Set Lighting Technician's Handbook: Film Lighting Equipment, Practice, and Electrical Distribution

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1 Set basics: Your first barbecue
	Job descriptions of the lighting crew
		Director of photography
		Gaffer
		Best boy electric
		Lighting technicians
		Lighting control personnel
		Rigging crew
		The fixtures person (or department)
		Generator operator
		Grip department
	The company
		Production staff
		The director\'s team
		Script supervisor
		Camera department
		Sound department
		Locations
		Transportation
		Art department
	The general public
	Block, light, rehearse, tweak, shoot
CHAPTER 2 Preproduction planning: The package, expendables, personal tools
	Preproduction planning
		Scouting locations
		Production meetings
		Wireless spectrum management meeting
	The load-in
		Prepping lights and stands
		The production van
	Expendable supplies
		Gels and diffusion
		Electrical expendables
	Tools and personal gear
		Tool belt
		Meters
		Other hand tools
		Personal gear
CHAPTER 3 Lighting objectives
	Storytelling objectives
		Mood
		Naturalism
		Composition
		Time constraints
	Photographic objectives
		Light level
		Foot-candles
		F-stops and T-stops
		Factors affecting light levels
		Contrast, latitude, and the tonal value
		Spot meters
		Calibrated monitor
		Signal monitoring
CHAPTER 4 Lighting strategies
	Motivating and reactive lighting
	Lighting faces
		Rembrandt cheek patch lighting
		Near- and far-side keys
		Side light
		Wrapping the key
		Front light
		Bottom light
		High in front or high to the side
	The lighting triangle
		Fill
		Eye light
		Backlights, kickers, and hair lights
	Lighting the acting positions
		Back cross keys
	Lighting the space and the background
		Ambience
		Backdrops
CHAPTER 5 Manipulating light: Tools, techniques, and the behavior of light
	Falloff: your friend, the inverse square law
	Cuts and patterns
		Breakup patterns
		Cucaloris
		Branchaloris
		Tape on an empty frame
		Shading and selectively controlling brightness
	Movement
		Flicker effects: television screen, flame, and fire
		Other moving light effects
	Soft light
	Softness of light
		Linear light sources
	Bounce light
	Diffusion materials
		Diffusion on the fixture
		Fabric soft boxes
	Controlling soft light
		Flags and teasers
		Grids, egg crates, and louvers
		Lanterns
CHAPTER 6 Color
	Color space
	Kelvin color temperature scale
		Shifting color up and down the color temperature scale
		Using MIRED units to calculate color shifts
		Correlated color temperature (CCT)
		Green/magenta axis
	Measuring color
	Colored light
		LED full-color
		Theatrical gels
CHAPTER 7 LED lights
	Capabilities of LEDs
	Color options
		Phosphor white, daylight, or tungsten
		Remote phosphor
		Bi-color
		The reasons behind tunable-white and full-spectrum lights
		Full spectrum
	LED color control methods
	Lighting effects
	Dimming LEDs
		Dimming curves
		Bottom of the dimmer range
	The seven things every lighting technician should know about LEDs
		Control
	Soft light fixtures
		Rigging versatility with lightweight softlights
		Small \"face\" lights
		Larger full-featured heads
		Green/blue screens, backings, and translights
	ARRI SkyPanel®
		Establishing base settings
		Settings menus
		Light operation
	LED tubes
		Single- and bi-color tubes
		Full-color tubes
		Pixel tubes
	Ribbon and tiles
		Ribbon
		Power and control
		Soldering
	Other LED form factors
		Orbiter
		Automated fixtures
		Camera-mounted and small LEDs
		Ring lights
		Portable wall wash
		Punchy LEDs
		Architectural
CHAPTER 8 Established lighting instruments
	Tungsten
	HMI and other metal halide arc lamps
	Fresnels
		Flood/spot control
		Tilt angle
		Fresnel beam
		Fresnel accessories
		20k and 24k tungsten lights
	PAR lights
		PAR lamps
		PAR cans
		PAR arrays
		Axially mounted PAR fixtures
	Ellipsoidal reflector spotlights
	Dedolights
	Beam projectors
	Area lights and backing lights
		Space lights
		Backing lights
		Cyc strips
	Open-face lights
		Tungsten
		HMI \"open-face\" lights
	Tungsten soft lights
CHAPTER 9 Operating HMI lights
	HMI lamps
		ARRIMAX
		Double-ended lamps
		Other notes about HMI lamps
	Normal HMI operation
		Striking
		DMX512-controlled ballasts
		UV protection and the safety loop circuit
		Color temperature
		Operating conditions
		Troubleshooting
		Power
		Cueing for HMIs
CHAPTER 10 Stands and rigging
	Stands
		Baby stands
		Junior stands
		Offsets, side arms, extensions, and right angles
		Using stands
		Crank-up and motorized stands
		Grip stands
		Booms
	Rigging hardware
		Nail-on plates
		Set wall mounts
		Clamps
		Grids and greenbeds
		Other rigging hardware
CHAPTER 11 Set protocol
	Set protocol
		Staging area
		Lighting the set
		Walkie-talkies
		Safeties
		Protecting sets and locations
		Teamwork
		Warnings
	Stingers and cabling
		Cables crossing the set
		Cables crossing work areas
		Stingers
		Preventing kick-outs
		Repatching
		2k plugging policy
		Labeling stingers and power cords
		Coiling stingers and cable
		Circuit balance and capacity
		Overheating and short circuits
		Smoke, fire, and other bad smells
		Sprinkler systems
	Elevated work
		Ladders
		Parallels
		Working at height
		Aerial lifts (Condors and scissor lifts)
	Color correction on location
		Correcting commercial/industrial fluorescents
		Heat protection and gels
		Gelling windows
	Practical bulbs
		PH bulbs and photoflood bulbs
		MR-16
		Mushroom floods
		Dimming practical lamps
		Wiring fixtures and outlet boxes
	The wrap
		Coiling feeder cable
		Inventory
	Replacing lamps
		Matching the lamp to the fixture
		Mercury
		Replacing tungsten and HMI lamps
CHAPTER 12 Lighting control networks
	DMX512
		DMX512 addressing
		The patch
		Fixture numbers
		The cheat sheet, fixtures, and universes
	DMX values and device personality
		General Device Type Format (GDTF)
		Multiple DMX512 universes
	Remote Device Management (RDM)
	Building wired DMX512 systems
		Deviations from the standard
		Data termination
		Capacity
		DMX cable
		Optical isolators and splitters
		DMX512 testing
		Loss of signal
	Ethernet, Art-Net, sACN, and RDMnet
		DMX over Ethernet
		Other Ethernet protocols
		RDMnet
		Advantages of Ethernet
		Lighting control apps
		Wi-Fi
	Wireless DMX
		To be or not to be wireless
		Wireless DMX transmitters and receivers
		Satellite™ and Constellation
		Bluetooth
		Mesh
		Wireless system management
	DMX controllers and lighting consoles
		Small controllers
		Consoles
		Console operations
	Pixel mapping
CHAPTER 13 Electricity
	The fundamentals of electricity and electrical formulas
		Volts (electromotive force)
		Amperes (current)
		Watts (power)
		The power formula
		Resistance
		Ohm\'s law
	Parallel and series circuits
	How NOT to use electrical formulas
	AC vs. DC
	Power systems
		240/120 single-phase, three-wire plus ground system
		208/120 three-phase, four-wire plus ground system
		Single-phase derived from delta-connected, three-phase system
		480/277 V three-phase system
	Electrical safety systems
		Control devices and polarity
		Overcurrent protection
		The current-carrying capacity of cable
		Types of feeder cable
	Equipment grounding
	System ground
		Generators
		Ground rods
		Bonding power sources
CHAPTER 14 Power distribution equipment
	Components of a simple portable distribution system
		208 V vs. 240 V systems
	Overcurrent protection and cable ampacity
		Protecting cable at its ampacity
		Step-down box
		The 400 percent rule
	Feeder runs
		Camlock connectors
		Reversed ground system
		Parallel cable
		Test jacks
		Camlock spiders
	Distribution centers
	Multi-pin connectors and receptacle boxes
		Stage pin (Bates) connectors
		Edison
		NEMA L6-20 and L6-30
		PowerCON and TRUE1
		Socapex
		Adapters
		Adapters for big lights
	DMX-controlled distribution and power with data
CHAPTER 15 Dimming equipment
	Color temperature
	Dimming types and applications
		Household dimmers
		Variac dimmers
		Lunchbox dimmers and silent on-set dimmers
		Dimmers tailored for LEDs and small incandescent lamps
		Stand-alone dimmers
		Dimmer packs
		Dimmer racks
	Wireless DMX on-set dimmers
	Dimmer packs and racks
		Dimmer rooms
	Electronic dimmer designs
		Forward-phase control dimmers—SCR
		Reverse-phase control dimmers
		Sinewave dimmers
	Strand CD80 dimmer packs
		Installation and setup
		Troubleshooting
	ETC sensor dimmer system
CHAPTER 16 Electrical rigging
	The role of the rigging gaffer
	Rigging paperwork
	Layers of an electrical system
		Hard-power layer
		Dimmer-circuit layer
		Control layer
	Cable and generator loading
		Sizing neutral conductors
		Sizing equipment grounding conductors
		Sizing grounding electrode and bonding conductors
	Rigging cable
		Protect your back
		Traffic areas
		Fire lanes
		Identifying cable, labeling circuits
		Lacing feeders
		Ventilating and separating runs
		Waterfalls
	Placement of distribution boxes
		The Gak package
		Root out bad contacts
	Testing the system before use
		Testing for short circuits
		Testing neutral and ground continuity and resistance
		Making the feeder connections
		Testing voltage
		Lugs and buss bars
	Knots for rigging
		Loop knots
		Binding hitches
		Other useful hitches
		Bends
		Strength of rope
	Rigging lights
	Rigging aerial lifts
		Cabling
		Condor duty
CHAPTER 17 Working with electrical power
	Voltage drop and line loss
		Causes of voltage drop
		Allowable voltage drop
		Mitigating voltage drop
		Simple line loss calculations
	Single-phase voltage drop calculations
		Finding the voltage drop
		Finding cable gauge
		Finding the maximum current
		Finding the maximum length
	Three-phase voltage drop calculations
		Single-phase loads
		Three-phase loads
		Cable resistance
		Power factor
		Power factor correction
	Non-linear loads and harmonics
		Switch mode power supplies
		Harmonics
		Additive neutral current
		Skin effect and proximity effect
		Strategies for coping with large non-linear loads
	Measuring electricity
		AC Circuit Load Tester
		Circuit testers
		Testing continuity and testing for shorts
		Voltage meters
		Measuring amperage
		Wattmeter or power meter
		Power quality meter
		Measuring frequency (Hz rate)
		Circuit breaker finder
		Meter categories
	Electrical shocks and muscle freeze
CHAPTER 18 Power sources
	Rechargeable batteries
		Battery types and mounts
		Voltage
		Current
		Battery capacity, run time, and charging
		Charge time
		Combining batteries with plates and power stations
		Options for powering lights with batteries
		Shipping and flying with batteries
		Battery chemistry and care
		Inverters
	Large battery packs
	Using available outlets
		Getting organized
		240 V receptacles
	Putt-putts (small portable generators)
		Retrofits and alternative configurations
		Parallel generators and step-down transformers
		Running the generator
		Troubleshooting small generators
		How does a generator work?
	240-to-120 V transformer
	Full-size generators
		Electrical configurations
		Control panel
		Generator placement
		Selecting a generator
		480 V transformer
		Power (kVA)
		How transformers work
		Using a 480 V system
	Line drops from utility power
	Tie-ins
		Approach protection
CHAPTER 19 Special circumstances and practices
	Shooting on moving vehicles
		Poor man\'s process and other techniques
	Lighting in and around water
		Working with electricity around water and damp environments
		GFCI protection
		GFCI devices
		Testing equipment
		Protecting equipment
		Lighting rain
	Underwater lighting
		Electricity in water
		Modern underwater fixtures
		The underwater lighting arsenal
		Features of underwater fixtures
		Surface support
	Lighting for matte photography
		Pure screen color and density
		Lighting the foreground
CHAPTER 20 Specialty lighting equipment
	SoftSun
	Lighting balloons
	Lightning effects
		Lightning Strikes!
		Control units
		Power requirements
		Running Lightning Strikes! on generators
		Thundervoltz battery packs
	Automated lights
		Selecting moving lights
		Working with moving lights
	Remote pan and tilt for conventional lights
	Media servers and video projectors for lighting effects
	Xenon lights
	Follow spots
		Preparing the follow spot
		Operating the follow spot
	Black lights
		Black light fixtures
		Photographing with black light
CHAPTER 21 LED color science and technology
	Systems for evaluating color rendering
		What\'s wrong with CRI?
		Extended CRI, CRI 15
		TLCI-2012 and TLMF-2013
		Spectral Similarity Index (SSI)
		What to watch for
		Why different cameras see the same colors differently
	Gamut
		Selecting the color space of a light
	Matching colors, ANSI E1.54
	LED technology
		LED power supply, controller, driver, and dimming
		LED useful life
APPENDIX A Photometric calculations and tables
APPENDIX B Lamp tables
APPENDIX C Flicker-free frame rates
APPENDIX D Electrical tables
APPENDIX E IP and NEMA equipment ratings
APPENDIX F Equipment suppliers and manufacturers
APPENDIX G Gels and diffusions
APPENDIX H LED lights
Glossary
Index