Mixing Light Interview Series

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.

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.

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