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Video Lighting
By Robin Lambert
Freelance Lighting Cameraman
Learn how to get the most out of your lighting setup, with our insight into Digital Video Lighting
When it comes to video lighting, the redhead or open-face unit is the workhorse. In essence it’s a can with a 800w lamp and a reflector. There’s no lens in front of the lamp (don’t call it a bulb, bulbs grow…lamps glow) which is why it’s “open-face”. Usually, for safety reasons, itwill have a metal grid to catch the larger pieces of glass if the lampexplodes, which they do occasionally. The original units made by Mole-Richardson had a red housing, hencethe name redheads. The next size up, the 2kw lamps had a yellowhousing and open face units of this size are still called “blondes”.This particular unit by Arri, the Arrilite 800, is probably the best made,and most common, redhead in television and movie use (I know it’sblue, not red, weren’t you paying attention?). When buying video lights, never go for cheap, always go for quality and expect to payabout £200 / €300 for an Arrilite 800.
The Fresnel, a bit more control.
Open face units are difficult to control. The barn doors are more to prevent spill rather than control the shape of the light. The open-face unit has a simple way to alter the beam size by moving the lamp. It’s a very rough-and-ready way of controlling the light though. In an ideal world there would be a lens in front of the lamp to focus the light. The problem is that video lamps put out a lot of heat,
which can crack and shatter glass lenses and melt plastic. Dedolight( see below) has come up with one solution but one way of dealing with the problem is to reduce the thickness of the lens. This type of lamp unit, the fresnel invented in the 1920s,quickly became the most common overhead studio light and is only now being replaced by more efficient methods of controlling light. Redheads, because of the way they reflect light, have a tendency to give slight double-shadows. This isn’t a problem with fresnel units such as the Arri Junior range but the main advantage of the fresnel over the open-face is that it is much easier to focus and control with barndoors.
The Dedolight: The next development in lighting.
As film making techniques changed, emulsions improved and video burst onto the scene, the demands of lighting camera(wo)men and DoP (Directors of Photography) increased. One particular DoP, Dedo Weigert, decided to create his own light and commissioned engineers to produce a lightweight, controllable and versatile unit. The Dedolight has since gone on to win awards and adulation all over the world.
The theory behind the Dedolight is simple. You take a low voltage, high output lamp and add top quality optics. Because the lamps don’t burn at the high temperatures of the previous units, decent lenses and reflectors can be used without excess weight or the danger of cracking. This results in a much more efficient light output and a beam which is easier to control.
The unit comes with a dimmer and has the ability to have all sorts of projection units, beam shapers and effects added. It is, however, quite a bit more expensive than the older fresnel and open face units but hit the video and film making industry like a bomb.
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