Lighting
On all union jobs, grips do not touch the lights themselves. The placement of lighting instruments and the power distribution to deliver electricity is handled by the electricians who work under a gaffer. Grips handle all of the non-electrical equipment that modifies the light. This work is done by setting stands that hold flags, nets, diffusing materials or other gobos that control the quality, intensity, or shape of the light.
Grips also set "passive fill" which is a term for the reflected light that is "bounced" back onto a subject on the fill or non key light side. The first choice for most film-makers' fill is a product known in the US as beadboard and called "poly", short for polystyrene, in Europe. It is actually rigid insulation made for the construction trade, but was adopted to the film trade because of its "true-white" color and "soft" bounce.
Grips may also be called on to set "negative fill", which is the reduction of ambient or non-directional light, such as ambient sunlight, to raise contrast on the subject. This is achieved by setting "solids", made of black fabric, either flags (up to 4'x4') or rags (6'x6' or larger) on the non key light side or wherever the negative fill is desired.
When shooting day exteriors, grips perform similar functions, but with the sun as the primary light source. Grips use overhead frames up to 20'x20' or larger for the shaping or filtering of sunlight. The lighting set-ups for these exterior shots can become quite extensive, and the use of boom lifts known as "condors" is common. Condors are especially useful at night when they are rigged to raise lights or diffusing material up to 120 feet in the air to create moon-effect lighting.
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Famous quotes containing the word lighting:
“Popular art is normally decried as vulgar by the cultivated people of its time; then it loses favor with its original audience as a new generation grows up; then it begins to merge into the softer lighting of “quaint,” and cultivated people become interested in it, and finally it begins to take on the archaic dignity of the primitive.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“Popular art is normally decried as vulgar by the cultivated people of its time; then it loses favor with its original audience as a new generation grows up; then it begins to merge into the softer lighting of “quaint,” and cultivated people become interested in it, and finally it begins to take on the archaic dignity of the primitive.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 5:15,16.