Set Lighting Technician's Handbook, 5th Edition

Book description

A friendly, hands-on training manual and reference for lighting technicians in motion picture and television production, this handbook is the most comprehensive guide to set lighting available. It provides a unique combination of practical detail with a big-picture understanding of lighting, technology, safety, and professionalism.

Table of contents

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

Product information

  • Title: Set Lighting Technician's Handbook, 5th Edition
  • Author(s): Harry C. Box
  • Release date: April 2020
  • Publisher(s): Routledge
  • ISBN: 9780429749346