FEATURE | L IGHT I NG SPEC I AL
Fiilex, Arri and Hive all have their own systems of modifiers and there is no sign of a standard fitment for accessories
APUTURE It’s a fair bet that Aputure will look to maintain its position right in the middle of the market with the 600W light that it has been teasing since last year. The company has ramped up through its original flat panel lights to the 120 series in both tungsten and daylight, which are specified up to 180W in their most recent incarnation, and the 300 series which pulls up to 350W (in the 300D Mark II). Packaging the 300W lights in kits of three clearly beckons Redhead replacement, but going to 600Wmight be seen as crossing a barrier of sorts between small
does offer full colour mixing and compatibility with Hive’s existing ecosystem of accessories. Aputure, Fiilex, Arri and Hive all have their own systems of modifiers, and while Aputure has adopted the Bowens mount found in still photography, there is as yet no other sign of a standard fitment for interchangeable accessories.
and medium-sized lights. It’s also a level at which battery power becomes difficult. Aputure’s 600W power controller prototype takes four V-mount batteries. Conversely, most people don’t expect a 575W HMI to be powerable by battery, though it could, technically, be done. Similar concerns pertain to Hive’s upcoming Super Hornet, though that
IMAGE Netflix’s The Ranch episodic used Chroma-Q Space Force LEDs for tunable soft lighting
TUNABLE LED ON THE RANCH
Morgan comments: “In the past I had used tungsten space lights for filming the show. However, as they weren’t tunable, it meant having to change the gels constantly, to differ the glows produced. This was important as even though it was filmed inside of a studio, the storyline of the programme was set across different weather seasons and times of day.” Morgan spoke to his gaffer about tunable LED lighting alternatives. After trying out various options, they came across the Chroma-Q Space Force LED space /softlight, which
Cinematographer Donald A Morgan utilised Chroma-Q Space Force LED fixtures to provide tunable soft lighting for filming the latest seasons of Netflix television show, The Ranch – for which he won a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Series – and ABC series, The Conners . Both filmed at Warner Brothers Burbank Studios in LA, Morgan was keen to switch from conventional space lights to LED for filming The Ranch . The show stars Ashton Kutcher as Colt, who returns home to his family’s ranch in Colorado after his semi-pro football career ends in failure.
When Morgan later came onboard as Cinematographer for primetime show The Conners – a spin-off of the long-running series Roseanne – he learned that Warner Brothers had recently invested in ten Space Force, so was happy to use them after his experience on The Ranch . Morgan concludes: “I like the Space Force’s innovative design. I would recommend it for any production, big or small, because of its reliability and the fact that the colour temperature is so on point. So far, I have only really used the fixture as a space light, but I know there is a lot more that I can do with it.”
was supplied for the project by MBS Equipment Company.
36 DEF I N I T ION | MARCH 2020
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