On set with up and coming DoP Annika Summerson

LCA met up with up and coming DoP Annika Summerson on set at Cineco Studios, Brentford, while shooting the promo for Dog Is Dead - Two Devils directed by Prano Bailey-Bond. Annika tells us of the challenges she faced lighting the promo on a tight budget and with limited space.


"The lighting kit wasn't very exciting, mainly par cans and 650w fresnels, 2k fresnel and chimera on a boom arm for top lighting, a 5k fresnel for general fill when needed and a 4k HMI for the forest, we were on a pretty tight budget...

 

The forest itself was made of cardboard that had been ripped and roughed up to create the birch tree like texture but it also meant you couldn't really backlight them since they then got a strange glow that we decided didn't fit so the most difficult thing was lighting the 100 trees from the right angle in a fairly small studio.  It was a lot tighter then it looks.

And a five piece band that all needed to look pretty (which they of course were in real life), but sneaking beauty lights in for the wideshot was pretty tricky since there was no grid in the ceiling yet so everything had to go on the floor and be hidden behind other props.

The production designer Damien Creagh was pretty brilliant and clever I must say though, he basically made it all out of nothing, really minimal budget, and the girl coming up from under the bed was his contraption as well as when she sinks into the ground so he did the SFX as well together with John who owns cineco studios."

LCA Show New Lights at BVE

BVE at Earls Court proved to be a great success showing a number of new and innovative lights to the film, TV and photographic industry. The stand was busy throughout the exhibition with a lot of interest being shown in all the new equipment.  

On show was the latest K5600 Alpha 1600 alongside their Soft Tube (below). The shot on the right shows the Alpha 1600 at strike up.

The K5600 Big Eye was also exhibited. The two images below show the light lit and at strike up.

LCA's Big Softie, daylight LED light source, made an appearance with its 118cm circular hole in the middle.

LCA also presented the latest innovation from Cinesphere - the CineMagicTube which allows you to run both daylight and tungsten from the same tube!






Lastly, but no means least, Litepanels Hilio, 1x1 and Sola 4 were also on show (below)

For more information on any of the above lights, please contact the team at LCA on +44 (0)20 8833 7600 or sales@lcauk.com.

www.lcauk.com

LCA Big Softie Softens Tyson!

Cinematographer, Eduard Grau, recently gave a big thumbs up to LCA's Big Softie on his latest commercial shoot for Fiat Panda commercial starring Mike Tyson.

Eduard recent accolades include the award winning movies Buried, featuring Ryan Reynolds and A Single Man starring Colin Firth who was Oscar nominated, and won a BAFTA for his performance in the film.

Eduard, has recently finished working on three other movies: Animals, featuring Martin Freeman, Arthur Newman, Gold Pro starring Emily Blunt, Colin Firth and Anne Heche and finally A Single Shot starring William H Macy.

The LCA Big Softie key features include:

• 610mm circular big softie eyelight with 118mm circular hole in the middle 
• High Output 6000k 
• Daylight LED Light Source
• Fully dimmable from 0-100% with hand held in-line dimmer 
• AC/DC option

The Big Softie comes in a Kit format which includes:

• Head
• AC supply
• Power cable
• In-line dimmer
• Mounting plates
• 1 x circular discs (for gel or to create your own effects, stars,stripes) 
• Flight case.

Contact the LCA team for more details at sales@lcauk.com or call +44 (0)20 88337600. 

Visit the LCA website at www.lcauk.com

The World's Most Powerful LEDs

And we're not exaggerating! 

FilmGear Lighting have added a new range of extremely powerful LED lights to their current and established range of Film and TV lighting.

AC or DC, these powerful LED lights come in a 360 and a smaller 240: The 240 runs AC230 and 220v or 15-30v DC, 9600 lux at 3 metres. The 360 runs the same voltage range, 14000 lux at 3 metres and an incredible 31000 lux at 2 metres. Both dim from 0-100% and can be DMX controlled.

Rear Housing showing heat syncs, ac/dc input,
dimmer knob and DMX input

To find out more about the World's Most Powerful LEDs simply give the LCA team a call on +44(0)20 8833 7600 or email sales@lcauk.com

LCA - Lights, Camera, Action, suppliers of lights and lighting equipment to the Film & TV Industry

K5600 is certainly no 'Casualty' on set!

Jaz Castleton, the lead DP on BBC's long running 'Casualty', spoke to LCA about his choice of K5600 lights on the set of Casualty and how they have lived up to expectations. 

"I was first introduced to the K5600 product line by Nick Shapley from LCA, the UK agent for K5600.

At that time I was working on a project to move the long running BBC Drama “Casualty” from its home in Bristol to a brand new studio facility in Cardiff.

Part of the brief was to change from a “Tungsten Set” to Daylight sources, this was to facilitate the combining of the interior and exterior sets and also to explore the possibilities of more energy efficient lighting. This combined with moving over to HD on the light sensitive Arri Alexa camera meant we could look at lower powered light sources.

Nick was keen for me to meet with Marc Galerne MD of K5600 and felt Marc had a range of lamps that would fit my needs.

Well I wasn’t disappointed; little did I know that they had a range of Par and Fresnel HMI lamps from 200w to 18k with a very useful array of accessories, I was previously aware of the Joker Bug range but not of these accessories, they really enhance the versatility of the lamps.

Ultimately we specified a range of Joker Bugs of 200w, 400w and 800w with soft tubes and the Big eye attachments. They have proved to be the right choice with 5 months of service behind them they have lived up to my expectations.

They are compact, have great light output, have proved to be reliable and of excellent quality construction and even the Sound Dept like them, as they are silent!!!!

For Location Filming we also went for the Alpha range of 2.5K/4K and 18K Lamps. I particularly liked the innovative Quartz reflector technology this has led to a very light weight compact lamp head that competes directly with the competition, but with a couple of tricks up their sleeve’s, how about mounting an 18k vertically down with a 160 degree beam angle and a ¼ stop difference across that beam.

With the clear glass lens the Alpha lamps produce a stunning quality shadow due know doubt to that special reflector.

I’m really happy that I went with K5600 they delivered on their promise and turned around a large order in just a few short weeks, both Nick and Marc have been a pleasure to deal with and Marc’s passion for his product is clear to see, constantly on the lookout to improve and innovate.

I look forward to the surprises that K5600 will produce in the future."

 

 

  

 

Spotted at BSC!

The great and the good took the time to visit the LCA stand at the BSC show last weekend and all seemed suitably impressed with the new equipment on show - but perhaps not Nick's green jumper!

Marc Galerne from K5600, Nick and DoP, Dick Pope BSC (Me and Orson Wells, Angis, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging and Bernie featuring Jack Back, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine)

Marc Galerne with Dick Pope checking out the K5600 Big Eye

Eddie Knight (left) Gaffer, Rigging Gaffer Dave Ridout and Paul Sullivan from Warner Brothers

Toby Newman, Barney Newman (back to camera) from Pixi Motion chatting with Stephen Murphy DOP

DoP David Higgs BSC chatting to Nick and Marc Galerne (hiding behind the Alpha 4kw)

Harry Higgins - Gaffer checking out the K5600 Big Eye

DoP, Mike Southon BSC (Air Buddies, The Nutcracker in 3D, TV Series The Little House)  looking at the Compact size of the Alpha 18kw.

LCA were proud to be showing a fantastic selection of new lighting products at the latest BSC Show held at the George Lucas Stage, Elstree Studios.

On show was the the new K5600 Alpha 1600 and Joker 1600 - the Alpha 1800 was used to light the stand from above, the innovative CineMagic Tube, Briese 330, H5 and globes, and the Litepanels Hilio, Sola 6 and 1x1.

Check out our stand, lights and equipment exhibited at the show. All lights are available at LCA - give us a call on +44 (0)20 88337600 if you would like to find out more or email us at sales@lcauk.com

Outside the George Lucas Stage

LCA Stand

Aerial shot of the stand

K5600 Alpha 18kw rigged pointing straight down

The K5600 products on display

The new Alpha 16kw from K5600

K5600 Big Eye

The Alpha 16kw with it's big brother
the 18kw behind

Briese H5 (5kw) tungsten on display clearly 

showing the 4 x 1250w bulbs

Briese 180 fitted with the brand new H5 (5kw)
tungsten lamp head 

Briese 330/Briese 90 cm Chinese lantern/
4x4 Dop choice snap on grid 

Briese 77, Briese 140, Briese 330 on display

Briese 90cm Chinese Lantern fitted
with a 2.5kw HMI suspended on a boom arm

Briese 90cm Chinese lantern and the Big Softie

The CineMagic Tube

Litepanels sola 6, 1x1 with chimera, sola 4 and Helio
 

The Litepanels Display

Kenny Galerne and Stuart Russell

Jurgen Thiele, Kenny Galerne, Stefan karle from Dop choice