“The ‘sun’ was provided by a 12K on a Manitou forklift which we jibbed up to give the effect of the sun rising through the trees,” Higgs recalls.
A key sequence of the Starz series’ pilot sees Claire (Caitríona Balfe) witness a druidic ritual at dawn. As if intercepted by clouds, the HMI initially shone through diffusion we gradually dropped this and allowed the light to skip off a horizontal poly as if reflected off the tops of clouds.ĭavid Higgs BSC was also required to move the sun on cue when he shot Outlander in 2014, albeit on a much bigger scale. The shot was brief but crucial, as Naomi Morris’s lead character fulfils the promise of the film’s title and goes Above the Clouds.įilming in a cramped space on location, I used an ARRI D12 HMI fresnel as my sun. I was recently called upon to create the illusion of movement in a small aeroplane set piece. We ran all of the lights from a single iPad,” Biddiscombe concludes. “Finally, we replaced a few key practical fluro tubes inside the carriage with Asteras so their intensity could be raised or dimmed during the performance. This was to emulate fluorescent lights passing by the carriages.” Additional dynamism came from Source Fours flashed or bounced off revolving mirror boards. “We decided the Astera Titan tubes would be our ‘base’ movement lighting gag,” says Biddiscombe, “Maybe ten each side, set up to chase from one end of the train to the other. Jax Jones and Au/Ra in their promo for I Miss U (Live Session) shot by Rowan Biddiscombe They proved invaluable when Biddiscombe was tasked to simulate movement in an old London Underground carriage, for the I Miss U (Live Session) music promo by Jax Jones feat. Resembling fluorescent tubes, Asteras are wireless, flicker-free LED batons comprised of 16 pixels which can be individually coloured and flashed to produce a range of effects. I really like their warm daylight setting and I’ve used it on many occasions as a soft kicker or rim-light.” London-based DP Rowan Biddiscombe agrees. The Astera tubes are proving very useful at the moment.”
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Of the series as a whole, Watkinson offers: “We use LED a lot. We had spotlights in the front of the Humvee, and a light inside the cabin for Emily.” “For the travelling shot behind the Humvee, we knew we wouldn’t be able to light the distance we needed to travel,” Watkinson continues, “so we opted to use one of the light drones as an overhead ambience, flying along above the Humvee. The hovering luminaires took flight again for a scene tracking Emily’s getaway vehicle. The Drone Unit’s Spyder octocopters in action for The Handmaid’s Tale: Night shot by Colin Watkinson ASC BSC The Drone Unit’s Spyder octocopter with its 300W Movi-stabilised LED array, as used on The Handmaid’s Tale: Night Head pilot Chris Bacik fitted custom 300W LED arrays into two of the drones’ Movi stabilisers, each array producing 39,000 lumens in a 30-degree beam. The Toronto-based production turned to their regular collaborators at the Drone Unit, who fly proprietary “Spyder” octocopters. “He wanted surveillance drones by the bridge as extra tension as Emily attempts to cross the river into Canada.” “Mike Barker, the director, was the instigator of the drones with lights on them,” says Colin Watkinson BSC ASC about the third season opener of The Handmaid’s Tale, in which Alexis Bledel’s Emily escapes the oppressive Gilead. Six DPs share the kit and techniques they have used to tell stories with light.ĭynamic light sources can enhance the drama of a scene, or even create the illusion of a vehicle in motion, and with today’s technologies there are many ways to make your light source move.
Lead image: Zoe Boyle and Kerry Howard lit by China lanterns and covered wagons for Witless shot by Benedict Spence DYNAMIC ILLUMINATION We are lucky enough to live in a time when lighting technology runs the gamut from the simplest tungsten globe to banks of programmable LED panels controlled by an app.
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