Cover image for Set Lighting Technician's Handbook, 5th Edition

Set Lighting Technician's Handbook, 5th Edition

Author Harry C. Box
Release Date: 2020/04/01
ISBN: 9780429749346
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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, essential to anyone doing motion picture lighting.

The fifth edition delves into every aspect of lighting and features vastly expanded sections on controlling LED lights, color science, lighting control systems, wireless systems, Ethernet-based control systems, battery power, and modern set protocol for productions small and large. With a generous number of original images, the book illustrates the use of soft light, the effect of lighting angles, and how the gaffer and DP build an effective lighting plan around the blocking of the actors. This encyclopedic volume of technical knowhow is tempered with years of practical experience and a much-needed sense of humor.

This is the ideal text for professional lighting technicians across film and television including lighting directors, gaffers, DOPs, and rigging crews, as well as film and television production students studying lighting, camera techniques, film production, and cinematography.

It includes a revamped companion website with supplementary resources, forms, checklists, and images.

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
    2. Director of photography
    3. Gaffer
    4. Best boy electric
    5. Lighting technicians
    6. Lighting control personnel
    7. Rigging crew
    8. The fixtures person (or department)
    9. Generator operator
    10. Grip department
    11. The company
    12. Production staff
    13. The director's team
    14. Script supervisor
    15. Camera department
    16. Sound department
    17. Locations
    18. Transportation
    19. Art department
    20. The general public
    21. Block, light, rehearse, tweak, shoot
  10. CHAPTER 2 Preproduction planning: The package, expendables, personal tools
    1. Preproduction planning
    2. Scouting locations
    3. Production meetings
    4. Wireless spectrum management meeting
    5. The load-in
    6. Prepping lights and stands
    7. The production van
    8. Expendable supplies
    9. Gels and diffusion
    10. Electrical expendables
    11. Tools and personal gear
    12. Tool belt
    13. Meters
    14. Other hand tools
    15. Personal gear
  11. CHAPTER 3 Lighting objectives
    1. Storytelling objectives
    2. Mood
    3. Naturalism
    4. Composition
    5. Time constraints
    6. Photographic objectives
    7. Light level
    8. Foot-candles
    9. F-stops and T-stops
    10. Factors affecting light levels
    11. Contrast, latitude, and the tonal value
    12. Spot meters
    13. Calibrated monitor
    14. Signal monitoring
  12. CHAPTER 4 Lighting strategies
    1. Motivating and reactive lighting
    2. Lighting faces
    3. Rembrandt cheek patch lighting
    4. Near- and far-side keys
    5. Side light
    6. Wrapping the key
    7. Front light
    8. Bottom light
    9. High in front or high to the side
    10. The lighting triangle
    11. Fill
    12. Eye light
    13. Backlights, kickers, and hair lights
    14. Lighting the acting positions
    15. Back cross keys
    16. Lighting the space and the background
    17. Ambience
    18. 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
    3. Breakup patterns
    4. Cucaloris
    5. Branchaloris
    6. Tape on an empty frame
    7. Shading and selectively controlling brightness
    8. Movement
    9. Flicker effects: television screen, flame, and fire
    10. Other moving light effects
    11. Soft light
    12. Softness of light
    13. Linear light sources
    14. Bounce light
    15. Diffusion materials
    16. Diffusion on the fixture
    17. Fabric soft boxes
    18. Controlling soft light
    19. Flags and teasers
    20. Grids, egg crates, and louvers
    21. Lanterns
  14. CHAPTER 6 Color
    1. Color space
    2. Kelvin color temperature scale
    3. Shifting color up and down the color temperature scale
    4. Using MIRED units to calculate color shifts
    5. Correlated color temperature (CCT)
    6. Green/magenta axis
    7. Measuring color
    8. Colored light
    9. LED full-color
    10. Theatrical gels
  15. CHAPTER 7 LED lights
    1. Capabilities of LEDs
    2. Color options
    3. Phosphor white, daylight, or tungsten
    4. Remote phosphor
    5. Bi-color
    6. The reasons behind tunable-white and full-spectrum lights
    7. Full spectrum
    8. LED color control methods
    9. Lighting effects
    10. Dimming LEDs
    11. Dimming curves
    12. Bottom of the dimmer range
    13. The seven things every lighting technician should know about LEDs
    14. Control
    15. Soft light fixtures
    16. Rigging versatility with lightweight softlights
    17. Small “face” lights
    18. Larger full-featured heads
    19. Green/blue screens, backings, and translights
    20. ARRI SkyPanel®
    21. Establishing base settings
    22. Settings menus
    23. Light operation
    24. LED tubes
    25. Single- and bi-color tubes
    26. Full-color tubes
    27. Pixel tubes
    28. Ribbon and tiles
    29. Ribbon
    30. Power and control
    31. Soldering
    32. Other LED form factors
    33. Orbiter
    34. Automated fixtures
    35. Camera-mounted and small LEDs
    36. Ring lights
    37. Portable wall wash
    38. Punchy LEDs
    39. 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
    10. PAR lamps
    11. PAR cans
    12. PAR arrays
    13. Axially mounted PAR fixtures
    14. Ellipsoidal reflector spotlights
    15. Dedolights
    16. Beam projectors
    17. Area lights and backing lights
    18. Space lights
    19. Backing lights
    20. Cyc strips
    21. Open-face lights
    22. Tungsten
    23. HMI “open-face” lights
    24. Tungsten soft lights
  17. CHAPTER 9 Operating HMI lights
    1. HMI lamps
    2. ARRIMAX
    3. Double-ended lamps
    4. Other notes about HMI lamps
    5. Normal HMI operation
    6. Striking
    7. DMX512-controlled ballasts
    8. UV protection and the safety loop circuit
    9. Color temperature
    10. Operating conditions
    11. Troubleshooting
    12. Power
    13. Cueing for HMIs
  18. CHAPTER 10 Stands and rigging
    1. Stands
    2. Baby stands
    3. Junior stands
    4. Offsets, side arms, extensions, and right angles
    5. Using stands
    6. Crank-up and motorized stands
    7. Grip stands
    8. Booms
    9. Rigging hardware
    10. Nail-on plates
    11. Set wall mounts
    12. Clamps
    13. Grids and greenbeds
    14. Other rigging hardware
  19. CHAPTER 11 Set protocol
    1. Set protocol
    2. Staging area
    3. Lighting the set
    4. Walkie-talkies
    5. Safeties
    6. Protecting sets and locations
    7. Teamwork
    8. Warnings
    9. Stingers and cabling
    10. Cables crossing the set
    11. Cables crossing work areas
    12. Stingers
    13. Preventing kick-outs
    14. Repatching
    15. 2k plugging policy
    16. Labeling stingers and power cords
    17. Coiling stingers and cable
    18. Circuit balance and capacity
    19. Overheating and short circuits
    20. Smoke, fire, and other bad smells
    21. Sprinkler systems
    22. Elevated work
    23. Ladders
    24. Parallels
    25. Working at height
    26. Aerial lifts (Condors and scissor lifts)
    27. Color correction on location
    28. Correcting commercial/industrial fluorescents
    29. Heat protection and gels
    30. Gelling windows
    31. Practical bulbs
    32. PH bulbs and photoflood bulbs
    33. MR-16
    34. Mushroom floods
    35. Dimming practical lamps
    36. Wiring fixtures and outlet boxes
    37. The wrap
    38. Coiling feeder cable
    39. Inventory
    40. Replacing lamps
    41. Matching the lamp to the fixture
    42. Mercury
    43. Replacing tungsten and HMI lamps
  20. CHAPTER 12 Lighting control networks
    1. DMX512
    2. DMX512 addressing
    3. The patch
    4. Fixture numbers
    5. The cheat sheet, fixtures, and universes
    6. DMX values and device personality
    7. General Device Type Format (GDTF)
    8. Multiple DMX512 universes
    9. Remote Device Management (RDM)
    10. Building wired DMX512 systems
    11. Deviations from the standard
    12. Data termination
    13. Capacity
    14. DMX cable
    15. Optical isolators and splitters
    16. DMX512 testing
    17. Loss of signal
    18. Ethernet, Art-Net, sACN, and RDMnet
    19. DMX over Ethernet
    20. Other Ethernet protocols
    21. RDMnet
    22. Advantages of Ethernet
    23. Lighting control apps
    24. Wi-Fi
    25. Wireless DMX
    26. To be or not to be wireless
    27. Wireless DMX transmitters and receivers
    28. Satellite™ and Constellation
    29. Bluetooth
    30. Mesh
    31. Wireless system management
    32. DMX controllers and lighting consoles
    33. Small controllers
    34. Consoles
    35. Console operations
    36. Pixel mapping
  21. CHAPTER 13 Electricity
    1. The fundamentals of electricity and electrical formulas
    2. Volts (electromotive force)
    3. Amperes (current)
    4. Watts (power)
    5. The power formula
    6. Resistance
    7. Ohm's law
    8. Parallel and series circuits
    9. How NOT to use electrical formulas
    10. AC vs. DC
    11. Power systems
    12. 240/120 single-phase, three-wire plus ground system
    13. 208/120 three-phase, four-wire plus ground system
    14. Single-phase derived from delta-connected, three-phase system
    15. 480/277 V three-phase system
    16. Electrical safety systems
    17. Control devices and polarity
    18. Overcurrent protection
    19. The current-carrying capacity of cable
    20. Types of feeder cable
    21. Equipment grounding
    22. System ground
    23. Generators
    24. Ground rods
    25. Bonding power sources
  22. CHAPTER 14 Power distribution equipment
    1. Components of a simple portable distribution system
    2. 208 V vs. 240 V systems
    3. Overcurrent protection and cable ampacity
    4. Protecting cable at its ampacity
    5. Step-down box
    6. The 400 percent rule
    7. Feeder runs
    8. Camlock connectors
    9. Reversed ground system
    10. Parallel cable
    11. Test jacks
    12. Camlock spiders
    13. Distribution centers
    14. Multi-pin connectors and receptacle boxes
    15. Stage pin (Bates) connectors
    16. Edison
    17. NEMA L6–20 and L6–30
    18. PowerCON and TRUE1
    19. Socapex
    20. Adapters
    21. Adapters for big lights
    22. DMX-controlled distribution and power with data
  23. CHAPTER 15 Dimming equipment
    1. Color temperature
    2. Dimming types and applications
    3. Household dimmers
    4. Variac dimmers
    5. Lunchbox dimmers and silent on-set dimmers
    6. Dimmers tailored for LEDs and small incandescent lamps
    7. Stand-alone dimmers
    8. Dimmer packs
    9. Dimmer racks
    10. Wireless DMX on-set dimmers
    11. Dimmer packs and racks
    12. Dimmer rooms
    13. Electronic dimmer designs
    14. Forward-phase control dimmers—SCR
    15. Reverse-phase control dimmers
    16. Sinewave dimmers
    17. Strand CD80 dimmer packs
    18. Installation and setup
    19. Troubleshooting
    20. 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
    4. Hard-power layer
    5. Dimmer-circuit layer
    6. Control layer
    7. Cable and generator loading
    8. Sizing neutral conductors
    9. Sizing equipment grounding conductors
    10. Sizing grounding electrode and bonding conductors
    11. Rigging cable
    12. Protect your back
    13. Traffic areas
    14. Fire lanes
    15. Identifying cable, labeling circuits
    16. Lacing feeders
    17. Ventilating and separating runs
    18. Waterfalls
    19. Placement of distribution boxes
    20. The Gak package
    21. Root out bad contacts
    22. Testing the system before use
    23. Testing for short circuits
    24. Testing neutral and ground continuity and resistance
    25. Making the feeder connections
    26. Testing voltage
    27. Lugs and buss bars
    28. Knots for rigging
    29. Loop knots
    30. Binding hitches
    31. Other useful hitches
    32. Bends
    33. Strength of rope
    34. Rigging lights
    35. Rigging aerial lifts
    36. Cabling
    37. Condor duty
  25. CHAPTER 17 Working with electrical power
    1. Voltage drop and line loss
    2. Causes of voltage drop
    3. Allowable voltage drop
    4. Mitigating voltage drop
    5. Simple line loss calculations
    6. Single-phase voltage drop calculations
    7. Finding the voltage drop
    8. Finding cable gauge
    9. Finding the maximum current
    10. Finding the maximum length
    11. Three-phase voltage drop calculations
    12. Single-phase loads
    13. Three-phase loads
    14. Cable resistance
    15. Power factor
    16. Power factor correction
    17. Non-linear loads and harmonics
    18. Switch mode power supplies
    19. Harmonics
    20. Additive neutral current
    21. Skin effect and proximity effect
    22. Strategies for coping with large non-linear loads
    23. Measuring electricity
    24. AC Circuit Load Tester
    25. Circuit testers
    26. Testing continuity and testing for shorts
    27. Voltage meters
    28. Measuring amperage
    29. Wattmeter or power meter
    30. Power quality meter
    31. Measuring frequency (Hz rate)
    32. Circuit breaker finder
    33. Meter categories
    34. Electrical shocks and muscle freeze
  26. CHAPTER 18 Power sources
    1. Rechargeable batteries
    2. Battery types and mounts
    3. Voltage
    4. Current
    5. Battery capacity, run time, and charging
    6. Charge time
    7. Combining batteries with plates and power stations
    8. Options for powering lights with batteries
    9. Shipping and flying with batteries
    10. Battery chemistry and care
    11. Inverters
    12. Large battery packs
    13. Using available outlets
    14. Getting organized
    15. 240 V receptacles
    16. Putt-putts (small portable generators)
    17. Retrofits and alternative configurations
    18. Parallel generators and step-down transformers
    19. Running the generator
    20. Troubleshooting small generators
    21. How does a generator work?
    22. 240-to-120 V transformer
    23. Full-size generators
    24. Electrical configurations
    25. Control panel
    26. Generator placement
    27. Selecting a generator
    28. 480 V transformer
    29. Power (kVA)
    30. How transformers work
    31. Using a 480 V system
    32. Line drops from utility power
    33. Tie-ins
    34. Approach protection
  27. CHAPTER 19 Special circumstances and practices
    1. Shooting on moving vehicles
    2. Poor man's process and other techniques
    3. Lighting in and around water
    4. Working with electricity around water and damp environments
    5. GFCI protection
    6. GFCI devices
    7. Testing equipment
    8. Protecting equipment
    9. Lighting rain
    10. Underwater lighting
    11. Electricity in water
    12. Modern underwater fixtures
    13. The underwater lighting arsenal
    14. Features of underwater fixtures
    15. Surface support
    16. Lighting for matte photography
    17. Pure screen color and density
    18. Lighting the foreground
  28. CHAPTER 20 Specialty lighting equipment
    1. SoftSun
    2. Lighting balloons
    3. Lightning effects
    4. Lightning Strikes!
    5. Control units
    6. Power requirements
    7. Running Lightning Strikes! on generators
    8. Thundervoltz battery packs
    9. Automated lights
    10. Selecting moving lights
    11. Working with moving lights
    12. Remote pan and tilt for conventional lights
    13. Media servers and video projectors for lighting effects
    14. Xenon lights
    15. Follow spots
    16. Preparing the follow spot
    17. Operating the follow spot
    18. Black lights
    19. Black light fixtures
    20. Photographing with black light
  29. CHAPTER 21 LED color science and technology
    1. Systems for evaluating color rendering
    2. What's wrong with CRI?
    3. Extended CRI, CRI 15
    4. TLCI-2012 and TLMF-2013
    5. Spectral Similarity Index (SSI)
    6. What to watch for
    7. Why different cameras see the same colors differently
    8. Gamut
    9. Selecting the color space of a light
    10. Matching colors, ANSI E1.54
    11. LED technology
    12. LED power supply, controller, driver, and dimming
    13. 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
18.116.21.229