Lighting with George

In order for us to learn about the different kinds of lighting there is and that we could potentially use in our music video, we had someone come in (George), who walked us through everything.
Lighting is essentially very important for the music video as it can change the entire tone of it and depending on what we want to depict and connote within the video can be completely changed with the use of lighting.

The first lighting we were introduced to was the Atomic 3000 DMX, which is a strobe light and can be used for "flash frames" and make everything look slightly robotic. This may work very well with our video as we may want to incorporate this into it - the song is quite robotic as it is. The only thing we have to watch out for is that anyone with epilepsy can easily be triggered by these lights, and therefore warning signs have to be put up everywhere.

Atomic 3000 DMX

Another type of lighting we were introduced to is the UV Lighting Cannon, which works perfectly in a pitch black room, but which has the main job of illuminating UV paint or (EXPENSIVE) white shirts. I don't think that we will be making much use of this lighting in our video, as we aren't really planning on using UV paint or illuminating anything in a dark room. If we had a more electronic-type song, this may have worked well.

UV Bodypaint Effect

UV Lighting Cannon

The ETC Source Four Junior is a simple spotlight, which can be used to create a single spotlight. The size of the spotlight can be adjusted, and therefore is relatively flexible with how much illumination is required. To make the spotlight a different colour, various colours or gels can be put infront of it (for example, if we wanted a red spotlight, we could put a red filter infront of it). Because of the little fins it has on the side, it can also create triangles, squares, and other shapes. I think it could be quite helpful for us to use this kind of light, as we have a performance element in which we have one dancer; this may make it fit into the song more.

ETC Source Four Junior

The Thomas 4 Cyc Light has four individual lights, each at about 4000 WATTS (which is approximately 800x more powerful than a regular house light) and makes it very easy to use the green screen or infinity screen, as it drowns out any kind of shadows. I was considering the use of these lights as I think it would be quite suitable if we used an infinity screen for our dancer; it would make the entire scene more timeless.

Thomas 4 Cyc Light

Green Screen using Thomas 4 Cyc Lights

Next is the Galaxia LED Softlight. This light is heavily diffused/frosted, which meas that it's not a harsh source of light; it fades into the darkness, and is somewhat a beauty light that can be used to make people like the singers stand out and remove shadows underneath the eyes. The temperature of the lights can be changed according to the mood of the video. I feel that this may be good to use on our performance element, especially when using close-ups.

Galaxia LED Softlight

The JTE Pixelline 1044 Fixtures are long LED batons which can change to any colour required and can do all sorts of effects, chases, flashes, and so on. These lights don't necessarily have to be part of the set and can be used as extra lighting effects off-set. We might use this in some of our elements to make the video seem more funky, just in tune with the music.

JTE Pixelline 1044 Fixtures - Demonstration

Lastly, we were introduced to two types of moving lights which can be controlled by an information desk. The first one is the Sharpy Wash 330, which is like the ETC Source Four Junior, can be changed to any colour desired, and can change the beam size. It can also be frosted or harsh. We may go for this option rather than the ETC Source Four Junior just because I feel like it could be easier to use.

Sharpy Wash 330

The Martin Mac 700 Profiles are the biggest and baddest lights; I belive these are the ones that are fixated to the ceiling in the studio and can pretty much do anything. It is without a doubt that we will most likely be using these - we probably won't be doing cool lighting effects but just use them to illuminate our sets and actors.

Cool things the Martin Mac 700 Profile can do