Hey everybody and welcome to Mixing Light.
I'm Rich Roddman and I'm going to have a
conversation with a gaffer.
Those of you who don't know what a gaffer is,
he's the person who basically
controls all the light on set.
So I'd like to introduce you to Rick Kalivoda,
who's the owner of First Unit Production Services,
owns a grip companies in Tampa Bay and Orlando
throughout central Florida.
They've been in business since
1989 and had numerous feature films,
TV shows and I don't know how
many Super Bowl commercials.
So, so Rick, we're talking to a bunch of people who
probably have never set foot on a set before.
So can you answer one of the basic questions as is,
what is a gaffer?
Thanks for having me first really appreciate
been looking forward to this. We've been talking about this
For a little bit of time now. So I'm kind of excited.
A gaffer? Well, it's pretty
simple and in a way that we're just,
we're responsible for the
lighting on the set, the electricity,
the safety about the electricity side.
But what's more important,
I think for the DP standard
and for what this podcast is about is the lighting,
the type of lighting we do, the
feel that we give to the lighting,
you know, it's a little bit
more than just setting up a light
and turning it on and
getting the right exposure from it.
You know, the position is
extremely important to time of day,
putting a mood or feeling,
you know, I've talked to DPs
and we'll be discussing what do you like, you know,
for doing like a morning kind
of commercial scene and you know,
do you like it like a grape nuts
commercial or like a Cornflakes commercial?
One's a little bit more warm
and fuzzier than the other one
and there's a difference between
the two and the looks, you know,
so that's kind of what we do.
We help collaborate with the Director of photography
to try to take some of that responsibility off his
shoulders So he can concentrate on what he does
with everybody else.
Years ago, you and I were at a Publix's
commercial together and we were shooting in
the store and I don't remember if they had
florescent lighting or sodium vapor lighting
or that but the director or the DP made the
decision that they wanted to go with that
lighting in there.
Usually we shut off all the lights
and create our own light.
I saw you take out a tool and start measuring the
natural light, not the natural light but
the light coming from the ceiling and then you had
your guys skin some 4x4s with the
proper side of gel just to offset what was elements
were missing from the lighting that
was already provided.
Could you explain what tools were
you using and what was that process?
Back then I was just using a basic light meter, it
wasn't even a spectral light meter
that we're using now with full spectrums that it
shows us and gives us CRI and all the other
measurements but the lights were mixed metal halite
and I do remember that because we did
a bunch of jobs with Publix that ranged from doing
florescent in-store lighting to the
mixed metal halite but they were green and they
were daylight and actually they were
a little bit cooler than regular daylight ranging
in the 6000 degree range.
So we had to add green to all our
lights just to balance with those.
I think the conversation we had was how much green
do you add to the lights?
Do you match exactly what the florescence or the
mixed metal halite is giving?
What I always questioned and would have a
conversation with the DP is can we cheat
and not do as much green so we're leaving a little
bit more red in the spectrum for
the skin tones and not just
completely pulling that out.
Now I think you remember a commercial that I didn't
do but we had a conversation with.
There was another gaffer and they were doing a, it
was for an eyeglass, I don't even remember
the name of it, it was for eyeglasses and he went
in and this is kind of in the beginning
of LED lighting and the lights he
wanted to use were extremely green.
The manufacturer actually sent out a minus green
filter to put on the lights because
they were so green but it was a
power thing to him to use those lights.
fluorescent lights coming in, it was flourescent lights
in the room, he's using green lights
but he didn't correct for the
daylight that was coming in the room.
I remember I did a follow up phone call with you
after that because I was talking with
the gaffer beforehand that he should be using HMIs
instead of these LEDs just for the color
rendering of the set.
I remember I did a follow up with you and you were
telling me what a nightmare you couldn't
get the skin tones right and all of that because
you had all these different greens
and the choices that we make in
that stuff is extremely important.
People just don't take it for granted.
You had mentioned using the
CRI now and there's also the SIS.
The interesting thing I want
to mention is that the SIS.
It's SSI.
It's action.
Sorry, you're correct, SSI, my apologies.
I always get that backwards.
The SSI test is actually put together by the
Academy which is the same people who do the
color space of ACES and that's
becoming a more standard test.
Can you tell us the difference between the two?
The way I understand it and I'm not like a huge
like technically a light technician or
scientist but CRI is a color rendering index.
We've used that for I used it for decades just to
purchase fluorescence, looking at
the quality of fluorescence back when we were using
fluorescence and it kind of bled into
the quality of LEDs.
What was a CRI?
of an LED and anything
above a 90 we considered good.
When I looked into it, it is really a test over a
certain band of colors like just nine
different colors.
The SSI takes in and I don't even know how many but
it's many more colors so it can look
at the gradients difference between the colors and
it gives you a much truer indication of
that color rendering of that particular light.
We have to understand this is like such been such a
changing industry especially for the
last five plus years when we started using LEDs and
now we're almost using nothing but
LEDs.
The development of the LEDs has changed as fast as
us having to use those LEDs.
So five years ago it's not the same LEDs as the
LEDs that we're using now or the science
and the mixing those.
I know Aperture just had a video out that you
shared with me that we were looking at if
it's okay to mention this.
That they were talking about SSI and how Aperture
is using multiple different, I think it was
seven different colors to render white light
whether it's tungsten or daylight or anything
in between.
That's been in the industry for a really long time.
ETC lusters have been using that forever.
If you look down the barrel of a luster, a LECO,
you'll see that there's mint, green,
magenta, there's just not RGB,
white, amber, those typical colors.
There is a whole cluster of LEDs that
are in there to create a white light.
ARRI does the same thing with the sky panels.
Their color science has been top forever and
they're doing the same thing when you
pull the panel and look at the raw LEDs.
You can see that there's a
mixture of light that's going on.
I think the luster from ETC has
been around for at least 10 years.
I know I've been using those.
This is not new science that's been around.
I just want to mention that because people get
caught up into what one manufacturer
says they have and thinks their's the
only one that does that and it's not.
It's been around for a while.
Let's talk a little bit about
the types of lights that we have.
I remember when you and I got into the business
pretty much around the same time.
Exactly.
We were using candles.
Exactly.
It started with good old daylight.
I still remember the crews go out with the old
Molt Richardson kits or if we were lucky
we had a nice four light pack of the ARRI lights.
They were all tungsten lighting.
Then after which would give us
that 3200 Kelvin indoor look.
From there went into HDMI and then from there into
the fluorescent keno flows and then into
the LED world.
Can you talk about each of
those lighting technologies?
What does that give us on the image?
What does that bring?
Why would you choose one of those lights versus a
different one of those lights?
What are the advantages or
disadvantages in lighting wise?
It's interesting that you're talking about that
because all those different lights I
look at like a painter with
a palette full of brushes.
They all do certain things.
The current charts right now, I was just looking at
some stuff when we were talking about doing
this.
I was looking at some
information about the different CRI, SSI.
I think it's TSI, a television index.
They're all comparing it to a spectrum but that
spectrum is compared to tungsten lighting
which has kind of been interesting.
Every time I'm listening to a podcast or something
on YouTube about this, those measurements
get compared to tungsten lighting.
We were talking about years ago I used to have, I
was at NAB and I picked up this little
spectroscope that's used for jewelers.
You can actually hold it up to your eye and look,
physically look at a light and it breaks
up the spectrum of the light for you.
Tungsten will have this very even gradient field.
It's just a beautiful rainbow across it.
Then you hold that up to a fluorescent light and
it's a very chopped up spectrum.
The green may be spiked a little bit bigger than
normal and it may have pieces missing.
There's just no color there.
That's what gets interesting because when there's
no color there, you can't render that
color.
If it's missing from the spectrum of the light
you're doing, you just can't see it.
To me, tungsten's kind of that holy grail of
instruments but because of the power consumptions
and the ease of the LED and being able to go from
daylight to tungsten in one fixture
and being able to control it on your phone, we've
come to a different place.
HMI's fall in that same spectrum as tungsten
because their color rendering field was always
pretty good.
It had a really nice even feel to it.
It had a nice punch to it and it was
daylight so it was able to give us sun.
I still look at some of the
lights today that we're going out with.
It's got a big chip in it
and you put a reflector on it.
It just can't give you
this real spiky sunlight look.
You can cheat it by exposure but it's still not
like a hard sunlight look.
You can put just like an M18 outside a window and
hit something on the sink or whatever
and it looks like sunlight.
It's just not a diffuse sunlight
coming through a cloud looking.
That's kind of where that painter's palette comes
in, the brushes that you have to use.
I don't want to poo-poo on the LEDs because they're
great and they're convenient and they're
wonderful, but sometimes you want to have another
one of these instruments in your palette
to kind of ...
You need that punch to have coming through that.
Right.
There's where the big HMIs come into play.
Go ahead.
I remember a couple of sets.
We were shooting in a kitchen and you had two 18Ks
or two 20Ks out coming through each
of the window and we had mornings that looked like
morning sunlight all day long.
All day long.
10 hour day all shot on.
Yeah.
It's a great advantage that way.
Well, and that's why you light like that because
you want to shoot throughout the day
and have consistency and you
don't rely on the sun at all.
A lot of times we're covering the windows from
outside or blocking the hard sun from
coming in and it can be difficult because you got a
light that's 20 feet away from the
window shining into a light and you got to keep the
raw light out and it gets tricky.
That's where key grips come into place.
I was one of my questions.
How do you handle the sun?
If we have all this light that we're providing, we
have to deal with the natural light, which
is what we're used to
looking at, dealing with that.
I remember some being on a set where a DP started
with a 20K and I remember counting.
It went through 12 or 14 different elements in
front of the light to get down onto ...
We could have set it up with a joker or some other
smaller light, but he wanted to have
all this diffusion of on
to step it all the way down.
You probably know who I'm talking about too.
I think you're on that set.
You were talking earlier
about your conversations with DPs.
When does the conversation actually start about how
you're going to sculpt this light,
which will end up defining the scene?
How does that, what does the conversation start and
how does that process develop?
Typically, we'll do a scout, show up the day
before, a couple of days before the shoot.
We meet and we go through every setup.
Typically at the beginning of it, I'll show up a
little bit early and now I do it in my
phone.
I just grab my phone and pull
out where the sun's going to be.
I use Sunseeker and it tells me what time of day
the sun is going to be there and where
it's going to be at any time of day.
During the scout, the DP will look at me and say,
"Where's the sun going to be?"
Or "When is the sun going
to be in a particular place?"
Because where we're standing, he
would like the sun later in the afternoon.
I said, "Well, two or three
o'clock will be a good time."
The schedule will be based upon that.
It's on the scout that we talk about that.
I try to, with all my years of experience, try to
get into their head a little bit about
what do they like.
I'll ask the questions.
How do you approach backlight?
Do you like a lot of backlight?
Do you not like backlight?
You try to be a little bit more of a chameleon to
their likes and you can go off and start
doing setups without much input
from them because you just figure out.
Sometimes I'll just start doing a setup and if the
DP isn't on board with what I'm doing,
I don't take it personally.
We have a conversation and we change it up and I
have to clue into what his look is.
Sometimes on a multi-day shoot, it may take me a
couple of days to really clue in.
He's not saying anything.
I'm lighting and he's shooting.
That's how it works out.
Who determines which kind of instruments get put on
the truck to be brought to the set?
We both do.
The DP pretty much does, but I help steer that
decision a little bit based upon money.
Sometimes money is a big thing.
The budgets are... and we can't always have what we
want or the DP can't always have what
we want.
I try to make a suggestion to achieve what he's
hoping to get the best he can within
the budget.
Over the past five years, we have both had shoots
that have been on the LED volume wall.
We're fortunate to have both in here in Tampa and
Orlando large volume walls, which major
commercials and music videos all have been shot on.
Sometimes I've seen them actually just going with
the light emulated from the wall itself
and not really adding any supplemental light.
How is that lighting different than what coming in
with a particular light kit or LED lights?
Using the light from an LED wall as a
lighting instrument kind of sucks.
When you do a color reading of it, I've been on
those wall where the CRI was at 65 and
you don't want to shoot with anything under 90.
I remember I was on a shoot and we had the camera
sitting there on the camera cart and
the camera cart is on, the monitor is on.
It just happened to be looking at a pack of
Starburst that was just a little pack of candy
sitting on there.
You know how Starburst is really yellow.
The AC pushed it out of our light and it went into
the light wall and that Starburst package,
I watched it go from yellow to
brown, is how dramatic that was.
My theory of thinking with all of those is those
video walls are meant to view.
They're not built and
engineered as a lighting instrument.
You have all these companies that talk about the
effort that they take and the rendering
white light through their lights by adding all
these colors and to do that like we talked
about.
A video wall doesn't do that.
It's a television screen.
There was no intention for using it as a light
source when it was built.
I always feel like you've got to come in with
proper lighting when you do that.
Some of those studios rent out for $30,000 a day if
you're going to spend that much
in just the location - have proper lighting.
Otherwise you're going to end up with nothing
that's going to be appealing when you're finished
with it in post.
On the line, the colorist hands are tied because as
you say, if the light is not there
to begin with, it's really
difficult to create it from nothing.
Correct. Right.
We've had this conversation multiple times, but
let's talk about images being people viewing
final products and seeing things are too dark like
the Game of Thrones episode from years ago.
Our modern cameras are able to
have 15, 18 stops of dynamic range.
A lot of times now the projects are all being color
graded for HDR delivery, for Netflix
or other streaming services.
Years ago, cameras were six, seven stops of dynamic
range and that was a good, high quality
camera.
Now that we're up at 15, 18, how is that changing
how you were lighting a set or how you should
be lighting a set?
We're not using any light.
What's interesting about it is
you're using very, very little light.
They're shooting these things at such a high ISO
rating that you turn a lighter on, it
makes a difference in the quality of light.
There's two sides of that.
I get really excited about that because with very
little, you can literally paint a scene.
My wife was watching TV the other day and she goes,
"I can't even watch a show anymore.
I can't even see it."
You and I were talking about, we were doing a
little prep call about things that are driving
me a little crazy.
Now when I watch TV, it's just too dark.
You can't see anything.
I always wonder why is it?
I think some of that is more in the way it's
delivered instead of how it's shot.
I do think that on the set too, that they're just,
I always feel like you can expose a
little bit more and then you can always downgrade
it or bring it down in post.
That's always easier to do.
I'm not saying light it like daylight.
I'm saying light it and then you can
control it a little bit more later.
Absolutely.
Particularly in the formats that we're dealing
with, Log and Raw and all those things, we
have so much more control after the fact now.
Like in the old film days, once
you were exposed, that was it.
You're locked into your exposure there.
I was talking to one of the guys that works in our
shop and he's aspiring to be a gaffer
and stuff.
We were just talking about
different setups and using lights.
I was telling him how on the sky panels and some of
the LEDs, I will still put an ND6
on the light because when we're working in the last
5%, you dimmed it down and in your
last 5%, you have no range to dim anymore.
It just goes from off to on.
There's no in between and that can be too much.
You can't grade that in between that little off and
on when you're working in those high
ISOs.
I put an ND6 on them and it
gives you a range that you can go.
You can probably get up to 25% or 30% and down to
the bottom and it gives you some range
in that bottom end on the light.
I've done that on many setups.
I did a Disney 50th anniversary fireworks when they
were advertising for the new fireworks
show.
I built trees with three sky panels in each one and
I had them to backlight Main Street.
The lights were literally in the shot when we did
it and they took them out in post but
it gave this beautiful backlight to the audience in
the street for all the guests in the street.
I don't know if you ever watched fireworks, what it
does to people when it's actually on
It just gives this really soft glow and there's not
much of a color change even by your eye
that you can really see.
We've done this for years as we kind of cheat what
the look of fireworks are on the little
girl's face as she's over her dad's shoulder and
how it looks and everything.
We've been cheating that for as
long as I've been working with Disney.
We had this beautiful light but behind us you
wanted to kind of bring the bottom out
and not just have it so silhouetted with color.
I had another tree behind us going through actually
two 12 by grids to soften up but
I also had an ND6 on it because when I do those
jobs I go on a real board and I'll spike
up the faders and then slowly
bring them down for each color.
So I got like three or four different colors going
and I can bang it up super hot and slowly
grade it down.
So the light behind me I don't want to have to pay
attention to going halfway and down
so I just put all that gel on it, dim it all down
and just go all the way up and slowly
bring it down like everything else.
Using NDs on lights sometimes guys are going to go
what are you doing that for but it comes
in really handy.
Super handy.
Yeah as you're saying that's staying out of that
lower power side of the light.
Do you make choices on which instruments or
fixtures you'll be using depending on the
camera or the lens set
that the DP goes with on set?
Not really.
So you wouldn't make any changes for anamorphic
lenses as opposed to regular spherical lenses?
As far as lighting goes no I just make sure I got
to put them way out of the shot.
No I mean it really doesn't.
Lighting it should always be this way.
There was a moment where I think we sidetracked
where Sony you know I remember there's a company
and I'm gonna remain they're gonna remain nameless.
I walked into their booth and I was complaining on
how their lights were a little bit magenta
and the excuse the salesman used to me was well
there we matched them to the Sony chip
and my response is like
what's wrong with just white light?
Why do we have a light that works
better with one camera than another?
We never had this before you had film you had
tungsten you had daylight you had all
the colors in between there that you could make but
it was white light you know and you
made your choices so trying to make choices based
on a lens or a camera I feel like it
should just be white light and let the lens or the
camera do what they do on their own
based upon that white light because who comes first
the white light or the camera or the
camera or the white light you know.
Precisely what light is you know what are we
sculpting with here to see you know originally
with all right one of the one of the best
commercials that you and I worked on together
visually in my opinion was one we did for Nike
years ago with a certain running back
football player I won't tell you know we won't give
up too much of that away but you took
out what I tend to be is like one of my favorite
lights are the nine lights right which are
the every time those lights get used it's just such
a beautiful rendering like every
one of every shot that gets used on the always
looks absolutely just amazing and cinematic
and even if that's not the intended goal it just
ends up being there and that and that
was a very crazy day but I think your solution
would be setting up those nine lights really
tungsten you know it's just tungsten.
Yeah and what's cool about that is you know as a
gaffer and just technically on the set
you know they're a little power hungry but you run
a cord to the light and you plug it
in you don't have a ballast a header or cord got to
strike the light and all that stuff
you just plug the light in and go so the equipment
you're carrying is a lot less it's a lot easier
to run a hundred amp cable to a light then run a
hundred amp cable to a ballast and then
you got to put two headers on the light and you
know and then typically you got to put
your gel on it too kind of soften up the nine light
make a one but yeah it's tungsten
we go back to tungsten you know friend I have a
friend of mine that's a chef and I always
ask him how do you make this taste so good he says
butter tungsten is tungsten is our
butter you know you just can't get away from that.
Yeah no I mean there is something to say you said
about the classics for sure yeah no it's
a beautiful light and you know like we talked about
earlier it just has texture to it and
you know I get a little frustrated with the new dps
and people the younger generation
it's coming out they really don't understand
texture and the subtle differences in the
quality of light it's to them and it's illuminating
source and it gets a little frustrating when
it gets looked at like that you know.
But it actually leads perfectly into my next
question because I was going to say I tend
to notice with younger dps these days they tend to
keep going to the new more modern
LED Aperture type environments because that's kind
of what they've you know when they were
in school that's what the school had because
there's a price difference between an Aperture
light and the high-end Arri lights and they don't
seem to whoever utilize these really
higher-end lights and less and less times they're I
seem to see them on set it's like
you have access to these great lights why are you
not using it so is that just something
the dps just need more exposure to or how is that
something that should be addressed
moving forward.
That's a great question it's a million dollar
question you know all these lights are all
good tools you know and some of these companies
have done really good at marketing the light
but is it the best tool for the job not necessarily
you know even though it can do all of these
things there's other lights that do better you know
some of the newer LEDs it's maybe
a 12k and you put a dome on the front of it and a
big umbrella and you put a big diffusion
on it you've got nothing coming out
of that light to create a soft light.
Fortunately cameras are a lot more sensitive and it
creates it but then you get into I
get into these conversations about you know you now
you have no depth of field you can't
create depth of field you're just stuck in the back
end you know of the lens wide open
because you just don't have enough light to you
know just to do an interview with you
know and you know the importance of keeping the eye
to the nose and you know what two
stops of light you know means going from you know a
two to a four is a big deal you
know so and doesn't mean you can't keep your
background out of focus on any of that but
you don't have that choice.
Well you said you know going from your eyes to nose
we're talking about depth of field
so explain to how what the lens setting is to
create depth of field and how that really
makes a difference on
visually what we're seeing on set.
Well the more light you have the more the closed the
aperture the lens gets smaller which
creates a larger depth of field so if you're
shooting a plate of food on a tabletop and
you want.
Now just now just as a let me just say so depth of
field is the how much space is actually
in focus.
Correct.
So from the difference from the lens to a certain
point is whether you have a you know
smaller narrow range of depth of field or a wider
range where you see like a lot of
times in modern television the person in the shot
is in focus and the person on the other
side of the table is out of focus where you notice
in you know television from the 60s
or films from the 60s both people might be in focus
at the same time and have a conversation
without the focus having to drift back and forth.
The difference is the depth of
field of how much is being seen.
How is that controlled by your lighting?
If you want more depth of field
you have to create more lighting.
The lighting has to be brighter.
The ISO can drop too so that or raise you're going
to shoot at a more sensitive ISO so
instead of like a 400 you're going to go at 800 and
now you can go to 1600 and you
can open the lens I'm sorry you would close the
lens more to create a larger depth of
field you know.
So I mean I've been on sets with even television
shows and on some movies and stuff and you
know they really want this really limited depth of
field where it's three quarters of
an inch or an inch you know so back to what I was
saying you can't get the nose any
eyes in focus at the same time because your depth
of field is so shallow you know and
when you're working in our modern world today with
the lighting that we're doing kind of
getting back on our subject that you know the
lighting isn't always providing us with
enough light for us to close down the camera to
give us a depth of field or to even give
us the choice to do that.
You know where I always feel like you want a choice
you don't want to get pigeonholed
on set because if the DP says I'd like to open a
stop and you don't provide for that
you're screwed you know you can't do anything
because light lighting is logarithmic if you
have a stop of a two and you're using 1k light and
you want to go to a stop of a two eight
you have to add a second you have to double that
light so now you have two K's now if
you want to go from a two to a four now you have to
have four 1k lights so it's logarithmic
as it goes down and it gets really interesting when
you're doing high speed so if you're
doing high speed photography and you want to do the
same thing you may have two 10k
working on a set or a 10k and the DP wants to go up
two stops you got to add four 10k's
to get up there so you have to have that
conversation in the beginning
when you're doing your lighting
plot about what range do we have to be prepared to
go through because you can always light
more and take it down but you can't light and take
it up because all of a sudden you
don't have the instruments
available to do it maybe.
Right yeah it's just not there. The difference
adjusting a lens at the two stop you might
have a depth of field that is yeah basically six
inches you know so you have just a person's
face and by dropping it down to a four you might be
able to have a four or five foot
range where so they're moving around they'll still
be in focus and you don't have to have
your first AC constantly chasing focus and possibly
having a lot of soft shots in there.
Again all choices creative choices made you know by
lighting right the available lighting is there
so I tend to notice that everybody does want to
have that short feel there was remember being on
set where they were using Voigtlander lenses
which was a 0.95 stop right you know and we
calculated that the depth of field was two and a
half inches and we're trying to figure out
exactly you know ... but you could not
talk the DP out of not being open all fully open
all the time and you know it was just a it was a
artistic piece to say the least you know that's
that's all it could be it's all it's all soft you
know. In a poor AC has eating tumbs the whole day
trying to keep focus.
Poor guy. It's nothing you could do. So if somebody
was interested in learning about how to
become a gaffer or sculpting with light or
something like that how would they go about that?
Well school's always the best choice and then I
don't know after that where to go because to
hone in on a craft I I you and I have had this
conversation in the past too. It seems
lately we're lacking mentors where you get out of
school and you work for a DP that's
done his job he's got his journeyman's card for
lack of a better reason way of putting it and
you know you're working with a group of guys that
have been on set for a while
been on set for a while you know kids are getting
out of school and they're going right to work and
they were losing that lack of mentorship and what
that means into creating a craft you know
a kid doesn't graduate from school and start doing
finished carpentry right away you know.
if they were starting off as a PA
on set you know they're recently graduated or a PA
would they want to become into the grip
electrician department and then learn from there or
should they go into like the camera department
and learn lenses and lighting and stuff like that
what's. I always say that you should go where your
heart follows you you know if you're on the set
you're watching the grips more than anybody else
you know start helping them out or do what you can
to get to know them let them know you're
interested I mean we always encourage everybody to
come by our shops you know and poke in and we
encourage even technicians to come into our shops
and we you can pull lights off the shelf and look
at them and work them try to figure out how to do
all of the wireless technology that's out there
nowadays because it's all over the map what you can
do wirelessly you know which is which has been
just another game changer you know in the way we do
things especially on set there is no more
getting on a radio and asking somebody to drop a
double in that light I'm just sitting there by
the camera or I'll put my little light board next
to on the dolly next to the dp and he just
loves playing with those faders figuring out where
he wants it but you know it's it's about
following your heart if you're watching the ac's
get to know them go talk to them let them know
you're interested you know that's the best way to
do it and then maybe if you can ask them to
get you on a job and even if it's for free if
they'll let you on the job for free just to
you know run sandbags around for them do whatever
you can you get your foot in the door and it'll
work is there any kind of communication you know
when being on set that you wish would get passed
at that obviously the script notes they go to into
the post-process the editors and stuff like that
are there anything that you or any information you
think is necessary from what you do on set
as a gaffer that should be passed along through the
post-production process oh no uh through the
well no because i think that's more the dp's job
right so my conversation would be with him
or my conversation would be with what his
intentions are to maybe help during the shoot
you know where what are you what are the intentions
where is this going to go when he had
and i will go in the dit's tent all the time you
know i've been there with you when we talk about
this stuff all the time and you're telling me well
the dp really wanted to do this when i'm
questioning something you know he's always he's you
know so we have those conversations
but it's really about the dp passes that onto the
post and you know he does his
luts and passes that on and that's where that goes
but do uh dps talk about the fill and key ratios
like a traditional like they traditionally did with
film or is that no longer a necessary
conversation so it's it's interesting that's a
great question um so do the dps you know ask
about fill and key um key and fill not as much
anymore you know we don't we don't really worry
about that with film um we we cared because all the
the different types of film that you had
had reacted differently to the light had different
had different range ranges to them
dynamic ranges to them and you had to know your
stock to know what that range was not to put too
much fill in and or to you needed more fill
depending on the range of the film and yes
the dps and i would have that they wanted a a two
to one ratio or they wanted a three to one ratio
you know even on a backlight they wanted to stop
over then they're key so there was a formula
you were giving given to do a lighting setup you
know um nowadays you know since we got to the
digital realm we're just looking at it you know so
there is no conversation about the key and the
fill we're just like can we bring in a little bit
more fill or can we add a bounce card here and
you know that's kind of where that goes now you
know with the way we talk about it you know we
i think just the whole idea of from under lighting
putting a card from under and
helping to lift up some of the shadows even with
some some even with some makeup issues or you may
even have some blemish problems in the face that
you're trying to get
around even if it's um a sports
a sports celebrity right they are who they are you
know so you're trying to make them to look
the best that you can and you don't want to flat
light them but you can come up from under with a
light and help fill in some of those shadows that
helps pull in some of the wrinkles and you know
how is how to shoot and i am not going to name the
person the the star but he was talking about
the rolls in the back of his head because we were
looking at it was a reverse shot back of his head
and he didn't like the way the rolls in the back of
his neck stood up and wanted to know what i
could do to light like that and he kept talking
about fashion lighting and i'm like okay so it
was just a ring of light around it making it super
flat and you couldn't see anything but
you know those are some of the things that we do to
help those those issues yeah even help
make the people feel comfortable you know what we
haven't talked about is like makeup and they're
how important they are with a set you know because
a good makeup artist is worth their weight and
gold i think they're so underappreciated you know
what they do um and and every once in a while i
mean i'll go whisper in their ear you know i try
not to make a point of something on a set or if
i see something or if it's just a shiny nose or or
whatever it is that they may need a touch up
or there may be like an issue you know like can we
do something about it and we look at the monitor
and see and they're like oh that's how they are you
know we and so we don't know if you can fix
it but you know they are really worth their weight
gold because when they get on the set you don't
have to say anything it's it's it's a treat you
know and i've seen some bad makeup.
You've mentioned a couple times you've mentioned
referencing the monitor while making decisions
which monitor do you go to because not all monitors are
calibrated like for example the first ac
has his monitor cranked super crazy just so he can
just look at focus and that's all he's
concerned about and what it colors look like it
doesn't matter right um and then a lot of
monitors there there haven't been calibrated since
they were first purchased um it's like so where do
you go to make those decisions most of the time the
only one i can get to is because everything
moves so fast is the first ac's monitor i'll be
over his shoulder and every once in a while
i'll ask him to pull the detail out and he'll give
me the look and i'll hang a can under
understand and i'll put a quarter in it to make up
for being a pain in the ass but you know i mean
i'll literally will do that but um yeah or i'll go
by i won't go by the client's monitor i try to stay
away from the client unless i'm just i'll walk by
every once in a while just see if everybody's
happy and you know make sure their drinks are being
served and all that kind of stuff but um
i'll go i try to get to the dit's monitor you know
as as much as i can if i can continually
we'll walk away from set and go in there and check
that monitor and what's going on or i'll
something will have been shot and he's downloading
it and like can we take a look at that right away
you know just just wanted to check something and so
yeah that's what i do you know it's it's all of
them it's hard because they are all different
monitors and what it got in my what am i looking
at and you and i have gone through that too on set
about okay Rich what am i looking at which one
yeah well i mean i think it's um important for a
lot of people who've never been on set
to recognize that the change that the digital
really is made you know back when you were
shooting on film the dp and the gaffer pretty much
knew what this was going to look like when
that film was exposed properly or when it was you
know processed and ready to see you know in dailies
ou know for the next day nowadays it's
everybody just send a signal to the monitor
and everybody can see it and everybody has their
input and it's definitely changed how production
happens but you know again i don't think people
realize how critical the viewing monitors on set
actually are because major decisions are being
driven by those oh 100% yeah I mean they used to
be driven by those by those little single chip crt
cameras that were on film cameras and they
were making you know critical decisions based on
that and would just drive you crazy like please
look through the eyepiece just take a moment
they're like oh yeah that way you know so yeah
those yeah those those camera taps were was
torturous you know to look at but you're right
it's it's so many decisions are are made based on
that and and even what the signal that is being
fed to the client monitors which aren't usually
studio grade monitors like you get in a dit booth
or you get even by you know the director's monitor
you know they're they're they're a better quality
of monitor and how many times are they bringing the
clients over to the director's monitor or even
the the client the client themselves like to the
dit booth and getting in the dark and looking at
it what it really looks like when you get in a dark
environment you know never they they try to
keep the clients away from the DIT as much as possible
yeah i don't blame them so i don't blame... for you
you too it definitely makes it my life much easier
when they're not around having to explain stuff
when you're on set and you're looking at a
reference monitor to see the lighting that's there
do you use the histograms or waveform monitors that
are on set or do you go by your light meters
what is it what's your your go-to trust tool the
monitor just the monitor nowadays it's the monitor
you know it's like you're getting a real-time look
at a piece of developed film you know so it's just
it really to look at the histogram where it's at
you know is is interesting sometimes to look
at that because you want to see sometimes if you're
looking at it is it really crushed that much and
where to but very rarely if the monitor is set up
properly and that's the other side of this coin
too right i think is more important is the monitor
setup which we haven't talked about on set you know
who's setting that monitor up and is it set up
properly that you're looking at you know just with
the brightnesses in the right place and you know
that the monitor is not crushed too much or is a
chroma cranked or you know that you set that
monitor that's the probably the biggest most
important thing that you're doing and even when
you're bouncing back between monitors did the AC
set both those monitors up you know and and the
good acs are really good about that so it doesn't
even become a question much anymore until it's just
blatantly wrong to you but pretty much yeah
i just look at the monitors because you can see
everything you know like so interesting i wanted
to kind of touch on a thing with um the new cameras
and how exciting it's been to work with those
you know we talked earlier about you could just do
these very subtle changes but you're looking
at the monitor and a DP will be looking at the
talent he'll be looking at the background i'm
really looking at the lighting so not just what's
on the talent but what's
happening in the background
there could be a chair in a room that's in the
corner i may take a little led panel put it on
the floor behind the chair and put this very gentle
glow onto the out of the wall behind the
chair it just helps separate that chair from the
wall i'm not lighting the wall or doing anything
and - i've been caught so many times
putting that light back there and the DP is like
what are you doing and i'm like i just was gonna
just bring this up a little bit and and he was
like on and i said trust me it's just going to be
this very gentle glow just take a quick look
if you don't like it i'll pull it out and i'll put
it and he goes oh no i do like that but it's just
it creates depth you know and helps you do that and
so that's some of those things that you know
i also do i'm always looking to try enhance what
they're maybe not thinking of because they got a
lot of things on their mind and a lot of times i'm
working with a DP director where they're not only
DP and they're directing too so that puts all the
lighting in your ballpark for them because their
mind is is into the performance and you know
everything else cause in not costume but wardrobe
and what's going on so all the other elements the
art department everything that goes into the image
itself yeah right right so that's what i pride
myself on is that i've just been able to you know
be a crucial part of that set and have input and
not just, "where do you want the couch, lady?" you know
kind of attitude to be involved right on lower
budget projects you tend to see a lot more
sharper shadows uh in the set a lot of times it's
due to just smaller spaces or stuff like that
how would you try to correct some of those images
to get a little more a little more
cinematic look to them well you can't use lights
directly you have to bounce them use them through
a bigger diffusion its shadows are all about the
softer the light the softer the shadow and
the larger the illuminated surface the softer the
light will be so if you just put a light up and
you don't put any diffusion even a four by four in
front of it you're going to get this hard sharp
shadow from it you know and there's no there's no
way around it so it's more about presenting the
light properly than it is just turning out a light
doing it so sometimes you know is it intentional
and if it's not intentional does a person really
know what they're doing you know with a low budget
project like that you know to get around some of
the low budget they don't have the grip supplies
you know they have a light but they don't have all
of the elements to do softening in front of it
but to me that's not always an excuse right because
you can use a bed sheet for a bounce
you know and use that to bounce into a create you
can shoot through a bed sheet you know to make
a softer light if you don't have that kind of stuff
you know you can hang it up on a clothes
line with clothespins for Christ's sake and do that
so it's not always about that I think
it's about being creative with your lighting and
not getting just caught up into the minutia
of what you see on set and what's going on it's
like adding that nd i you know people will look
at me like i'm crazy because i put an nd on a on a
on a led light you know but you know i want that
lower end i'm never going to use this thing at 100
you know give me the range out of that thing
so no but that's what you were saying it's it's you
know using those you don't have to have
you know four by fours or um you know sheets of
opal or you know different diffusions you know
12 by 12 diffusions about you there are creative
ways to do that well even to get softer light
you can take like in low budget circumstances um
i've given a couple classes for like film students
you know coming out not having a budget to do and
you know i'll start off in a dark classroom
and we'll just have all the blinds on the on the
windows closed and you know all everything all
closed up and there's no light in the room and i'll
go ahead and just open the one blind that's
like would be closer to camera and i was saying
there's your key light and i'll walk in with a
bounce card there's your fill you know then you
open up the back window and there's your back
light so being in a room and watching the time of
day and where you're at is is really crucial
for working in a low budget environment you can
take those clip-up lights that used to get with
the with the chrome rims on them and they got
little springs on them and you can just take
on a piece of plywood put six or nine of those up
and put light bulbs in and you've got a nice big
nine light you know take a piece of cardboard paint
out white and you got a bounce card you know so
there's so many ways to create tools with no money
to go in you know to a working environment
with and then if you have a little bit of money and
you can get more it's sometimes it's more about
getting one or two instruments that you really can
do and you can fill it up with homemade stuff
and getting a handful of grip equipment that you
can use to manipulate all your stuff
you could do a lot with that kind of china balls
china balls are insanely cool you know a lot of
things we shot were just with china balls and you
would just right give you just this beautiful
glow this is this nice warmth of a light you know
that uh it's hard to mimic otherwise right
i built these these gags that have three light
bulbs in them and i could put them on a flicker
flicker gag so three cords coming out it was on a
china ball rig and there would be three light
bulbs in a china ball and i could put them in a
flicker box and give this really beautiful
fire light to them you know where i did a beer
commercial and then we had a whole crowd of people
standing in front of a fireplace and you know
fireplace light doesn't give put off any light
so i literally took these china balls and i had
them in the room below the shot hidden behind a
coffee table or a group of people that i had them
on the ground and had them all on the same
flicker box and was able to create this beautiful
glow within the room that looked like it came from
the fireplace you know and it was it was it was a
beautiful fireplace but it was three bulbs in a
china ball you know you work all the time i've
built these cores i've
just taken ribbon and wrapped
it around a piece of plastic tubing and they were
bicolor put them in a china ball and i still use
those you know when we do walk & talks and i can
have somebody on a boom pole carry a china ball
and i can carry i can wirelessly do the intensity
and the color of them as they're walking through
like we'll do you know a family running through the
park and you know they're going through a
couple of different lighting environments so it
goes from cool to warm to cool again and you can
make those changes but it's a china pole and some
ribbon light you know it's a pretty simple gag
talk about why uh you guys are always swapping out
the practical lights in a room environment
because usually they're too bright is what is what
they are um so we'll put like maybe 40 watt
and they're too warm too so regular light bulbs and
so we go into this whole new world of like
leds and where they're at um so typically we're
changing practical bulbs out in a set
to get more control over them i like to use
probably the go-to is a 40 watt reveal which
has kind of got a blue tinge to it um and they
don't go so warm if you start dimming them down
just a little bit to get them into the range in the
past it could be like fluorescence you're
changing out just to get rid of the fluorescence
and creating a better environment you know even
today i think that's something we haven't talked
about if you don't kind of segue into something
you know you go into these environments and there's
still fluorescent lights that are being used in
commercial environments you know most of them are
leds and trying to do the reading of those lights
and are they proper can we put better leds in um
one quick fix that i do if
i walk into an environment
that i need to change fluorescence out and let's
just say it's less than 10 in the ceiling i'll walk
in there with a whole bunch of uh titan tubes and i
i have the titan tubes already rigged with zip
ties and magnets i open the fluorescent light put
the just with magnets put
them up in the fluorescent
light close it don't have to take anything out
don't have to do anything and then i have total
control i have color intensity over the whole thing
you know which works out really well and
even if you're in a room and you go to close-ups
and you're not seeing the ceiling and the dps like
can can i turn those three back out in the corner
just done they're gone you know and it's really
easy to give you control over that stuff so now we
have now we have leds that we put in those
um we change we change them out put leds regular
led practicals have been and i think aperture makes
a set there's a couple of manufacturers that make
led light bulbs that you can put in the lamps
and over your app have control of i i built my own
did the same thing wrapped a tube with color
um with bi-color ribbon and created what is a
hundred watt equivalent so now i have a full range
that i can go and it's daylight tungsten it's
bi-color and so now i can pick the color and the
intensity that i want for the environment sometimes
the the ones from the manufacturers
the kits with the six eight bulbs and um they're
just not bright enough you know it's usually
what we come in with. Just going back to you
saying about uh the lights a lot of modern
lights being controlled by on wi-fi off of an app
um i remember we were on set one time we were
shooting on a football field and you had on the
other side of the there had um you know
back lights lighting and they wanted to make
changes and normally before the wi-fi apps you'd
have grips standing there on radios waiting to you
know having to just sit there the entire shoot
just in case you needed to make a you know turn it
a couple degrees and now it's just
dial it up on your uh on your uh your ipad and uh
instantaneously changes it uh in a good
environment you got a quarter mile you know i'm on
the other side of the lake at universal you know
turning lights on and off that accent that whole
background of city walk and all that kind of stuff
i'm controlling it from the camera on the other
side of the lake you know it's amazing you know
wireless dmx has just changed you know they have
wireless dmx and then you have your app on your
phone so if you're doing bluetooth or wi-fi your
signal is not as great as doing wireless dmx which
is really a radio signal that's being broadcasted
you know a little bit more robust um and and
in kind of segwaying into how we control those you
know again i was talking to this young guy in
the shop and we were talking about the different
types of boards that you can use um i use dmx at
boards a lot they have like these 12 channel and 24
channel boards sometimes i'll use two 24 channel
boards instead of renting one big 24 channel
console i'll use two boards and it's kind of
cool because i can set them up to do different
things control different parts of the set
and i can stay organized that way um but what's
nice about those boards it's a little faders are
a little small but you get real time changes in the
lights when you do them sometimes if you're
on an app or your pad with luminaire or even
blackout and you're relying on a wi-fi signal
there can be some latencies that happen so you'll
make a change and then five or ten seconds
later that change finally happens or it could be
three i'll be making changes during a scene
if i see something is too bright i will just very
gradually and very slightly bring it down
to just make it real instead of the dp going oh you
know and having to stop and deal with it you
know i try to catch it before we get it what's and
that's what's really nice about being in a in a
dmx environment you can change it real time or rely
on it changing real time as
opposed to being in a wi-fi environment and is dmx
um specific to any particular brand or is it
more universal no dmx is just it's a it's a radio
protocol that's used in theater and
and bands everybody uses dmx it's digital i don't
even know what it stands for um
um it's either music or mixing for the m but it
yeah it's it's standard throughout all the
industries and we've kind of come to there used to
be two dmx well i think there's still two dmx
uh frequencies in the dmx environment however one
one is just used for broadway so they they have
their own proprietary dmx and you do get into
situations like in the parks if i'm in disney
there's a lot of crap going on frequency wise
within those parks sometimes it doesn't work
you know and again you got to be prepared for that
you know so um i'm always carrying around
usually when we're running in a park i got a wooden
box my lighting board i've got like some
lighting and the board and um i'll carry a couple
like three four hundred feet of dmx
so that i can just run it out to my lights from
right from the board immediately to
span a gap because something not responding right i
go to another part of yeah i go to another
part of the park and everything's perfect you know
so yeah so but you have to be able to react
yeah well again it's being prepared you know which
is part of being a professional
and it's interesting to see yeah this is you as you
know we've we've talked about how cameras
have changed over the past few years and now you
know the the the grip and lighting world is
changing and you know and as editors and colorists
you know our software and the tools we use are all
changing it's just how much the industry is
constantly upgrading and how fast the pace that
is you know it's hard to keep up with even the
technicians to keep up with the dmx
you know and every light works differently now they
have their own um they have their own
receivers in them you know you don't even have to
put a receiver on a light they usually come with
a receiver in the light and you have all these
different brands that have their own proprietary
website or their own proprietary control over an
instrument and what it makes it difficult to mix
brands you know because you can't get out because
everybody wants to use the app you use dmx
everybody lives in the same world so you can you
can bring all that together and i have talked to
people that says no i don't like using that because
then i can't use the app and i'm like
use dmx yeah and because access is so much more
yeah so before i let you go um i'd like you to
comment about this meme that i've been floating
around the internet for several years i'm going
to put up on the screen now so uh would you agree
with uh this statement oh yes probably 100 across
the board um yeah we went back to you know makeup
supplementing the lighting oh yeah of course they
do you know they're awesome can't say enough good
about them now producing puts food into the
lighting i think they put food onto the set so that
the grips can eat and not eat the teacher right
yes fed grips a happy grip so yep and without
without lights there is no film so we did i'm
just gonna tell a real quick story i was trying to
advertise first unit this is years and years
and years ago and there was an advertising team
that was local to tampa and there's these these
two guys were awesome they were just very creative
and they kept uh they
needed a place to shoot stills
at so they would come into you know our studio and
i just did a trade-off for some advertising
so they came up with this ad and it was a black
space with a dialogue bubble that said hey mikey
what you eating and it said light lighting makes
all the difference you know because it was just
this black space with a dialogue bubble and i don't
think what was it what was it cornflakes
what was mikey eating at the time but it was like
hey mikey what you you couldn't live cereal yeah
you couldn't see anything and underneath it said
lighting makes all the difference and i thought
well these guys are just freaking genius at what
they do excellent excellent well thank you so much
for taking the time to have this conversation and i
look forward to the next time we get to be on set
together yeah yeah thanks Rich thanks for having me
oh and thank you so much for the Mixing Light
community for watching this and if you have
questions please respond in the the box below
and i'll be i'll do my best to uh to reply or if
you have a question for Rick i'll have
ask him and see if i can have him reply all right
thank you for watching have a great day