British Cinematographer
HMI
lights remain the go-to source on everyon'e truck, but changing
production demands press DPs, gaffers and best boys to request ever
more practical tools that can deliver that same continuous
flicker-free daylight output in lighter weight and more flexible form
factors.
Achieving
this balance has been Marc Galerne's goal. “When we began the
company 22 years ago we asked ourselves what would lighting needs be
like in 20 years time,” the co-founder of K5600 explained. “We
could see even then, with the start of cable TV, if not yet the
Internet, that there would be a greater demand for more pictures, but
that this would be accompanied by lower budgets and shorter
production times. With that understanding we began to design all of
our units around the concept of lightweight, compactness and
versatility.”
Optics
and lighting design runs in Galerne's DNA. His father Jean was a
director at LTM, the HMI lighting pioneer at which both Marc and
brother Gilles learned their trade before branching out as a family
in 1992 to form K5600 (the brand nods to the Kelvin 5600 colour
temperature that emulates daylight).
Sadly,
Jean Galerne was stricken with cancer in 1993 and never saw his
company’s success and in 2012 Gilles, who ran the US side of the
business, also passed away leaving Marc to carry on the tradition
from headquarters in Bouafle (north west of Paris) and Burbank.
The
first products from the manufacturer were the Joker 200 and 400 Pars,
which featured a specular parabolic reflector and set of lenses and
found favour on TV drama and among news crews.
The
Galernes followed that with the Bug-Lite, a 400-Watt daylight HMI
system which gained popularity in use on booms and for steadicam
shots. Before long, K5600 had combined the designs of both products
into the Joker-Bug which quickly become the fixture of choice on
location for TV drama like CSI,
Casualty and 24
and motion pictures from Defiance
in the thick of the Lithuanian forest to Skyfall, World War
Z, Gravity and chosen by Haris
Zambarloukos on the forthcoming Cinderella.
“The
aim was always to provide the same firepower and toolset that
cinematographers were used to working with but in smaller, more
lightweight, more versatile forms and without any compromise on
quality,” says Galerne.
A
range of accessories complement the Joker-Bug and Alpha (Fresnel)
line including Lightbanks, Lanterns and Big Eyes which will turn any
Joker-Bug system into a giant focusable Fresnel beauty light.
Another
accessory, Softubes, change the narrow concentrated beam of the Par
without lens into a linear soft light source, making them ideal for
use in confined spaces - hidden behind pillars or inside vehicles to
accentuate a window effect.
“They
are compact, have great light output, have proved to be reliable and
of excellent quality construction and even the sound department likes
them, as they are silent!” testified Jaz Castleton, lead DP on
Casualty, which in
2010 selected a range of Joker Bugs with soft tubes and Big Eye
attachments as part of a package of 60+ K5600 fixtures deployed at
the BBC's long running drama's studio base in Cardiff.
“The
compactness of the Alphas is a real asset in trucks and on sets,”
commends Jose Luis Rodriguez, chief electrician on Woody Allen's
Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona.
“Without the Fresnel lens the spread is amazing, around 160° with
a very even field and a single sharp shadow. The ability to work both
18K and 4K pointing straight down is a major asset where we are
requested to work faster and never say: 'this is not possible'.”
Rodrigo
Prieto AMC ASC (Brokeback Mountain, The Wolf Of Wall
Street) selected Alpha 4 and
Alpha 18s for Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces: “If
weight and size were the only advantages of the Alphas it would have
been enough for me, considering the number of stairs we used on this
film... but this range of lights has another feature – the
possibility of using them straight down. I could light whole scenes
with the Alphas suspended, while benefiting from the quality of the
sharp shadows and a very large and even spread.”
DP
Rachel Morrison (Fruitvale Station)
is a huge fan of the 800-watt Joker Bug with a bug-a-beam adapter in
a Leko housing: "Altogether, it packs a mean daylight punch in a
controllable spot form that can be plugged into household power or
run off a marine cell battery.”
The
latest innovation from K5600 is the Evolution kit, a special package
consisting of a new Alpha 200W and a Joker Bug 200 Evolution head.
This two-light kit is targeted at film schools or any situation where
a choice of accessories is possible with both lights.
There
is a sea change in lighting requirements impacting the TV industry in
particular as new technologies like LED make advances. Broadly
speaking though, lighting requirements haven't changed. For outdoors
shoots you need daylight-balanced instruments, which is where HMI
comes into its own.
“I'm
not against LED technology per se,
except that it doesn't fit the philosophy of our product range,”
says Galerne. “For studio work matters are different, but for
locations then HMI has a good future.”
It's
rare, he says, for any kind of production to use only one set of
technologies, so technicians and cinematographers will always want
gear that permits interoperability with a variety of sources for
accurate skin tone.
“We
hear a lot comparisons between a 200W LED as matching the output of
800W HMI. This is just bad marketing and false information. In our
own tests we compared a 200W LED unit to an Alpha 200W Fresnel using
the same spread and beam angle. And even then, the Fresnel was more
output considering that the LED light needed diffusion to avoid
multiple shadows and some Minus Green gel which cuts down light
levels by at least a stop.”
As
digital cinema cameras finally live up to their promise of using less
light without loss of image quality, they are more sensitive than
ever to colour rendering or poor quality white light which can be
emitted from light sources which are not Full Colour Spectrum.
“In
truth there is really only one important piece of information and
this is the ability to output the full spectrum,” says Galerne.
“Compromise on lighting is just not an option.”
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