Commercial: "Eleven Skin"

___At the beginning of August I worked as a swing grip/electric on a commercial shoot for the skin care product "Eleven Skin." We were working off a 5 ton truck plus another 30 fixture add on order from Acey Decy lighting. We had an entire day to pre-light for the shoot so it was a pretty relaxed environment as there was no serious rush to roll. We were shooting on a giant stage stage in which we had to light about 270 degrees worth of set. The set consisted of a circular step up stage in the middle where 4 chairs were positioned for the talent to sit around and discuss the amazing product at length. The background of the set was built to look like the outside of a house, complete with giant doors and a ton of windows. I would say when all was said and done we hung about 50-60 fixtures in that place. Most of the lights that played was hanging from the massive grid above the stage. We started by hanging nine 6K Barger lights in a circle around the circular stage in order to bath the talent in soft light. We then used a serious of Lekos to accent anything the D.P wanted to draw attention to in the background. We put them high up in the grid and tilted them down at steep angles to throw hard beams of light on different cabinets or other elements of the stage. Lekos are really awesome lights because they are super controllable as you can cut the beam from any angle with the blades as well as focus or defocus the beam by pushing the lens further or closer to the globe. You can also switch out the lens for a narrow or wider beam. (we used a combination of 19, 25 & 40 degree) It was a lot of work to hang each fixture but it was fun because I got to learn to drive a scissor lift.


Once we hung all the lights from the grid, we accented other items of the set by hiding single Kino bulbs behind them. We hid two bulbs on the side of a staircase so that the stairs looked like they were illuminated, as well as a few other bulbs behind display cases to draw attention to the products in them. To give life to the background set, we covered each window and door with 1000H (tracing paper) and then bounced a combination of 5K's and 2K's off the white wall behind the set back through the 1000H. This gave a soft glow to each window and door as if the sun were shinning through. We finished off with various accents from a few tweenies and Lekos on baby plates positioned on the floor off set. It was amazing to look at all the lights that we put up at the end of the day. I checked out the generator and we were running just over 1000 amps. That's definitely the most power I've pulled on any set since I've been in L.A. I like being a swing Grip/Electric because I can learn both the grip and electric side of things. I'm pretty set with most of the grip stuff, so I tried to hang with the electrics on this set. I learned a lot about 3 phase and also about SACO cable, which I had never worked with before. It's a giant cable that splits off into about 8 Edison plugs at the end. This cable was really useful because we could hang it in the grid and run a ton of lights off of one main cable. Overall, it was a great shoot and I learned a lot about both the grip and electric side of things. I've worked off the same 5 ton truck a bunch of times now and I am really getting to know the ins and outs of all the gear and where it all belongs on the truck. Hopefully I'll continue to work with the same crew as they are all great guys.