Lighting: Basic color temperatures, technical electrical Flashcards
What 3 departments does the Cinematographer manage?
1st Assistant Camera
Lighting - Gaffer: responsible for all electrical support on set
Key Grip: responsible for all non-electrical support on set
What is your lighting checklist?
- What type of light/color temperature?
- Where to put the light
- The Amount/intensity of light (Brightness)
- The Quality of light (how soft/hard)
What is the color temperature for Tungsten? Describe its general appearance and name one type of light fixture you can use
3200k
Orange/warm
Arri Fresnel
What is the color temperature for Daylight? Name one kind of light fixture you can use
5600k
HMI
What color temperature will make lighting appear white to the camera? Name one kind of light fixture you can use
4400k
Kino Flo
How would you ensure your shot matches your desired color temperature?
Set your white balance to the Kelvin number that corresponds with the color that you want your whites to appear at.
*Cameras allow you to tell the sensor which colour of light to perceive as white light. This is called white balance. Many cameras have white balance presets and/or allow you to manually set your white balance to the exact Kelvin number
Use in combination with color temp gels
What can LED lights do and what can’t they do?
LED replicates ALL light sources so you can achieve any color
But, at high levels LED doesn’t give the same detail
Define the following
a) Watts
b) Amps
c) Voltage
a) Watts: Total energy
b) Amps: Traveling energy
c) Voltage: Energy pressure, how much pressure are we forcing to push the electricity out faster
If the source is a bag of water, amps is the measurement of the travelling water (energy)
Watts becomes the total amount of water that’s been collected at the end of the travelling
If you added a 20ib weight to force the water out of the bag a little quicker, that’s voltage
What happens when the electrical current overflows?
Melted wires and electrical fires
What is North American standard voltage and what do we round it down to?
120 v rounded down to 100v
How do you calculate watts and amps?
Watts = amps X volts
Amps = watts/volts (i.e. watts/100 - move 2 decimals)
What kind of cable do I need to power a 5000 watt light
watts/volts = amps
so 5000 watts/100 volts = 50 amps cable
How many amps does the main disconnect have in total? How many per rod?
600 amps total
200 amps per rod/cable - the green and white have no amps
What kind of cable connects to the main disconnect? What else does it connect to and what is this connection called?
Seaway wires
Plugs into the T tower, Camlock
What is the significance of the green and white rod?
Green: the path of least resistance (plug in 1st). This is the key to safety so any wild electrical current goes through the ground cable and not a person or something else
White: ‘Neutral’, the return cable
Following the hierarchy, what kind of wire connects from the T-tower to another box? What is this box called?
Seaway Wire
175 amp disconnect box
What is the significance of the 175 amp disconnect?
This is the last line of protection, it switches off when there’s a problem with the circuit and provides a new limit for your power that caps at 175 amps
Following the hierarchy, what kind of wire connects from the 175 amp disconnect to another box? What is this box called? Name 3 of its names
Seaway wires plug into the…
6 by 60
4A box
Load-centre
What is the significance of the 6 by 60 box?
This divides the power and keeps track of which lights are working (trouble-shooting)
Following the hierarchy, what kind of wire connects the 6 by 60 box to another box? What is this box called and what does it do?
Joy wires
3x20 Dief box - basically the hub for extension cords
How many amps can each wire carry
Seaway
Joy
U-ground cable (or AC/extension cord)
Seaway - 200 amps (HOT ones)
Joy - 60 amps
U-ground cable (or AC/extension cord) - 20 amps
How do you plug in joy wires?
M-F ;)
Nub to nub
What can the green cable be called?
Ground
First and last cable
What is a breaker box and what is its significance?
A breaker box is a collection of circuit breakers
- A circuit breaker is an automatically operated electrical switch that protects the electrical circuit from damage caused by excess current from an overload or short circuit - a breaker interrupts current flow after a fault is detected and allows for a reset
- Steps down power into a safe usable amount
What does a leg/phase/hot refer to?
The amount of amps each circuit breaker/socket can carry
(in a breaker/distro box)
Name the 4 main breaker boxes and their legs
Briefly define white balance
White balance is a camera setting that establishes the true color of white and adjusts all other colours accordingly
What are the 3 main types of color gels?
Color Temperature Gels: comes in Colour Temperature Blue (CTB) and Colour Temperature Orange (CTO). Used to adjust the colour of lights on the Kelvin scale
Diffusion gels: White sheets, used to soften light. Larger diffusion = softer lighting
Party Colours: Nightclub, emergency
