Studio shoot - My role
My role:
On the studio shoot I took on the role of Gaffer. I worked under our cinematographer and I worked beside/within the camera team. As gaffer I worked alongside Chris in order to get to grips with the lights and he walked me through how to use the switch board and dimmer switches on the sky lights.
We didn’t have a lighting plan set in stone for the shoot. The director told me he wanted it flooded, but not too much that you couldn’t see the texture of the set. So I used two 4K lights as back lights. I used two of the sky lights to light from above, and used one huge powerful light, which I can’t currently think of the name for, to really flood out the rest of the set. As well as this we had a window on the left wall of the set. The director told me he wanted that lit, so chris and I used a huge piece of poly board, a clamp and a 1K light to achieve this. We positioned the board diagonally to the window, then we clamped the 1K light onto the top of the Left set wall and angled it down to shine directly and intensely onto the board to create an outside, natural type of light through the window.
Really the only thing I struggled with was balancing the lights out so there were no intense shadows, so I needed to balance the back and front flood lights, which as first was a bit difficult but chris helped me figure it out. The only other issue was that we tried using two 4K lights either side of the set in an attempt to light the edges of the set for more flooding, when we tried it, it looked uneven, it just didn’t work quite the way we thought it would, so we removed them, and as it was we didn’t need them anyway.
On the two back lights we needed to soften them as they created horrible shadows, so we put trace on them, which helped soften the shadows massively. The space lights helped to gently fill the space from above and create a heavenly feeling to the set.
Next time I am able to take on this role I would like to think I’d be able to do more from my own knowledge instead of relying on chris as much as I was, honestly I wasn’t as familiar with the lights as I would have liked. However now I feel like I am more equipped to work with the lights without as much help, clearly I will always come up against issues I won’t understand and will need help, but I feel significantly more confident within my role as gaffer.
Personally I thoroughly enjoyed my role. Working with the lights and bringing the set to life was incredibly rewarding. And as my knowledge grew I gradually felt more in my element. I would love to have the chance to take on this role in future productions and get the chance to broaden my knowledge further of more lights and different ways of using them.
On the studio shoot I took on the role of Gaffer. I worked under our cinematographer and I worked beside/within the camera team. As gaffer I worked alongside Chris in order to get to grips with the lights and he walked me through how to use the switch board and dimmer switches on the sky lights.
We didn’t have a lighting plan set in stone for the shoot. The director told me he wanted it flooded, but not too much that you couldn’t see the texture of the set. So I used two 4K lights as back lights. I used two of the sky lights to light from above, and used one huge powerful light, which I can’t currently think of the name for, to really flood out the rest of the set. As well as this we had a window on the left wall of the set. The director told me he wanted that lit, so chris and I used a huge piece of poly board, a clamp and a 1K light to achieve this. We positioned the board diagonally to the window, then we clamped the 1K light onto the top of the Left set wall and angled it down to shine directly and intensely onto the board to create an outside, natural type of light through the window.
Really the only thing I struggled with was balancing the lights out so there were no intense shadows, so I needed to balance the back and front flood lights, which as first was a bit difficult but chris helped me figure it out. The only other issue was that we tried using two 4K lights either side of the set in an attempt to light the edges of the set for more flooding, when we tried it, it looked uneven, it just didn’t work quite the way we thought it would, so we removed them, and as it was we didn’t need them anyway.
On the two back lights we needed to soften them as they created horrible shadows, so we put trace on them, which helped soften the shadows massively. The space lights helped to gently fill the space from above and create a heavenly feeling to the set.
Next time I am able to take on this role I would like to think I’d be able to do more from my own knowledge instead of relying on chris as much as I was, honestly I wasn’t as familiar with the lights as I would have liked. However now I feel like I am more equipped to work with the lights without as much help, clearly I will always come up against issues I won’t understand and will need help, but I feel significantly more confident within my role as gaffer.
Personally I thoroughly enjoyed my role. Working with the lights and bringing the set to life was incredibly rewarding. And as my knowledge grew I gradually felt more in my element. I would love to have the chance to take on this role in future productions and get the chance to broaden my knowledge further of more lights and different ways of using them.
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