FILMdyne Gaffer’s Handbook

(c) 2007, 2008 FILMdyne, LLC

Your job is to handle lighting. As an independent contractor you are expected to own the tools of your profession and to posess the knowledge and skills to use them. FILMdyne maintains its own lighting equipment. On occasion, you may find it more convenient to borrow our equipment rather than transporting and using your own. FILMdyne provides the following information to assist in the proper use of its equipment, which may be different from the lighting instruments you normally use.

An outline of subjects is provided below. You may click on any subject to jump directly to that information.

1)umbrellas, 2)gels, 3)flags, 4)cookies, 5)reflectors, 6)supports.

The Purpose of Lighting

There are three possible lighting objectives:

Motivated Lighting: Make the scene look as lifelike as possible. “realistic”.
Modeled Lighting: Make the scene look dramatic / “emotional”.
Flat Lighting: Make the scene look informational / “newsy”.

A “setup” is a standard configuration of lights to accomplish one of these objectives. You will discuss and determine the setup with the director.  Then you (and your team) will set up the lights by following a strict procedure.  Each step must be accomplished in a specific order to ensure that the setup fulfills its objective.

Learning to be a gaffer requires the following skills:
You must become familiar with your tools.  You must learn to use the tools.  You must become familiar with standard setups.  You must learn the procedures to correctly implement each setup.

Tools

Your tools are:
1)Lights, 2)Umbrellas, 3)Gels, 4)Flags, 5)Foil, 6)Cookies, 7)Reflectors 8)Supports

Lights have initial characteristics that are modified by the seven other tools. These characteristics are:  texture, color, and brightness.

The Character of Light

Texture
Light originates at a point and radiates outward, scattering.  The brighter a light is, the further the rays of light travel before they scatter.  Light rays that travel from a single point of origin with the individual rays relatively parallel to one another, produces a distinct shadow with a hard edge that makes a sharp contrast between areas in light and areas in shade.  Light that travels from many origins, or in which the rays are less parallel to one another, produces an indistinct shadow with a soft edge, making a continuous gradation between light and shadowed areas.

A light that produces a distinct shadow is called a “hard” light.  A light that produces an indistinct shadow, or perhaps no visible shadow, is called a “soft” light.

The hardness or softness of a light depends on the parallelism of its rays.  The rays scatter with distance from the light source, making them less parallel.  Therefore, light becomes softer naturally with distance.  Because fewer rays reach a subject as the distance increases, distance also alters brightness.  The softness or hardness of a light is therefore inextricably bound up in the brightness of the light, because changing the location of the light relative to the subject, alters both softness and brightness.

The texture of light can also be softened by reflecting it.  The reflective surface determines how much scattering it imparts on the reflected light.  So a mirror, for example, scatters the light very little, whereas a white cloth surface will scatter the light a great deal. 

The texture of light can also be softened by filtering it through a translucent material or through a screen.

Color
The mix of frequencies of light emitted by a light bulb depends on the material that is generating the light and how much energy is applied to it.

The average color is expressed in degrees Kelvin.  The common household lightbulb produces 3200 K light.  The sun on an overcast day averages 5600 K.  Professional lightbulbs are designed to match one of these temperatures. Daylight bulbs are designed to generate light that is closer to 5600 K.  These are gross average measurements, of course, because most light is a mix of colors, and the single number doesn’t express the subtle character of light color.

Sunlight continuously changes color because as its position in the sky moves, the amount of atmosphere it passes through varies.  The quality of outdoor light is radically effected by the conditions of the local atmosphere and the conditions of the local terrain.  Light bouncing between the terrain and the cloud cover gives each geography a unique blend of colors in its light.

The color of a light is manipulated by filtering it through a transparent plastic sheet called a Gel, or by reflecting it off of a colored surface.

The White Balance on a camera determines how color is interpreted by the camera.  White Balance must be set with lights BEFORE gels are applied, or the camera will try to compensate for the gel, defeating its purpose.

Brightness
The maximum intensity of a light is determined by the wattage of the light bulb being used. Typical wattages are 65w, 100w, 250w, and 500w. 

Professional light bulbs get very hot.  A fingerprint on a pro lightbulb will cause it to heat unevenly and explode. Pro lightbulbs cost $35 per bulb and up.  NEVER handle a pro lightbulb with your bare hands.  Touch them only when they are cool and only using a clean dry cloth.

Modifying the Character of Light

The brightness, color, and texture of light are interrelated. Brightness depends on power.  Power often causes heat, changing the temperature and therefore the color of the light.  Brighter light travels further before scattering, making it a harder light.  When you use a tool to alter the character of a light, you may be changing all three characteristics.  For example, if you bounce the light off a reflective gold cloth, the light will be colored, it will be softer, and it will be dimmer.

As a general rule, you can’t add to the character of a light, you can only subtract from it.  You can’t make the light brighter than it’s maximum wattage (without changing the bulb), you can’t add color to the light, and you can’t make it a harder light.  You can only make the light dimmer, softer, and filter colors out of it.

Learn about the initial character of your lights.  Learn about the tools you can use to alter the character.

The steps in a setup are for the purpose of creating light of a certain character and positioning it relative to the subject to meet the objective; to model, to motivate, or to flatten.

The Lights

Your lights are: 1)Tota, 2)Pro, 3)Omni 4)Rifa, 5)Photoflood, 6) Sun, 7) Practicals.
The first four are Lowel professional video lights.

Tota
The Tota light is a rectangular flood light with metal reflector wings on the long sides.  The wings are often folded to protect the bulb but must be fully open when the light is operated.  If the light is turned on with the wings closed, the unit will burn up and be destroyed.  This light gets very hot very fast.  It produces a very bright hard light which is painful to look at.  The tota light is most often used with an umbrella to produce a strong soft light.

The light floods out in a 93 degree angle vertically and a 77 degree angle horizontally.  We normally use 250 watt bulbs in the Tota, producing 41 footcandles of illumination at 10 feet.  The light is roughly half as bright at about 30 to 35 feet.

The Tota light excels at filling large areas with light.  It provide little direction or character control.

Pro
The Pro light can be adjusted from flood to spot by turning a dial on the side, changing the concentration of the light it produces by moving a lens within the light.  We normally use a 250 watt bulb in the Pro light.

When set to flood, light is cast out in a 50 degree circle.  At 10 feet it produces 23 footcandles of illumination.  The light is roughly half as bright at 25 to 30 feet.

When set to spot, light is cast out in a 24 degree circle.  At 10 feet it produces 143 footcandles of illumination.  The light is roughly half as bright at 30 to 35 feet.

The Pro lights have flags – metal flaps – that can be adjusted to limit the light.  The flags can get very hot, so NEVER touch them without protective gloves.

Pro lights can be configured with a metal screen to soften the light, or with a translucent glass disk to soften the light even more.  A metal half-screen can be used to divide the circle of light in half, making one half softer light and one half harder light.

The Pro light can be used with an umbrella, either reflecting from a white or silver umbrella, or directed through a white umbrella, to produce varying intensities of soft lights.  NEVER use a Pro Light in spot mode with an umbrella, it can burn the umbrella, destroying it.

The Pro Light can be used with a gel frame that holds a colored gel.

Pro lights are exceptionally flexible and great for creating a particular character of light and directing it exactly where you want it to fall.

Omni
The Omni light is a larger and much more powerful version of the Pro light.  It can be adjusted from flood to spot.  We normally use a 500 watt bulb in the Omni light.

When set to flood, light is cast out in a 53 degree circle.  At 10 feet it produces 75 footcandles of illumination.  The light is roughly half as bright at 30 to 35 feet.

When set to spot, light is cast out in a 16 degree circle.  At 10 feet it produces 475 footcandles of illumination.  The light is roughly half as bright at 35 to 40 feet.

The Omni light has more directional control and character control than the Tota light, but is much more powerful than either the Tota or the Pro lights.  The Omni is useful for illuminating large areas where more control is needed.  For example, a blue gel used with an Omni can create a moonlight scene.

Rifa
The Rifa light is a softbox light.  The softbox contains reflective walls that bounce the light around before it reaches the white cloth surface.  It produces a very soft and scattered light that is glowing.

Light is cast out at 75 degrees.  At 10 feet it produces 23 footcandles of illumination.  However, due to the very soft nature of the light, it falls off in power very quickly, reaching half its power at 10 to 15 feet.

The softbox is very top-heavy.  It should be used on a larger lighting tripod.  The softbox should be positioned out over an extended leg, so that the weight presses down on a leg to make it more stable.  The legs should be spread more than with smaller, lighter, lights.

The Rifa can be mounted on a boom arm and used as a Chimera – a softbox light sometimes used in modeled lighting.

Softbox light is said to “wrap” the subject, producing soft continuous gradations from light to shadow that is useful in modeling.

Photoflood
Photoflood lights are metal reflector lights used in still photography.  They produce a softer and less controlled light than the Pro, Omni, or Tota lights but not as soft as the Rifa light. 

Photofloods use conventional-base bulbs. You can use standard consumer flood bulbs or ordinary light bulbs intended for the home.  These now come in “daylight” models that have a controlled mix of frequencies and are inexpensive and useful.

Photofloods are generally good studio modeling lights, although they lack the brightness, direction, and character control of professional video lights.

Sun
The sun is a thermonuclear light source one million times the size of earth and located about 94 million miles away.  It produces all colors of light, including colors we can’t see, such as radiation.  It is a single point light that is constantly changing in color, brightness, texture, and direction.  Because of its variability, you must be opportunistic to use sunlight.

Sunlight can be filtered and reflected for outdoor setups.

When video is color balanced for indoor lights, sunlight appears completely unnatural, as an intensely bright blue light.  Windows must be gelled to cut the intensity and correct the color of the sunlight if it must appear in an indoor scene.

Practicals
Practicals are sources of light that appear in a scene, such as a table lamp, a candle, a fire. Practicals frequently do not generate sufficient light of the correct character to appear realistic, and must be supplemented with carefully placed and colored lights.

Common fluorescent lights used in many ceiling fixtures vary in the color of light they generate, but most of them provide a super-abundance of green light that casts an unnatural pale green color.  Many professional cameras have special color processing settings to compensate for fluorescent lighting.

In many cases, you should notice what practical light exists in a scene that might be useful, and also practicals that might interfere with the intended purpose of the scene, and notify the director.  The director may choose to alter camera movement, actor blocking, and use other techniques outside of lighting to compensate for the practical or to make use of it.

Other Lights

There are many other kinds of professional lights and light sources.  Several companies manufacture banks of color-corrected fluorescent lights that produce a broad soft light source that illuminates wide areas evenly and generate few shadows.  These lights are often used for “flat” lighting.

Supports and wires

When using lighting supports and tripods make sure that the light is balanced properly. In general, the higher the light is positioned the greater the chance it will fall over and break. Most novices do not spread the legs enough to provide proper support. If some part of the light or reflector sticks out, make sure it is positioned over a tripod leg, not between them. If there is wind or a lot of traffic, you may want to place a sandbag or similar weight on the tripod legs to provide extra stability.

Extension cords are called "stingers". Use only grounded (3-prong) stingers. As much as possible, try to spread out the load of the lights by plugging them into separate circuits. Too many lights on a single circuit will blow the fuse or breaker. Secure the stingers with gaffer's tape wherever people might walk to avoid accidents.

The Modifiers

Your modifiers are: 1)umbrellas, 2)gels, 3)flags, 4)cookies, 5)reflectors, 6)supports.

Umbrellas
Softens a flood light.  The umbrella is mounted in a specially designed holder beneath the light.  Umbrellas come in silver and white.  Both silver and white umbrellas can be used as reflectors.  The light is pointed away from the scene into the umbrella, and the reflected soft light from the umbrella is used.  A white umbrella can be used as a filter.  The light is pointed through the umbrella at the scene, providing a more directed and brighter soft light similar to a Rifa.

Never use an umbrella with a spotlight or with an adjustable light set in spot mode.  The focused light generates too much heat and will scorch or burn the umbrella.

Gels
Colors a Pro or Omni light.  Gels come in textures, colors, and shades. 

A pure colorless shade is called a Neutral Density “ND” filter and is used to cut the intensity of a light without changing its color.  A Diffusion gel softens the light and cuts its intensity.

Gels commonly come in ‘natural’ colors that are yellowish and reddish and are used to highlight hair and adding natural color to skin.  Gels also come in brighter ‘party’ colors and are used to light a set and to create a dramatic mood.  One notable color is CTB or cobalt blue, that is often used to simulate moonlight.

Gels can be purchased in standard sheets, to fit Gel Frames, and in rolls for use in covering windows, for example. A ½ Blue or CTO gel is used to wrap a window to color correct the light.  If any detail is to be visible through the window, an ND filter may have to be applied as well.

You can stack gels to create different colors.

Gels are specially designed to tolerate the heat of being close to a professional light, to retain their color rather than bleach out in the presence of hot light, and to cast an even color.  Using plastics and glass not designed for the purpose present a fire and safety hazard: the plastics can melt and burn, the glass can shatter.  So only use professional gels, and only use them in specially designed gel frames that keep them a safe distance from the light and prevent the gel from falling toward the light, which could melt the gel and ruin the light.

Colors and uses:

Dark Amber -- highlighting dark hair, warming a scene.
Pale Gold  -- slightly warming a scene.  Rim lighting.
Straw Yellow  -- highlighting blonde hair.
Amber – simulating a fire or a sunset.
CTB  Converts 3200K to 5600K (indoor-to-daylight)
CTO  Converts 5600K to 3200K (daylight-to-indoor) (sometimes called “½ Blue”)

Flags
Limits where light falls.  Black foil can also be used to direct light.

Flags get very hot. Don’t touch them without thick heat-safe gloves.

Cookies

A cookie or ‘cuculoris’ blocks the light and creates a pattern or mottling of light that is used in motivated lighting to simulate real light effects.  Examples include the pattern cast by sunlight passing through leaves on trees or the pattern of bars created when sunlight passes through a Venetian blind.

Cookies are often used to cast a random pattern into a scene to add texture or to improve the look of the background.  Sometimes cookies are moved to make the effect look more natural and organic.  And sometimes these are larger cut wooden planks that are held and moved in front of the light.

Because cookies block the light, they must deal with intense heat.  They are often made of metal, wood, or special heat resistant materials.

You can color a sheet of clear acetate, or print on it with a colored printer, to simulate colored glass or a window logo, for example, that might cast a special pattern of colored light into a scene.

Reflectors

A reflector bounces light into a scene.  It can be used with professional lights or with sunlight.  The surface of the reflector can be shiny or matte finished, reflecting a hard or soft light.  A mirror, for example, does little to soften the light it reflects.  A cloth surface, on the other hand, diffuses and softens the light.

Reflectors commonly come in white, silver, gold and white-golf (‘sunfire’).  Some reflectors are translucent, and can be held above the scene to filter and soften direct sunlight.

Most professional reflectors are collapsible fabric devices.  Hard reflectors can also be used but are more difficult to handle and to manage under windy conditions.

A special reflector holder can be attached to a lighting tripod so that a person doesn’t have to stand and hold it.  This is often used in a studio.

Supports

Professional lighting tripods allow a light to be supported, moved, and changed in height.  Light stands vary in the weight they can support.

The top cylinder upon which a light is mounted comes in different sizes, two are most common.  Don’t expect that a light will attach to a light stand without an adapter, if the light and the stand have different size mounts.

Setup

A common method for setting up lights is to assign roles or specific purposes to several lights, and then to use the lights available in the circumstances to accomplish those purposes.  There are general guidelines about light position and relative intensity that can be useful.

Your lights are: 1)Key, 2)Fill, 3)Rim, 4)Backlight, 5)Practical.

The Roles of Lights

Key
The purpose of a Key light is to create highlights and establish the brightest areas on a subject.  In general, all other lights are half as bright as the key light, so it establishes the base from which the others are positioned. 

In Modeled Lighting the Key is positioned so that the shadow from the nose falls inside the crease line that runs from the corner of the nose to the corner of the lip.

In Flat Lighting two Key lights are used, balanced to the left and the right of the subject to cancel out each other’s shadows.  An alternative is to place one Key straight ahead of the subject.

In Motivated Lighting the Key is placed like a realistic light source and colored and textured to match.  So, for example, if the subject would be facing a window, the Key might be a soft yellow light simulating sunlight from the window.  If the subject was watching TV, the Key might be placed in line with the TV.

Fill
The purpose of a Fill light is to lighten the shadow cast by the Key and to soften the transition from light to dark areas, making them into more of a gradient.

In Modeled lighting the Fill is positioned in balance, opposite the Key light and is about half the brightness or less of the Key.

In Flat lighting, the Fill might be one or two very large soft flood lights that are used to cast an even illumination over an entire scene.

In Motivated lighting, the Fill represents the ambient light in the room, which is usually a glow coming from some light source.  Example: Moonlight might be represented by a bright blue Key light placed near a window. The Fill light would be a flood of soft lighter blue light that brings up the general illumination of the scene without changing the mood.

Rim
A Rim Light separates the subject from the background by creating highlights around the edge of the subject.  Often a Rim Light is colored to give it a different character from the other lights.  The Rim light is often placed 180 degrees away from the Fill light and very high, to create highlights on the hair and around the shoulders.

In Modeled lighting, the Rim is placed high and behind the subject to add more highlights.  The Rim light is usually about half the brightness of the Key light and is usually colored.

In Flat lighting, the purpose of the Rim is cancel shadows on the side and to soften the transition from subject to background.  Sometimes the Fill light and Rim light are placed directly to the sides of the subject – 90 degrees away from the Key light – to eliminate modeling around the side of the subject.  In Flat lighting the Rim is usually not colored.

In Motivated lighting, the Rim is positioned and colored to complement the Key light.  It is usually a very subtle addition.

Backlight
A backlight lights to background.  In general, it is one half the brightness of the other lights or about one-quarter the brightness of the Key light.  In practice, it has about the same wattage as the other lights (Fill, Rim) but casts over a much wider area.

In Modeled lighting the purpose of the Backlight is to keep the background interesting without becoming distracting.  So the amount of light is used to control the detail visible in the scene.  Colored background lights may be used to influence the mood of a scene.

In Flat lighting, two Background lights are often placed in balanced positions to cancel background shadows.  These background is usually lit about one stop dimmer than the subject just to create some separation between foreground and background.

In Motivated lighting, the Backlight comes from a realistic direction.  In general, there is not enough natural light in a scene to make a background look real on video.  The Backlight pumps up this light so that it looks realistic in a lit scene.

Practical
A Practical is a real light that exists in a scene, such as a table lamp, a television, a candle, and so forth.  In general, a practical light does not provide enough illumination for video, but may be a distraction, casting colored light into a scene which will change the color of objects as they move closer to the light.

Common practice is to lower the wattage of the bulb in a practical so that it looks lit but doesn’t cast a lot of light into the scene.  Then the light coming from the practical is simulated with professional lights coming from the angle of the practical.  For example, a table lamp might be reduced from 65w to 40w or 25w by changing it’s bulb.  Then a soft colored light might be placed near the table lamp to cast a controlled light on the subject.

In Modeled lighting, Practicals are motivated light sources that are used to contribute to the fill lighting or the rim lighting and are essentially an extra Rim or Fill.

In Flat lighting, Practicals are often left alone.  Whatever light they contribute is okay, so long as they are not casting shadows that can’t be canceled by the other lights.

In Motivated lighting, Practicals are simulated by pro lights to make them look realistic in the scene.

Setting up Lights

First, place the Key light.  Then place the Fill light.  Then place the Backlight.  Then place the Rim light.  Finally, light Practicals.

Remove all gels so that the camera can get a white balance.  If you leave the gels on the camera will try to accommodate the gels and either cancel their color in the shot or make the color look weird.

Replace all gels so that the camera can get a correct exposure.  The gels cut light as well as color it.  So the camera needs to be set with the gels in place or it will probably be underexposed.

Don’t trust your eyes!  The camera sees in different frequencies and is much less adaptable to different kinds and colors of light than our eyes.  Your eyes will always fool you.  So set everything up based on how it looks to your eyes.   Then go back and fix it all while looking in a monitor so you can see what the camera sees.

Communicating Setup

Role communicates the intended primary purpose of the light.

An imaginary line can be drawn between the main camera and the subject, actor or group of actors.  An imaginary clock face, with the subject at the center and the main camera at 6:00 is used to communicate the angular location of a light.  A light at 3:00 is immediately to the right of the subject, and a light at 9:00 is immediately to the left of the subject.  That only provides 12 positions in increments of 30 degrees.  For more accuracy, positions are often communicated in 30-minute increments.  So 3:30 is half-way between 3:00 and 4:00, yielding 24 positions in increments of 15 degrees.  Clock face is generally easier for people to remember and use than degrees.

A light is also place some distance from the subject, usually communicated in feet.

A light also has a height, from floor level to ceiling.  Height is normally communicated in feet and half feet, or relative to the person’s height.

We now have a language for communicating initial light position.  Of course, you must move it from that position and adjust and refine its position to accomplish the light’s purpose.

Example:  “Place an Amber Fill at 7:30, about 12 feet back and at eye level.”
Example:  “Place an overhead Key at 4:00, about 10 back”.

Standard Setups

1-light setup

Dramatic lighting using a single Key for high contrast between highlights and shadows. Sometimes a reflector is used to bounce light into the shadows to soften them. Often the one light is motivated.

2-light setup

The Key and Fill are balanced (same intensity) an positioned between 3:00 and 5:00 on one side and 7:00 and 9:00 on the other side. Elimintes shadows. Standard for Flat lighting.

3-light setup, also called 3-point lighting

The Key is set to taste. The caret (the shadow from the nose) should fall inside the line between the nose and lip, closer to the nose. The Fill is set at half the intensity of the Key and is positioned to achieve the desired graduation of change from light to shadow. A Rim light, usually colored, is placed low or high to provide separation from the background. Standard Modelling lighting.

4-light setup

The same as the 3-light setup, but additional lighting of the background or scene.

5- soft sun setup

A translucent reflector is held above the actor to filter direct sunlight, reducing shadows. A white, silver, sunfire (silver/gold), or gold reflector is used to directly reflect sunlight onto the actor. This is the Key. A white reflector is used from another angle to bounce light in to serve as the Fill.

6-green screen

The lights are set by viewing the background through the camera LCD or on a monitor. The camera is set with Zerbra on to 40%. Two reflector floods with 65w daylight adjusted bulbs are pointed at the backdrop. In the camera LCD you will see Zebra stripes where the lights form "hot spots". The goal is perfectly even lighting. So move the lights just until the Zebra disappears. That will ensure that the screen is lit as evenly as possible.

Whatever lighting is setup on the subject should be flagged to prevent those lights from spilling on the green screen or casting shadows on the green screen, which would ruin the even lighting. If the green screen continues seamlessly onto the floor, You may need one or two additional lights aimed at a low horizontal angle to lighten shadows cast by the subject's main lighting.

Be careful of any seams in the background. Light coming from an angle can reveal the seams or cast shadows from them, ruining the even lighting.

When the cinematographer calls for WHITE BALANCE, turn off all of the background lights and turn on all of the subject lights. When the cinematographer calls for BACK EXPOSURE, turn off all of the subject lights and turn on all of the background lights.
When the cinematographer calls for FRONT EXPOSURE, turn off all of the background lights and turn on all of the subjet lights.
When the cinematographer calls for FULL EXPOSURE or SHOT READY, turn on all of the lights.

7-colored lighting

When a gel is being used to color a light, the gel must be turned off during camera WHITE BALANCE or the color will not show in the shot and other colors (like skin tone) will be off. When the cinematographer calls for WHITE BALANCE turn off the colored lights. Turn them back on when all cameras have set their white balance.

References

FILMdyne maintains a copy of the DVD from DVCreators.net entitled "DV Enlightenment".