Staring at the monitor, cinematographer Larkin Seiple calls for level changes barely visible to the human eye. Bringing a fixture down to 4% output, Ardine explains, "If I were using incandescents, I would start seeing colour shift at around 26% and my crew would be spending time putting in NDA or full blue to compensate for the tungsten effect."
On a set with skylights, windows, fluorescents and practical table lamps, setting the perfect colour temperature can be challenging. "We started out trying to shoot at 3200K, but now we have settled on 4400K. With the Lustrs, I can dial this in and save a lot of time," says Ardine. "As a bonus, the whole lighting rig is running off a 100-amp generator, but most of the time we are only using 20 amps."
As technical director for iHeart Radio Theatre Los Angeles, Ardine is familiar with ETC products. "I grew up with Source Four incandescents and learned to program on an Expression 3," he says. "When Series 2 came out, I immediately bought eight units, which are now the workhorses of my rig. That extra stop of brightness sold me on these fixtures. I even have my own custom-built 'Series 2' trolley with spare lenses (EDLT, of course), heads and Powercons.
"I really love using the 90-degree lenses for situations like this where I have a two-foot throw."
Ardine and Seiple recently took advantage of new California tax incentives, shooting a movie titled Swiss Army Man entirely in California locations. "I was able to use a small generator, wireless control and make tiny adjustments to colour temperature on the fly," describes Ardine.
Ardine has been striving to find the ideal DMX settings for his ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr luminaires and has settled on the HSIC mode for maximum versatility.
(Jim Evans)
