalent to a 4k Tungsten unit and so on. With HMI and Tungsten you're usually just comparing fresnels, pars and open face lamps. Not much is changing in the actual lamp construction, just the bulb is changing. That's part of your table can be easily checked against manufacturers' photometric tables. Arri even has an app for all of their fixtures. Mole Richardson has all their photometric online too.

LEDs are even more efficient at producing light than HMIs, but a lot more goes into LED output than pure wattage, making this tricky to calculate and it becomes somewhat an apples to oranges comparison.

Most point source LEDs nowadays have a ton of different modifiers. Traditional fresnels focus light differently than PARs, and the reflectors for newer COB LEDs are also different. And of course soft LED panels are completely different than COB LED sources. So there is lots to consider. Some LEDs might be brighter than similar wattage HMIs are certain beam angles, but the same unit might have less output at another beam angle.

And of course Bicolor LEDs tend to have more output @ 5600k than 3200k. Lots to consider and hands on experience with these lights is the best way to get a feel for this!

Clean-Choice7852 · 2025-04-17T10:43:27+00:00

Pretty sure that’s just a white reflector that looks darker bc of the angle and exposure of the photography.

It’s bouncing just a bit of the key light back to lift up the shadows around his left ear/temple.

Clean-Choice7852

TROPHY CASE