diagram: litehouse ranch – choosing priorities on set

In an ideal world, G&E would have plenty of time to reset between scenes, but that wasn’t the case for this shoot with Litehouse Foods.

In this scene, DP Justin Balog and I had to decide between two different key light setups: 1) an Aputure 1200d Pro pushed through an 8×8 magic cloth, and 2) an amaran F22c with no additional modification.

The Aputure 1200d Pro would look more pleasing, but the amaran F22c would save downtime.

So, how did we choose?

Production made it clear during pre-production and the pre-light day that the main priority was to maximize time spent filming.

Since the Aputure 1200d Pro was being used in the first scene, keying with the amaran F22c for scene two became the leading choice. Using it would mean that G&E could be reset in less than 5 minutes between the first and second scenes. It would also make resetting between scenes two and three much quicker as there would be less tear-down.

So, Justin and I decided that despite the smaller surface area, the amaran F22c setup worked well enough. Especially because of it’s ability to vary CCT while in TV effect mode, which we used to simulate the LED screen wrapping around the talent.

As for the rest of this setup, a 6×6 ultrabounce acted as fill, and installed location lighting serves as rear kicker, in-camera practical, and a time-saver during scene changes!

–

dir: woody roseland
dir: chad neidt
1st ad: brian bell
dp: justin balog
steadi: kevin andrews
1st ac: max green
gaffer: tyler trepod
kg: eric fulcher
art dir: jessie capstick
art asst: leah vogel
art asst: darci naftulin
hmu: kacie mcintosh
pa: payson wick