Tricks of the Trade

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Robert Primes, ASC

Cinematographers have loved soft light for years because it looks natural and looks beautiful, especially on faces. But controlling a large light source has always been vexing. If the light is allowed to splash around the set uncontrolled, the cinematographer loses the ability to emphasize by making some areas, people or things brighter and to isolate a person or object by taking much of the light off the background.

Flags, of course are the standard tools for cutting a soft light. A soft light measuring 4' x 4' will typically use flags about the same size. Should the cinematographer wish to cut the top, bottom, left and right sides of a light, four flags, presumably with four c-stands and four sand bags, would be required. Not only does this waste about 4' of space in front of the light, but it is slow to build, adjust and strike.

Among the accessories available with Chimera soft lights, popular with both cinematographers and still photographers, are framed metal honeycomb grids used to control the light's spread. These come in a wide range of sizes but are generally less than an inch thick; they quickly Velcro onto the front of the lights and are available in 30°, 60° and 90° dispersion angles. These grids cut the light remarkably well. There is so little spill that viewed from the side, the light looks like it's turned off! The 90° grid has the widest spread and softest penumbra while the tight 30° grid cuts the light sharply yielding a beautiful soft source with the pattern of a fresnel.

There is an additional bonus to using these grids. We all know that light intensity increases as we get closer to a light. As we get closer to a light with a grid, there is a distance range in which the honeycomb grid pattern cuts off light around the periphery almost exactly proportional to the normal increase of intensity. We therefore have a light that, over a limited range, stays at an even intensity as we draw closer to it.

There are two things to be aware of when using the grids. They are heavy and they are delicate. They tend to weigh down the fronts of Chimeras and unless supported can gradually tilt the pattern down from where you set it. Chimeras are front heavy anyway and probably not the optimum light source for these devices. The grids are relatively expensive and the fine honeycomb mesh can easily be crushed with finger pressure. They must be handled with extreme care, which is probably the reason they aren't as popular as they should be at rental houses.

Nevertheless, I find these grids to be the quickest and most effective tool I've discovered to control the spread of soft light and I recommend them heartily.