Job Boards

There are many places online to go to where employers post jobs for crew members. You can get a wide range of jobs from low-budget music videos to union commercial jobs through these job boards. Here is a list of websites you can take a look at:

Facebook – Look for film-specific groups in your area
Staff Me Up
Mandy
ProductionHUB
LinkedIn
Craigs List – crew/gigs and film/video section

The benefit of these websites is they can introduce you to people who you would never meet otherwise and who are actively looking for someone to be available for work. The downside is that tons of people will apply for the same job and so responding quickly with the right information is crucial. We’ll go into detail on how to apply to these jobs, but if you are having trouble finding work, it never hurts to frequent these websites.

Cold Emails or Texts

This is where you reach out to someone who may need to hire you in the future.  These cold emails could vary from being very formal, to very informal. 

Some things to consider including:

-Mention a mutual friend, this can be a quick way to build trust between you two.

-Give a short summary of your work experience. This could be a place to include your IMDB link, resume, etc.

-Ask if you can check in with them every once in a while for work.

It’s really important to make sure it’s ok for you to ask them for work again in the future. Most likely this one email will not lead to anything, but if you’re persistent and you’re reminding people you’re available every 3-4 weeks, you may get them when they’re desperate for anyone. Any follow-up emails or texts can be very simple, an example of this could be:

“Just letting you know I’m available this week if you need someone”. 

How to Apply

Once you have found a post for potential work, you’ll have to reach out to them and send them info showing them how you are an excellent fit for the job.
A cover letter is the first chance to interact with the employer. It should be concise, relative to the job you’re applying for, say a little bit about your experience, and have contact information at the end.

Cover letter example

Hello, Im reaching out to you today in regard to the [Grip] opportunity for [The Big Show]. 

Over the years I’ve been developing my skills as a [Grip] in the film and video industry. I have experience on a wide range of productions such as commercials, corporate, narrative, and documentaries. I am familiar with the latest industry standards of equipment and methods on how to modify light for a variety of sets. I enjoy working with others and take direction well.

Please see the attachments and links for my resume and work experience. I also have references available upon request.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope to hear from you!

Sincerely,
Full Name
Phone
Email
IMDb/website

Tip: Create an email signature that has the following information.
– Full Name
– Job Title
– Phone Number
– Email Address
– Website/IMDb Link

Yes, have your email address in your email signature. It is a straightforward way for those who have hired you to send all your contact info to the person making the call sheet. You can create multiple signatures with most email apps. you can create different ones for the different jobs you’re getting. Grip, Electric, DP, AC or PA, Etc.

References

The references you mention that are available upon request is a short list of people that you know and who will put in a good word and vouch for you being a good candidate for the job you are applying for. It is important that you reach out to these people and ask them if you can send their info to a potential employer as a reference before you actually do so. 

Resume

Another tool in your ‘gotta find a job’ tool kit is a resume.
a resume is a more formal document that has more detailed information like your goals within your career as well as work experience and other related accomplishments. Some tips for your resume:

• Make sure the resume is only one page long.
• Only put work experiences on your resume for the job you’re applying for. You do not want a bunch of gaffing experience on your post-production editing job resume.
• Create multiple resumes for different types of work you want to land.
• When people look at resumes they are often times looking for someone else they’ve worked with so they can ask that person what it was like to work with you. Include department heads and production companies.

IMDb

As you begin to rack up work experience freelancing in the film industry, you’ll likely start to gain IMDb credits. Usually, a producer or someone in production puts crew credits into the database, but you can enter them yourself too. If you try and enter them yourself, they will have to be verified and approved by IMDb. Keep your IMDb link in your email signature and use it when applying to job board posts along with your resume. It’s just another tool to demonstrate all your work history and experience on different projects.

Strange Ripples in The Job Pool

Ride the wave

Jobs will somehow come in waves. One job will lead to another or they will stack up in a row nicely or the worst is when every production wants to shoot on the same day.

Trickle-Down Effect

When your area gets busy those A-list crew members are not available because they are booked on something else already. So, naturally, producers go down the list. You may be their next call! Sometimes we call these opportunities ‘come-up jobs’ where someone with less experience but has promise gets a call to work. Usually, these are referrals, someone out there believes in you! Face the fear and go for it! You’ll find that your positive attitude and passion for collaborative efforts will take you far! You can do it!

Go on Vacation

Is work slow? Plan a vacation! Don’t worry, you’ll start getting calls for jobs during your vacation time as soon as you book the nonrefundable deposit on whatever. Not sure why this happens, it just does!

Last seen, First Call

People tend to hire the person that they last spoke with or worked with. This is why it’s good to keep in touch and keep conversations, especially industry-related ones, active. “Wow, you see that cool new light that just posted?”

Three R’s of Taking a Job

Reel – We know you don’t have a reel as a grip, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be passionate about the content. Everyone wants to work on a good movie.

Revenue – Can’t say no to a full-rate job, right?

Relationships – There are some people you always want to work with, and you’ll try and say yes to keep them calling you.

It is wise to at least meet 2 of these reasons, if you can make all 3 then that’s fantastic.

Networking

On Set

This is one of the best places to network. These people are working and they see you working. Some things you can do to stay on their radar:

• Get their phone number and exchange info after the shoot. 
• Friend them on social media.
• If someone asks you for a recommendation, recommend the people you like and are meeting on set. You can tell them you recommended them for a job and hope that they get it. If it works out, they’ll want to reciprocate!

Note: Make sure to respect people’s privacy. Start with their social media account and only ask for their phone number if it’s really necessary.

Social Media

Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/Tik Tok are all great places to network. Engage with people’s posts and post your own content about you #onset. Keep in mind people will be much more likely to engage with your content if it is educational in some way, nobody likes a bragger.

Hobbies can also be a great way to connect with new people as it’s much easier to make friends with someone if you have some shared interests.

Industry Events

Equipment expos, film festivals, and industry social events are good places to meet people you haven’t met yet in the film community. Try and look on Facebook, Instagram, or even things like Eventbrite to find local events near you—the more local the better.

Clubs

Do some research to find industry-related clubs or communities in your area. Don’t have any? Start one! It could be as simple as gathering your industry friends to go see a movie once a month and talk about it over drinks or dinner. Invite new people to join you to expand your network!

Tip: Try and fill out their contact card in your phone as much as possible over time. First and last name, phone, email, social media handles, etc. You can do this easily for other people by creating your own digital calling card using an app like Blinq.

Keeping in touch with people

Once you know someone, you need to keep the relationship active for them to consider you for jobs. This could mean asking them to get coffee or inviting them to hang out with some mutual friends. Depending on the relationship this may differ, but can be a great way to have some fun and keep you top of mind for people that might hire you in the future. You do want to aim for genuine relationships, so if it doesn’t feel right to hang out, don’t do it!

How to Get a Call Back

– Show up early
– Bring your tools
– Wear work-appropriate clothing
– Have a professional attitude
– Socialize during lunch and appropriate downtime on set
– Say goodbye to your fellow crew members at the end of the day
– Follow up with those you enjoyed working with
– Engage on social media – post your self working and engage in posts of those you like to work with
– Keep your phone close- Be the person who responds quickly to texts, emails, or calls.

Hope this helps you land your next gig! 

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our Instagram for daily educational content.

• Instagram
• YouTube
• Facebook

Someone ordered all of these pieces of gear!

Create a Template

The number one thing we see is orders missing standard equipment. This could be missing distro, stands, or most often carts.

By creating a template you’ll protect yourself from this as it will create this standard list of questions you are asking yourselves. Now we’re not talking about a template of standard equipment, we know the jobs change far too much for that. All you need is key bits of information along with categories. This could be in your notes app, a saved signature, however you’d like to do it, but something that standardizes the information that you send to the rental house every time.

Here’s a sample:

Job Name: (Even if you have to make one up, its better than nothing)
Pick Up Date: (Include specific times if applicable, otherwise dates are fine!)
Shoot Start:
Shoot End:
Return Date

TRUCKS
LAMPS
DISTRO
DOLLY
GRIP
STANDS
CARTS
EXPENDABLES

Once you have a template you’ll protect yourself against most mistakes, but the next thing to keep in mind is to be extremely specific. Especially if you are working with a vendor you don’t normally work with. An easy example is what comes with an S60 Skypanel? Some rental houses will include a remote, some will not. By always putting a remote on your order and not assuming it will come with the package, you will protect yourself against the times when it does not. Assuming equipment will come with the order is a good way to get in trouble.

The other thing to watch out for is putting multiple pieces of equipment on one line item. For example writing

1 Joker 800 w/Chimera and Soft Grid

Vs.

1 – Joker 800

1 – Small Chimera 

1 – 40 Degree XS Soft Grid

While it may feel superfulous, it is extremely unlikely a rental house will miss these items if you list them out individually rather than on one line.

The last thing to keep in mind is if you are renting a truck, sometimes the simple items you are requesting will already be on there. Then the question becomes do you want at least that many items? Or do you want these items in addition to whats on the truck? A common thing we see is people will ask for a 1 Ton Grip truck and 10 C-Stands and 20 Sandbags. We always have to ask do you want 

A final equipment order might look like this:

Job Name: Rita Fruit Store
Pick Up Date: 10/20
Shoot Start: 10/21
Shoot End: 10/21
Return Date: 10/22

All Items are additional to the truck basic package unless otherwise noted.

TRUCKS
1 – 1 Ton Sprinter Grip Truck

LAMPS
2 – S60 Skypanels
2 – S60 Remotes
1 – M18
2 – 800 Jokers

DISTRO
4 – 50′ Stingers
4 – 25′ Stingers

DOLLY
1 – Fisher 11
1 – Set of Skate Wheels
2 – 8′ Pieces of Track

GRIP
2 – Junior Pipe Hangers 
2 – Safety Chains

STANDS
3 – Junior Stands
2 – Low Combos (Total including truck package)
2 – Runway Stands
2 – Beefy Baby Stands (Total including truck package)
1 – Preemie (Total including truck package)

CARTS
1 – Head Cart

EXPENDABLES
1 – Roll 2″ Black Paper Tape
1 – Roll of ND .6

Consider adding a checklist at the end. Some checks could be

-Enough stands for the lights ordered
-At least one stinger for each light
-Enough Low Stands
-Carts for all units

Requesting Changes

All changes should be made using the Add/Drop format.

Making changes to the order can be very difficult if you send back a completely new list of items, then the rental house will have to go through your entire list to see what changed, or more likely they will send it back and ask for it in the Add/Drop format. It is much easier to make an email like the following:

Hi,

I’d like to make the following changes to my order

ADD
1 400 Joker

Drop
1 800 Joker

This gives the rental house a clear indicator of how you’d like the order to be changed.

Apps

There are a number of apps out there to help with putting together an equipment order. If you remember about being specific, this is where the apps can really help, as you’re not just adding 1 800 Joker, but it lists all of the accessories contained within it with one click.

Some people find them to be very helpful, other people do not. We haven’t quite figured out how to use them in our workflow, but heres a link to something you hear about often.

Tech Scout Touch

The issues we’ve found is they are unable to create custom items, so if you want a light that is not listed in the database it can be problematic. Also they cannot handle changes in the add drop format, so making changes to your order and keeping your order accurate in the app can be difficult and time consuming.

Using these simple tips for your equipment order will reduce a lot of back and forth and most importantly reduce mistakes.

For pickup and delivery of rentals, we want to make sure that the best practices are in place. We are requiring protective masks for all who enter our premises. All pickups will be contactless, with the use of our drop sheds. No paper copies of manifests will be provided, only email copies will be provided. 

When delivering to a location the driver will remain properly distanced from everyone and anyone that is not the direct client designated to interact with the rental. All employee drivers will be wearing recommended PPE on all deliveries.

We at Bolt Lighting Rental are following the recommended sanitation guidelines set forth by PERG, CDC, and other resources. If you have questions about how to sanitize the equipment while it is in your possession, or want to see what we are doing to keep you safe, refer to the PERG Safe Return to Work Guidelines. As our procedures change we will update this post with more information.

We thank you for your cooperation and continued business here at Bolt Lighting Rental and hope to provide our best ability to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our instagram for daily educational content.

Last we left you guys we had just finished the design on the sprinter. It’s definitely been a while, but the truck is complete and has been working. Thought we would show you the second part of the process of building out this truck.

Since we got the first truck, learning to weld has been a really valuable skill. We looked into getting this done professionally, but we ultimately just decided to do it ourselves once we saw the price and realized that even with a professional doing it, we would have to constantly monitor their progress. It’s really important with these custom shelving units that you test as you build. It’s difficult to think of all of the possible issues you might run into and often times you need to creatively problem solve to get around them.

Using our sketchup file we started cutting and welding the thing together. About 80% of the work was done in about a week, while the other 20% took another 4 weeks! We kept the truck close by so we could test fit when we felt it was necessary.

Because everything needs to be very precise, we really could never have enough clamps to hold things in place before we welded them. 

Now to say this all went perfect would be, well…a lie. I’ll share with you one of our most painful mistakes. 

The issue that ultimately came up is that the Duz-All cart should fit underneath this shelf towards the front of the van. We measured the Duz-All to the top of the cart with C-stands, but didn’t take into account what it would be like if there was a 4×4 flag or diffusion frame on it. We had already built the entire frame with the slot already, so going back and re-doing the work wasn’t really a good option. 

Ultimately we decided to stack a few 1″x1″ square tube pieces to make the shelf taller and hide it with the 3″ lip. Just goes to show you that you can’t measure enough times.

We also had to pull the E-Track that was previously installed in the truck. It later needed to be remeasured, recut, and reinstalled. 

The one thing that was a great find were these things called plus nuts.

The plus nuts work similar to a rivet. We would drill a hole into the diamond plate, put the plus nut in, then screw a bolt into the plus nut until it would crumple against the diamond plate. Once the plus nut was installed the shelves could be bolted in and out easily as now we had threaded holes. Using these in addition to bolting to the floor made the shelves rock solid.

Finally coming together! As soon as we got the chance we would test fit the piece of gear that would go there.

For all the shelving we used 3/4″ Plywood and stained it with Traditional Cherry to match our other trucks. Also had to cut 1″x1″ Angle Iron that would later get screwed on to the front lips of all of the shelves to make them stronger. 

We grinded everything down, made everything look good, then sent it off to be powder coated. Here’s it when we started bolting it all in for good.

Once we started getting all the gear in it started actually looking like a grip truck.

Still working on the finishing touches here, but everything fits!

Really pleased with how the inset plywood ended up working out. Added 3/4″ in the aisle and it comes in and out very easily.

Hope you enjoyed seeing how we made this happen.

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our instagram for daily educational content.

The 3500 Sprinter has a Studio Carts EZ Duz-all, Rolling Flag Box, and a Mini 4×4 Cart. We also have the backstage Mini Muscle Cart.

The 3500 is also the 170” Extended wheelbase Sprinter. We were finding that the most common and most affordable used sprinters on the market were the 2500’s with a 144” Wheelbase. The shorter the truck, the more payload you get as well. This is because the smaller vans all have the same gross weight rating, but because the van itself is lighter, you get more payload.

Even though the truck is a bit shorter, we felt like we could make things work. With a 1 ton package 70% of your gear comes on the 3 carts, duz-all, flag box, and muscle cart, so as long as you can get those carts on there with a lift gate, you’re in good shape.

The carts on both of these sprinters had some custom modifications done to them to accommodate the height of the van. Be sure before you buy that the cart works with your entire design, not just that it fits inside.

The Van!

When we first bought the Sprinter it had a pretty interesting buildout, but wasn’t quite what we were looking for in a grip truck! We have very little idea what they used it for, but it had an old wheelchair lift gate on the back that had to go, and then it had this strange structure inside…

All that had to go…Demo Day!

You can catch a glimpse of the wheelchair lift gate in this picture as it actually was installed INSIDE the truck. Also check out the flooring! A terrible linoleum glued to a 4×8 piece of sheet metal.

Upfitting

With everything out of the van now, we could start to think about upfitting. We took it to American Campershell they had done previous work on our other sprinter and had done a fantastic job. They installed:

• Diamond Plating on all walls
• Blue Headliner with recessed LED lights and a timer switch. – We’ve found recessed LED lighting to be extremely important, as anything that sticks out will be destroyed by a combo stand or speedrail. It’s more expensive, but very worth it.
• Palfinger Mini Fix Liftgate with 3 Button Pickle
• Side door covered with 1/4” Ply and Painted Blue. – This is really a cost saving measure. Cheaper than the diamond plate and the side door isn’t really hit with any force from equipment.
• E-Track in key areas.
• New Flooring
• Roof Rack for Ladders
• Side Ladder to Access Roof Rack
• Back up Camera with Monitor

This was a long and costly process. It ended up costing about the same to do the upfittings than it cost to buy the van itself. Really makes the van feel like a million bucks though once you see it all finished

Shelving Design

Now that the Van is built out with the diamond plating, it was time to get started on the shelving. The vans are tough because they have wheel wells inside that keep you from just using carts, plus the curved walls! In order to use that vertical space you’re forced to build shelves over the top of the wheel wells.

We have had awesome success in the past using SketchUp as a way to build out shelving to scale. We use mostly 1”x1” square steel stock and a few other kinds of steel stock and plywood shelves to build out the inside. We have to say, is this the best way to build out a van or truck? Not sure. Is this what has worked for us…yep!

We knew that we wanted something similar to the other Sprinter, but that space would not accommodate the mini 4×4 cart. This meant we had to build a shelf to house some of the 4×4 goods and reflectors, plus another shelf that would house a bunch of milk crates, plus some other soft goods.

If you haven’t tried SketchUp before, it’s really an easy program to learn how to use. I figured it out just from YouTube and Lynda.com tutorials.

One of the hardest things to wrap our heads around was the slight curve of the sprinter side walls. It took some really meticulous measuring to come up with something that was accurate. Basically I decided on a few different heights and then measured across the van to get the total width at that specific height, then used those measurements to draw the walls. I also made sure to draw in the wheel wells and the small step on the side door.

We decided to construct our shelves like the carts are built. Basically we have 1″x1″ square tube uprights and 1” angle iron crossbars. Then we cut a piece of 3/4” Plywood that fits into the two crossbars. It’s super easy to build, lightweight, and you can remove the shelves if need be to make other shelves taller.

Getting started now on the left side shelf! I have to say, one of the mistakes I had made in previous designs of other trucks was not taking the time to group all of my items together. You can see the outliner on the right side in the below photo, this time I was very careful to group each set of faces and lines into the square tube piece that it belonged to. This made it so that when I inevitably had to shorten a shelf or change a dimension, I could select the proper piece of square tube and modify it quickly and easily.

Finished up with the Left Side Shelf now. While it looks pretty simple, it took so much measuring to figure out that every dimension was going to be accurate. The idea was to do 4 Full Milkcrates on the right side of the shelf, 2 next to each other on each shelf. Then as we went up further, do 4 half milk crates, 2 next to each other on each shelf. The Mini Duz-All is going to fit underneath the shelf on the right side, similar to where it was in the previous picture.

Then we have these thin shelves on the left side that would house our 6×6 goods and ears and corners sets.

We have a 10’ long slot above for dolly track and speedrail.

There is also a slot on the front of the shelf for 4’ long items like our Wind Sticks, 4’ Level, sledge hammer, broom, and others.

Each item was measured, and then shelves measured in SketchUp to make sure that it would fit on the desired shelf. Lucky for us our 1 ton package is pretty clear at this point, as it will be the same package as our box truck and our other Sprinter, so it’s just a matter of finding a place for everything.

Now onto the right side shelf.

For the right side shelf we were fighting a lot of things here that ultimately ended up changing, but we needed to find a space for the following items, all 4’x4’:

• 4  Floppys
• 4  Open Frames
• 1 Beadboard
• 1 Ultra Bounce
• 1 3/4” Plywood
• 2 Reflector Boards
• 1 Single
• 1 Double
• 1 2×4 Floppy

So I started by measuring the width of all of these and made the shelf wide enough and tall enough to fit all of them, taking into account the lip of the vehicle. We also created a lip around the top to fit a small roll of visqueen and rubber matting as well. On the left of the shelf we had a rack for combo stands. Only one rack in this picture, but eventually it turned into two. Here’s a few other views:

Honestly at this point the heavy lifting is done, but it’s far from over. Now we have to get into the nitty gritty of whether or not things will fit. You’ll notice in this picture there are pieces of blue paper tape all over the walls:

Once we finished building the shelves we took it to the real world and tried to tape out where the shelves would be and see if the carts would still fit. It’s great that we did that because we found the following things:

• Our intended space for 2 additional c-stands was not going to work.
• Combo Stand racks were an obstruction for the Mini-Duz all. Since the cart had to turn hard right so that you could nose-dive it into its space on the left of the van, the combo stand rack prevented it from going in there.
• The mini muscle cart measurements I had were incorrect and it would not fit with the current right side shelf.
• Had to develop a new space for all the combo stands.

We’ll start with the re-designed left side shelf.

Really the main thing that happened with this shelf was reconfiguring the shelves on the left that would house the 6×6 goods since we wanted to hang a few c-stands on the face of this shelf.

That’s why we opened up the bottom and the top, so a c-stand could hang from it’s T-Handles and the legs could slide underneath. We are even contemplating not having any diamond plate there and finding another cheaper more lightweight way to keep the 6×6 goods from falling out.

The other mistake I made was measuring at the shelf level to see if the milk crates would fit with the curved wall. 

(Half Milkcrate is 13” wide, so these seems pretty luxurious. It almost seems like I should make the shelf shorter to gain more room in our aisle.)

The only thing is as you go up, the wall curves more, which means less space. 

Now it’s actually perfect. Leaves 5/16” wiggle room for the crate to be inset.

Before I didn’t realize this, so in this new design I had extended the shelf by 1 – 5/16”.

Now here’s the right side shelf. Notice how much slimmer it is than before and the additional dividers for the reflector boards. Here are the things we realized.

• If you pulled the reflector boards out from the side door, you didn’t have to worry about the lip getting in the way. This would allow you to use much more of space that was right up against the wall. 
• We could remove all cross bars from the 4×4 flag area and just use rope ratchets to act as a stopper. This way it allows you to pull the 4×4 items out from both the lift gate side and the side door.
• We decided to only put the essential 4×4 things here, the rest would go on the back of the duz-all as that made our aisle workable.
• Decided to put the 2×4 Floppy in with the reflector boards. Look at how much room is there for the first reflector board spot because of the curve of the van. The 2×4 Floppy would go perfect here.

• This ones a bit crazy, but we decided to inset the 3/4” plywood inside the front of the frame. We always like having the plywood on the truck as it acts as a great cart ramp, but we know it’s seldom used. We remove the diamond plate face on the right side shelf and instead placed pieces of 1” angle iron on 3 sides.

This would allow a piece of 3/4” Plywood to slip in-between the previously unused space that was inbetween the square tube frame and allow the whole shelf to be 3/4” thinner. We also plan to make some kind of latch to go at the top, but we’ll leave that to our welder to figure out.

I know 3/4” doesn’t sound like that much, but when you’re building out a van every small measurement really counts, not to mention every pound counts.

The final thing I did was just to create these objects that would represent items that would go in the truck. Milkcrates and various carts. This helps as an additional reality check for you.

Well, that’s where we are at now! Keep an eye out for our 2nd blog post on this subject, actually building and installing the shelving. Soon we’ll have a finished van. Hope you enjoyed it.

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our instagram for daily educational content.

The FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to pay hourly employees 1.5 times their hourly pay for every hour over 40 in a work week.

California has taken this one step further and required employers to pay 1.5x for:

• Hours worked over eight in a workday
• First 12 hours on your 6th day
• First 8 hours of work on your 7th day

And then they’ve required the employer to pay 2x the hourly rate for

• Hours worked over 12 in a workday
• Over 8 hours on your 7th day

We know when they are supposed to pay 1.5x and 2x your hourly rate, but what is your hourly rate? Usually you just get a call and they say it’s 500/10, with no mention of an hourly. We’ll try and break this down to you.

Calculating your Hourly Rate

What we’re going to do is figure out the hourly rate so that it equals 500 after working 8 hours straight time and 2 hours of 1.5x pay. Since we have 8 hours of straight time and these 2 hours of 1.5x, we basically have two different hourly rates mixed together. We need to convert it to all straight time.

Example 1:

In this example our rate is 500/10. We are going to assume we took a half hour lunch and then worked the full 10 hours. Because lunch is unpaid that would be 10.5 hours from call to wrap.

Take the 2 hours of overtime and multiply it by 1.5x. This will turn the 2 hours of 1.5x into 3 straight time hours.

Adding this to our other straight time 3 + 8 = 11 straight time hours total.

Now we can divide 500 by 11. 500/11 = 45.45

That is our straight time rate, to get our 1.5x and 2x rate we just multiply.

So now we can check our work.

You are always going to be just a few pennies under or over, they’re issues with rounding. If you like you can always add a penny to your rate, you’ve earned it.

Example 2:

Here’s another example with a 12 hour rate, we’ll say our rate is 500/12. Again we’ll assume we took a half hour lunch and worked the full 12 hours.

Lets convert 12 hours into all straight time first. You’ll be working 4 hours at 1.5x so we’ll multiply those two together.

4×1.5 = 6

Add 6 to the 8 hours straight time you’ll work. That’ll be 14. Now we divide that by our day rate.

500/14 = 35.71/hr

35.71 is our straight time rate, now we can find our overtime rates.

Then let’s check our work.

Example 3:

The last one we’ll do we are going to actually do some overtime. Lets say our rate was 650/10 and we worked a 13 hour day. We are going to say we broke for two meal breaks, once at 6 hours and another at 12 hours. Our time on the clock was 13 hours.

Since we are on a 10 hour rate, we’ll divide by 11 to get our hourly. Remember that is what we figured out earlier is the equivalent straight time we work.

650/11 = 59.09/hr

Our overtime rates are then as follows:

Then we’ll figure out how much we made:

As another note for all of this, what if your rate was 500/10 and you only work 5 hours? Unless otherwise mentioned, the rates are always expressed as a guarantee. You’re guaranteed to get 500 for the 10 hours of work even if you only work a few hours.

Now some will just say skip all of this and just divide 500 by 10. While this is technically incorrect, it’s often times done on invoice jobs to help offset the fact that being misclassified as a 1099 contractor will increase your tax burden. Getting a little bit more on your overtime helps the fact that you will be hit with a tax bill at the end of the year. The one thing to mention with this method is you could actually end up working for less than minimum wage if it is a low paying job. If the job is low paying, be sure to check using the above method to be sure you are being paid at or above the city or states minimum wage.

No matter how you decide to do it, it’s helpful to know the correct way to do it. Gotta know the rules to break ’em!

We hope this helps. It’s a confusing subject for a lot of technicians starting out, but you should be a pro now. Let us know if you have any questions in the comments!

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our instagram for daily educational content.

I have been wanting to shoot a colorful, yet moody commercial for some time and was really excited when Director Spencer Selover and I came up with the idea for this Spec piece. The overall idea was simple enough, a girl getting ready for a party, but using her new Phillips Hue bulbs to create a new look in her space.

When we came up with the idea we had to keep budget in mind. This was something that was going to be a personal project and all in we only had about $3,000 for the two day shoot. We were able to call in our favors to get an all star crew, as well as take whatever gear we needed from Bolt that wasn’t working that weekend. Most the money ended up going towards the location, camera package, and of course feeding the crew.

Style

The product comes with a pretty obvious style attached to it, this thing had to be COLORFUL. Not only that but Spencer and I wanted to give it a moody stylized feel along with that. I wanted to avoid the solid walls of color and instead just place pockets of it amongst the scene. I was lucky enough that a lot of the LED RGB’s from Bolt Lighting Rental were not out the weekend that we shot and I was able to grab them along with a small truck.

Luckily I had a lot of tools from Bolt at our disposal and were able to get a solid RGB LED arsenal that was going to be crucial to achieving the look.

We shot on the Alexa Classic and Zeiss Superspeeds, for lighting we had the following:

2 Arri S-60 Skypanels with Chimeras

4 Dedolights

2 750w Arri Open Faces with Chimeras and Control Grids

15’ RGB LED Litegear Ribbon

1 Arri L7-C

2 Source 4 Lekos

2 2k Dimmer Packs

1 Luminair Setup

Originally we had planned on getting a loft space that was much more clean and polished, but as it came closer to shooting all of those locations were just too far out of our budget. The warehouse loft space we ended up with was actually great, but because of it’s style, we ended up tweaking ours a bit. We opted to go all handheld and ditched the Fisher 10 we had reserved and decided to add a set of Classic Soft filters to soften the sharpness from our super speeds we had rented.

I had our Production Designer, Paul Velasquez, search for some interesting practicals that would give us a variety of quality throughout the room.  One of which was a 6’ long cantilevered practical that was as fantastic as it was ridiculous. We would start the spot with her normal lighting setup and slowly transition to our final reveal of the space with the colored bulbs. Once we had the practicals in, we would use the dedolights and Hue bulbs to pepper in accents, making sure that she had a variety of different colored hair lights and following her with a soft key as she walked around the space. Fill was not something we used too often, as we liked the moody vibe.

Opening Wide

Our first wide on the 18mm, we had put 211’s, or 75w Photofloods, in all of the practicals and squeezed them down on dimmers to taste.

-Key was a dedolight rigged in the ceiling bounced off the beams dialed far down to give a warm glow. The Christmas lights gave us a bit of help as well.

-Dedolight with 250 half white diffusion to the right of her edging along her right arm.

-L7 coming through a set of stairs on the right side dialed to a cool blue to mimic a cool industrial light from outside.

-Dedolight rigged behind her to extend the lamp on the table next to it.

-Skypanel bounced off the wall camera right and dialed to a cool blue to fill in our shadows. You can see what this is doing on the beam at the top of the frame. I always love doing this because it creates an interesting yet subtle color contrast in the scene.

-12×12 Solids clipped to the windows outside to black out everything.

We also added a classic soft filter to give a slight halo to the Christmas lights in frame.

So far we had achieved the pockets of light we were going for, but once those Christmas lights came down it was time for us to get into color where things got a little more tricky…

Close Up

For the close up we had some interesting challenges as we had to keep the light changing on her as she decided on a look, but not go overboard on how it would affect her face.

-Key was a sky panel double diffused through 4×4 frames of Opal and 216.

-S-60 sky panel bounced off the right wall in “Party” mode and the speed set to it’s lowest setting. This gave us slowly changing colors without us having to control it.

-Dedolight rigged overhead gelled double blue acting as a hair light that just spilled onto her shoulders. We were so focused on our RGB fixtures that we hadn’t really thought to bring party gels. Would have loved them for this fixture!

-Phillips Hue Bulb in a socket outside against the window to give us more depth.

-L7 is still there, although subtle! There was a small room to the right of the steps that we used to shoot the light through the steps. I don’t think that light changed much throughout the whole shoot.

I knew if we just blacked out the windows with a few 12×12 solids we could keep a consistent look and provide some interest outside when necessary. I will do anything possible to not shoot at night, as it makes everything more difficult. Harder to get crew, harder for locations, and of course hard to stay awake. This was really the only shot where we had to put something out there to keep the exterior from being a black hole, otherwise the blacked out windows worked perfectly.

Final Wide

We spent quite a bit of time getting this shot just right, but it was definitely worth it. My favorite was a touch by our Ryan Moore, our gaffer for the 2nd day, who put a Daylight Photoflood (BCA) in the strangest practical Paul was able to find. It’s on the bookshelf on the left and was just 100’s of blue and green straws with a socket in the middle. It was such a small detail, but helped to add more color contrast.

All the practicals at this point had the Phillips Hue bulbs. From some prior test we found that if we had dialed the Alexa to 181 Degree shutter we could eliminate pretty much all the flicker from these bulbs.

-Key was an S-60 Skypanel on the landing of the stairs.

-Kept the L7 coming through the stairs to add some color contrast in the scene.

-RGB Ribbon behind the couch to give an interesting glow on the back wall.

-Source 4 Bounced into the ceiling from the right. This is what’s creating the cool glow through the slats by the crossbeam.

-Dedolight rigged on the beams in the back left of the room to give a little tungsten push into the room.

-Kept the S-60 bouncing off the back wall dialed to a cool blue.

We actually ended up having the gaffer download the Phillips Hue app on his phone, along with having Chris, our actor, control another light from her phone in the shot, so we could give this feeling as if she was changing the whole scene at once trying to settle in on her look. We shot a few different colored looks that gave us a lot of freedom in the edit.

All in all, this was a really interesting experiment in using some household RGB lights along with the professional standards and I think there were a few people after the shoot that were already thinking about adding these to their kit. Special thanks to all of the crew that came out to work on this project and make it happen, they really made it great.

Enjoy!

Credits

Director: Spencer Selover @cerlov

DP: Ryan Thomas @rdthomas

Gaffer (Day 1): Matt Stouppe @boltlightingrental_inc

Gaffer (Day 2): Ryan Moore @bullshifter

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our instagram for daily educational content.

But where do you go to get the cool surveillance ear piece? How do you take care of them? We’ll try and give you some helpful tips here.

Quantity vs. Quality

When purchasing a headset, this is the biggest question. Do you buy 1 really expensive headset, or just 10 cheap ones? Personally I have not noticed much of a difference between a 10 dollar headset and a 100 dollar one. I’m using one now I’ve had for over a year and cost me 15 dollars. Your mileage may vary, but my vote is buy the cheap ones and buy 5 of them. Put two in your backpack, two in your car, and save one for whatever you want. Whenever one goes down you’ll have another and if the gaffers dies you’ll be the hero to give them a fresh brand new one.

This is what I’ve been buying, but I recommend trying a few different brands to see what fits you. If you’re tall this one can be a little short.

Link here

Ear Piece

You can use the little nub earpiece they give you, but you’ll find after a few days with it in your ear it’s not the most comfortable. Go for a molded earpiece instead.

Purchase those here.

There’s been a little debate on this, but this is the most comfortable way I’ve found to put the molded ear piece in your ear.

The important part here is when you put it in your tube will probably be overly long. Here is the trick to making it look like you’re a seasoned vet, grab a pair of scissors and cut the tube shorter at both ends. Make it fit your ear as much as you can.

Maintenance 

Eventually you’ll have problems with it. It’s normal. The most common issue is you can’t hear people or they sound like they’re underwater. Go to the camera department and “borrow” their canned air. Shoot it into the tube only and it will help to clear any blockages. Often times you’ll be able to fix most issues with just replacing the tube or this trick.

Style

You got the headset, you’re looking good, but where do you keep it? Try this sweet mini pelican case. Looks good and it’s waterproof too!

Find that here.

Once you get your headset in working order you need to look cool. Here’s a few things you can grab to up to be the envy of all the other technicians.

Mini-Scalers

Find them on amazon. Here is a search on Amazon for them, just use the search term “mini scalers” anywhere and you can find all different kinds. They hang on your microphone cable.

Walkie Woogie

These are pretty hot right now. A replacement tube for your headset that come in a variety of colors and don’t seem to get clogged as fast as the others. Buy em here.

Okay, that’s all for now! Hope you end up not only prepared for your next job, but also looking fresh!

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our instagram for daily educational content.

Set Lighting

Gaffer – This position is also referred to as Chief Lighting Technician or CLT for short. They are the head of the lighting department. They will be in charge of executing the DP’s vision by selecting lighting units and lighting the set. On pretty much every set you’ll have a gaffer. 

Best Boy Electric – This position is also referred to as Assistant Chief Lighting Technician or ACLT.

In simplest terms the best boy electric is responsible for gear and labor. If the gaffer wants to put an 18k on the roof, the best boy will talk to locations to secure the rooftop, they will order the necessary equipment to achieve that, and hire the labor to get it up there. They will negotiate with production to make sure the electric department has what they need to carry out the Gaffer and DPs vision.

Electric – Also referred to as Set Lighting Technician or SLT.

The electricians will be the ones to physically light the set. They will get orders directly from the gaffer and then set up the fixtures from their direction. As the DP and Gaffer tweak the lighting, the electricians will make those adjustments. 

Lighting Console Programmer – Also referred to as board operator. This is the person who will control the lighting console from the Gaffers direction. Usually they are just around for stage work, but it’s becoming more and more common for them to come on location to control LED and conventional units. They will just stay at the console all day to make sure they can quickly make any changes needed.

Rigging Electric

So up until this point we have just been talking first unit, on smaller shows that may be all you have. Then just bringing in more electricians to fill in the gaps of the positions that were not hired. We’ll move into the rigging crew now, which has a few more specialized positions, but overall the hierarchy is very similar. 

Rigging Gaffer – They will work alongside the gaffer to figure out what power runs will be necessary to carry out the gaffers plan to light the set. They will develop a plan for the rigging crew to put into place. While the first unit best boy usually deals with their own budgets, the rigging gaffer is usually the one who will be taking over that role, while the rigging best will handle labor. This will change depending on how the rigging gaffer likes to work. Most of their job centers around power, but they will also work with the gaffer and best boy to rig certain units that would be too time consuming for the first unit crew to put in.

I like to think the Rigging Gaffer has a huge role to play in safety for the electrical department. They are the ones who can order GFIs and set them at all the boxes to make it easy for first unit, they will run the cable to protect against line loss, bond the ground to the house. All of these procedural things that first unit might not have time to think about. It’s their job to make sure things are rigged properly to begin with.

Rigging Best Boy Electric – They will be the ones out there carrying out the notes of the rigging gaffer. They’ll direct the crew where to run the cable, where to land generators, where to place units, etc. Sometimes the rigging gaffer will join in on this, but a lot of times they are working to figure out the next location. They will also be in charge of hiring the necessary crew for the upcoming work.

Rigging Electricians – These are the ones doing the hardest work out of anyone. They’ll lay in the cables and put in the rig from the direction of the rigging best. Everything they work with is heavy!

Head Fixtures Technician – On some shows fixtures can be enough to be an entire department of it’s own. Fixtures can refer to practicals on the set, or also practicals that are built into the set. The head fixtures technician will be the point person for the fixtures department, but it’s not uncommon for them to have to do the work themselves along with the other fixtures technicians.

Fixtures Technician – Mostly on rigging crews you’ll find that there is one dedicated fixtures technician. They will work with the set decoration department to get practicals wired and make sure all of their lighting and electrical needs are taken care of.

DMX Tech – This position is again not seen unless it is a complicated rig or potentially something where the programmer is not able to be as involved. They will work alongside the rigging crew to handle all of the DMX, addressing, and carry out any needs of the programmer to make sure that the rig functions the first time.

Lot Best Boy – This position is often someone that is assigned to your production. They are a representative from the studio you’re shooting at to act as a liaison between the studio and your department. They’ll often times be the ones turning on and off power at the stage and will know how to make things happen around the lot. Sometimes you’ll hear the term parallel best boys, and the fact that you not only have a first unit best boy, but also a lot best boy, is what they’re referring to.

Grip

Key Grip – Head of the Grip department. The grips are responsible for shaping the light with diffusion and flags, they’ll work with the electric department to rig lights in hard to reach places, and then finally they are in charge of all camera movement like Cranes, Dollys, and other specialty camera rigs.

Best Boy Grip – This is very similar to the best boy electric. They’ll be the ones in charge of labor and gear. The key grip decides what they want to do and the best boy grip figures out the logistics to make that happen.

Grips – The grips are the ones who will actually use all of the equipment. They’ll set the flags, the frames, and rig the lights. They are the ones you need to ask for a sandbag and an apple box.

Dolly Grip – They are the ones who move the camera and often times people will call them an honorary member of the camera department. They will be the ones operating the dolly for each shot as well as help to place the camera for the DP to their specifications. If a crane is ordered for the day, they will operate the crane as well.

Rigging Grips

Rigging Key Grip – You’ll see that these positions start to repeat themselves a bit. The rigging key grip is the one who will work with the key grip to put in the rigs before the shooting crew arrives. 

Rigging Best Boy Grip – The rigging best boy is again the one in charge of making it happen. Labor and gear. Again depending on the crew the rigging key and the rigging best boy may alternate on those jobs.

Rigging Grips – The rigging grips are the ones who put in the black out tents for day for night work, they rig chain motors, and build the grid before the show begins. 

Now I’m sure you’re thinking, well, if I had to read this there’s no way I can use the info! I’ll never be on a show that big! Well, keep these positions in mind even on your smaller jobs. Even with just 2 people in the grip and electric departments you can really make your lives a lot easier by having one person focus on grip while they other focuses on lighting. Maybe a movie you’re doing is going to have a lot of small LED’s and work with practicals, assign one of your first unit electricians to be your fixtures tech. Once you know how it’s done on larger productions, it’s always easier to scale it down. Hope this article was helpful!

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our instagram for daily educational content.

I had the pleasure of working with director Hong Kim last year for a one take performance video with his frequent musical collaborator, Chris Clouse. The Chris Clouse Project is a multi-instrumental DJ-hybrid music group featuring multiple players and live remixing. Hong and Chris put together a one take performance video previously that was able to show off the many talents of Chris and his crew, however it was mostly naturally lit and this time we wanted to the look of their new track to be more explosive. The solution? Shoot at night using a bunch of color, light movement, and camera movement!

Style

We set out to make this video full of energy, moving to the rising and falling of the song like you were dancing along to the performance with them. Hong had a warehouse space in mind where we could stage the band’s performance and with the help of our fellow friend and steadicam operator, Koon Ya-Inta (Steadikoon), we were able to move the camera constantly, following different musicians for different sections of the song. Using this camera movement and blocking as a creative basis we forwarded the same thinking into our lighting plan. Here were some of our references for lighting:

Okay, okay… as you can see our references featured a lot of “tubes in the frame” which has now become a very boring fad that has been beaten dead by many lazy music videos. HOWEVER, we decided we wanted to lean heavily on the RGB tubes not only because they would look cool as a part of the warehouse look we were going for, but also because of their effects capabilities. They served as another element of movement that could play into the song and the performance. It wasn’t a lazy decision, it was a practical one!

Research, Scouting, and Planning

Luckily, at that point last March, I had used the Astera AX-1 tubes once and found them to be super helpful for this sort of thing. Battery powered, RGB, lots of effects, and even though one tube wasn’t super powerful they came in an 8-pack. I found them worth playing with! Additionally, I had also been seeing a lot of different RGB Litegear units like LiteStix or homemade fixtures using RGB LiteRibbon that I felt could also add some interest in the frame. Focusing on these specific units made it clearer to see how we could make use of the space on our scout. Here is an idea of how we blocked out the performance after seeing the space, it looks a little complicated but it made sense to us!:

And here are some rough lighting diagrams we put together after we figured out the blocking of the performance, some things changed from these diagrams but here is the general idea: 

From these initial notes my Gaffer, Anders Ericsson, and Key Grip, Nicholas Yee were able to modify and tweak a few things and we came up with a plan: 

• For an overall soft, toppy ambience we used (2) Skypanel S60s with Medium Chimeras evenly distributed throughout the space tuned to a deep blue/purple so that the shadows would have some color in them
  
• To add some color contrast in frame against the deeper blue/purple we hung two rows of (8) AX-1 tubes. We had those set at a lighter shade of blue, close to white. These rows of tubes helped to pick up some of the highlights on instruments and on their faces. They also provided a cool opportunity to play with a tunnel effect sending colors down the rows.
  
• As a closer, more direct, source we hung a square LED tube fixture in frame above the main staging of the band made out of (8) AX-1 tubes. This fixture allowed us to play with chase/flash effects closer to the band. They were also set to a light blue/white until they were changed to blue/pink during the chorus
  
• Outside of the large warehouse windows we rigged crossfade quasar tubes that lit up the texture of the windows as well as the shear curtains we dressed the set with. Most were tuned to 6000K except for one small tube we gelled red above the door. This allowed the band members to be separated from the background more  
  
• In another attempt to separate people from the dark background we chose a couple of spots to install homemade, one meter long, RGB LiteRibbon fixtures (courtesy of Drew Nelson) which also served as amber highlights in the background as well as back/sidelights
  
• Lastly we thought it would be cool to place some small, battery-powered LiteStix on the DJ consoles to augment the existing lights from their devices, we gelled those to a deeper red/amber
  
• To control everything we planned on DMX’ing everything to an Ipad using Luminair. We hardwired everything to mitigate any lag in response time, this way we would cue certain lighting changes with the song while maintaining our color palette of blues, purples, pinks and amber.  

Gear List

We were very thankful to have some friends help us out with sourcing our camera package. In addition, Bolt Lighting was able to hook us up with a great deal for most of our lighting and grip package, their 3-ton especially came in handy for rigging all of our lights from above. Here’s what we ended up with. 

Camera

Red Scarlet-W

Cooke Varotal 20-100mm T3 

Low Con filtration 

Lighting & Grip

(2) 8-pack Astera AX-1 tubes

(2) Skypanel S60s w/ medium chimeras

(1) LED LiteGear Cart (courtesy of Drew Nelson)

• Assortment of LiteRibbon and LiteStix housings small and large
  
• LitegearDMX Dimmer packs
  

(4) 4’ crossfade quasar tube

(2) 2’ crossfade quasar tube

(1) Luminaire Ipad kit

(1) DMX Optisplitter

(1) Crate of DMX cable

(1) 3-ton grip truck

Problems

Though it seemed like we had the necessary tools to play with, there were still a few hurdles to jump to make it all happen:

Can we make this all happen in one day?

Unfortunately, being a low budget shoot, we only had one day to work with. If you take a look at the space and diagrams it have seemed impossible to pull off a whole pre-rig, shoot and tear-down in one day. The solution to that was a bunch of pre-vis diagramming as you can see below:

Also another solution was begging our talented friends to join the effort! We had the A-Team on camera to keep things quick and efficient: 

Steadicam Op: Koon Ya-Inta

1st AC: Luke Lasley

2nd AC: Shannon Bringham

Cam Utility/Data: Ashley Valenzuela

We also had a killer G&E Team:

Gaffer: Anders Ericsson

BBE: Keith Cheng

Key Grip: Nicholas Yee

BBG: Connor Benson

Funny enough, each of the G&E members above also deserve “board op” credits which is explained in my next problem:

Can we really control everything using one Ipad? 

With the right amount of testing time or with enough money, we could have probably made it through the process of addressing and controlling all 24 lights into luminair or a full lighting console. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t make that happen with this production, instead we had one prep day to figure it out. 

Luckily, Bolt opened their shop doors for us to test and our good friend Clay Kerri also stopped to help address the LiteGear units into Luminair. The rest of the lights were easier to get working, but we quickly found that the communication between the AX-1 tube’s many effects wasn’t as friendly with Luminair than it was with its own app and controller. So, we decided that we would basically have 3 board ops sequencing and dimming lights live during the one take: 2 operators on separate Samsung tablets between (16) AX-1 tubes to give us more control of lighting effects and 1 operator handling the LiteGear units and the Skypanels separately. Phew! Not the most ideal set up, but I think it was fun! just look at their faces:

To help them coordinate the lighting changes with each other I quickly made this spreadsheet the night before. This helped breakdown which lights would change and when. We set up a separate monitor for them and I was able to give them cues or make quick changes via walkie during the take or in between takes.

Enough exposure?

After we lit the space we rehearsed the move a couple of times and tweaked as the sun went down. Once it was dark I metered everything at 800ASA, however, because we were using more saturated colors I had to push the camera to 1600ASA to get enough light for our T3 zoom lens. 

Here is a photo and video showing the end result of our set up right before we started shooting:

Check out the final video here:

Lighting Breakdown

As the song fades out in the last few seconds we also faded and turned off lights by each section, leaving the square AX-1 tube fixture illuminated and the quasars rigged outside onto silhouette the band.  

Lessons Learned

Finally, after 8 takes we felt like we had a solid 3 takes that we could choose from. Thanks to our solid team we accomplished everything in one long night! I think it turned out really well given the circumstances, but here are a few things I took away from the experience:

• One of the biggest walkaways from this job was the learning curve of running a full RGB LED arsenal on DMX. It’s fun and worth it only IF you have the time and proper gear to figure it all out. If we had more money and time I think I would have gone down the route of getting a larger, smarter lighting console to synchronize all the light cues to the music without having to have 3 separate board ops DJ’ing the lights to the music live.
  

• I also wish we had more light output in order to rate the camera at 800ASA with a little exposure to spare. I think a few more Skypanels could have done some good. Or using less saturated of colors on the lights might have gained back a stop of light and the color is something we could have enhanced in post.
  

• As you can see in the video some of the changing light effects get a little muddled with each other. Its hard to really see the light tunnel effect we were going for. I think there are few things we could have done different to achieve that:
  

1) Less haze – I think the haze muddled all the colors together too much but it did bring a lot of life to the image

2) More light control might have helped direct the light more. I think we should have put control grids on all the lights we could have or maybe even used harder sources rather than soft washes. This would have added more directionality and therefore each light effect would have been more pronounced and not lost in everything else. 

3) I wish we had lowered the rows of tubes  and also angled up more with the camera at times in order to actually see the light effects on the tubes in frame more.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to have such a great team and all the gear to play with. This project really allowed me to become an even more comfortable with Asteras and with LiteGear stuff. I’m definitely a big fan of what these LED lights can do and look forward to using them again in the future, but don’t worry I swear I won’t put another tube in frame….. Unless there is a real practical reason! 🙂 

Artist:

Chris Clouse 

www.chrisclouse.com

@chrisclouse

Director/Producer:

Hong Kim

www.hmkproduction.com

@hmk_studio_

DP:

Joshua Pausanos

www.joshuapausanos.com

@jpausanos

Bolt Lighting Rental Inc is a lighting rental house located in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re committed to training the next generation of technicians everywhere. Check out our instagram for daily educational content.