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Toni Vucic
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XXL Commercial: Lighting Breakdown

30/10/2017

2 Comments

 
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This is a TV-commerical for a norwegian sporting retailer, XXL, opening in Austria now. And it happens to be my 1st time gaffing a commercial! Note that I was not the rigging gaffer.

The location & general Lighting plan

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Location during setup the evening before
The 12k is bounced into the roof, providing a nice even fill light that can be dimmed up or down. The key was usually soft tungsten from the right, while we had a slightly harder blue kicker or backlight from the left. It might look the opposite in some shots, because we flipped it to get the greenscreen behind in some shots. Used a bounced 2.5k HMI (I think?) and two skypanels for the blue light.

We built this sci-fi store, then extended it with VFX in post. In fact the 3D store was already made, so we tried to match the lighting. We aren't using a real studio because the city of Trondheim doesn't have one that is big enough. Note that I wasn't there to rig the kino-flos and main greenscreen.
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These 3 lights lit the greenscreen. Cleverly hidden, but would have been nice to have more fixtures available for a more even screen. 
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I have no idea if this is the correct way to do it, but I managed to make the tacked on greenscreens pretty smooth by clamping them together in the way seen to the left.

How it was lit

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One skypanel low on each side to simulate lights from the city. I think it was set to candlelight mode. Ambient from dimmed down 12k hitting the roof of our location.
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Wrapped the skypanel in blackwrap to keep it from creating an outline on the "concrete"

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Skypanels in candlelight-mode bounced into two large bounceboards, while flagging the direct light off her face.
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There is also some tungsten bounce from the right out of frame

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My favorite shot is this one. I love the blue overexposure on her camera left cheek. Really gives me old-school sci-fi vibes.  One skypanel on each side behind her. Chimera lantern in front. When I saw it I thought of the image below.
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Rachel from Blade Runner (1982)

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No VFX shot

Okay so we had this side-shot, but no more greenscreen to spare. So what do you do? REALLY shallow dept of field and patchwork job of the year!
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Why is there a random bounceboard there? Well to make the bulge from the C-stand leg less obvious of course! Next time I'll probably just add some sandbags and tilt the arm a bit forward.
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Those black solids are extending our background

Conclusions

I would probably encourage people to keep their cables more organised than seen above. If I remember correctly we didn't have enough so could only have the shortest path. I love the output and customizability the skypanels give, although I miss the lightweight of the Kino-Flo select. Hope you enjoyed! For comments, criticism or questions, reach me on twitter/instagram @tonivuc, or leave a comment here!
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The line outside the new store in Vienna. We must have done something right ;-)
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    I'm a freelance gaffer. I also do basic grip work.
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