Light Hackers Ltd. Blog

Light Hackers Photography - Recent Portraiture Shoot

2012-04-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update this time... as we've been very busy with TV shoots and moving projects forward from the back burners... (more to come soon)!!

This is a montage teaser from a recent commissioned stills shoot, shot on location around London.
(containing a mix of final processed images and others straight from the camera).

All portrait sessions have a bespoke video montage made from the images taken as part of the package!

If you are interested in commissioning your own shoot, please get in touch:

info@lighthackers.com

Bye for now.

BBC Multi Platform - 'The Burning Room'

2012-03-16T07:46:00.009-07:00

A while ago we had the pleasure to co-create a test platform for BBC's Multi Platform department. The brief was to explore the possibilities in interactive media that can be accessed by BBC's millions of online viewers.

Ace camera assistant Mihali Moore and Coob's Donnelly brothers discuss the required technicals for the panoramas.

Working again with Producer Jon Aird as we have on many previous adult education interactive experiences run on the BBC website. This time we had a 'blank canvas' and together, creative control in creating something that would explore the possibilities for online experiences, and something that could be easily adapted to terestrial projects such as Dr Who or Eastenders for instance.

Teamed up with Coob as we have done again in similar projects, we got going on drafting a scenario for our story to take place. For this a horor / suspense genre was chosen, as we also wanted to test out VFX elements in this experience.

ALL flame effects were filmed live in a Chromakey set up on site, and in the end up to 100 layers per frame were made to enhance certain scenes. The mastery of our VFX guru William Chang brought this to reality, while Adam Cutts, our Set Designer and Props Master worked his magic in creating the various sets to the final 'burn-out' set.

Exploring the paroramics was a key action we wanted to incorporate, as well as video insertion and sound cues.

The biggest hurdle we came up against was the compression in the platform of Flash video, where the very large VFX files had to be compressed heavily to ensure the smooth running of the experience.

Well received, we are now exploring the options of taking this and translating it to other genres like drama.

So take a moment, turn out the lights, and Enjoy!

The Burning Room

Going Live!

2011-12-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy few months for Light Hackers. Filming for news stations has been ongoing for many years now, and as stories break daily, it never seems to end.

Working heavily with some of the best, we have been shooting for SKY News a great deal now. From 'Lives' to ENG crews, the assignments change on a daily basis.

Here are a few BTS moments from recent stories.

Sunrise in London on the hottest day on record

'Occupy' London - Day One

Adam Boulton reporting from Downing Street

An average day in Parliament

BBC 'Shakespeare's Stories' - 4 x Interactive Dramas

2011-10-29T13:03:00.002-07:00

A while ago the BBC ran a 4 part series of modernised versions of 4 plays by the famous playwright Shakespeare. Cast with the crème of British talent this series was supported by a very innovative and advanced interactive tool that allowed it's viewers to watch the 4 plays then choose to explore the workings behind the plays... the 'glossary', the themes.. etc.

Our Director Of Photography Une Herzer, was brought in as Lighting Director and Technical Supervisor to the studio recordings of these BBC dramas as well as the menu option recordings that were hosted by actor David Oyelowo.

The plays featured were, 'Macbeth', Much Ado About Nothing', 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' and 'The Taming Of The Shrew'.

These interactive recordings were shot in the same minimalist space, devoid of theatrical trappings to give focus to the play in it's rawest form. The only difference was the creative input allowed to Une in translating the scene to 4 unique canvases through light alone. Further graphic enhancements were added to the 'glossary' choice in the interactive experience, to explain further explain the words Shakespeare penned in his plays.

Widely acclaimed, this series of interactive experiences that supported the dramas aired on the BBC were nominated for both BAFTAs and BANFFs.

Macbeth:

This is the final drama piece for the 'Macbeth' play with the glossary graphics.

For the FULL interactive experience, you can view it online at the BBC website:

Shakespeares Stories - Macbeth

NOTE: Navigate by using your keyboard number keys and/or by selecting the numbers on the screen with your mouse when prompted.

Much Ado About Nothing:

This is the final drama piece for the 'Much Ado About Nothing' play with the glossary graphics.

For the FULL interactive experience, you can view it online at the BBC website:

Shakespeares Stories - Much Ado About Nothing

NOTE: Navigate by using your keyboard number keys and/or by selecting the numbers on the screen with your mouse when prompted.

A Midsummer Nights Dream:

This is the final drama piece for the 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' play with the VFX graphics.

For the FULL interactive experience, you can view it online at the BBC website:

Shakespeares Stories - A Midsummer Nights Dream

NOTE: Navigate by using your keyboard number keys and/or by selecting the numbers on the screen with your mouse when prompted.

The Taming Of The Shrew:

This is the final drama piece for the 'The Taming Of The Shrew' play with the glossary graphics.

For the FULL interactive experience, you can view it online at the BBC website:

Shakespeares Stories - The Taming Of The Shrew

NOTE: Navigate by using your keyboard number keys and/or by selecting the numbers on the screen with your mouse when prompted.

We hope you enjoyed this latest blog post and the exploration into the works of the greatest playwright.

Please feel free to let us know what you thought.

Until next time...

Light Hackers Photography - 'Lighting Deconstructed' 3

2011-10-17T03:09:00.000-07:00

Shooting with children is something we have done for the past 20 odd years... Sometimes a challenge, yet always rewarding.

We were commissioned to shoot a model portfolio series for a young girl, Hana who was aiming for the catalogue genre.
I mention the genre early on as I find it important to know which type of genre the shoot is being designed for. This is important when designing and choosing locations, and lighting themes as well as wardrobe. You need to marry these elements to suit this type of work. For an actor's portfolio perhaps, you are looking for a more muted background and flatter lighting style to show the actor as the key focus, and not to be up staged or competing with a busy setting. Also for this tighter head shots are required.

Here you see the first in this series of shots, as the lighting set-up for which we are deconstructing, carries through to both shots.

To add an important element of 'fun' in child shoots we went for an activity theme, and brought in a trampoline... focusing on Hana's ability to be staged, yet look natural in her poses.

We also styled the lighting theme to compliment the wardrobe outfits... in this shot we chose the blue gelled background to set off the blue / purple dress.

Light metering on the skin tones, we established a ratio that set the black BG two stops lower, and then dialled in the gelled accent light to suit.

With the gridded source being a flashgun strobe, it does take a few test shots to aim the light and zoom the lens to have it exactly where you need it.

The full lighting plan for this and the second shot is below:

For a more traditional pose after a costume change we had Hana do a series of standing poses. Again the only change in lighting was the angle of the strobes and the back ground gel... to compliment the red ribbon and prints in the dress.

The BTS shot for this series shows the location of the lights and the set-up used... shot while we were testing the lighting.

We chose to shoot in a large open space that offered us not only room for a mobile studio, but which had a classic art deco style of trellis that worked well as a setting for this final shot.

As always we hope you found this write-up useful and inspiring. Please feel free to leave your comments, and if there are any questions, please feel free to ask.

Until next time...

Light Hackers Photography - 'Lighting Deconstructed' 2

2011-09-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

For the second lighting breakdown in this series we chose to deconstruct another favourite image, and one we waited to shoot till the end due to the mess this shot produced.

The image we produced, entitled 'Under Her Spell' was from the same portrait series with Deborah as the previous post in this 'Deconstructed' blog.

Greatly inspired by a series of images created by Montreal based photographer Von Wong, we wanted to try what he accomplished with an array of studio strobes, but with just 3 flashguns!!

Here is the image that inspired us:

We were very pleased with our results especially considering this was the very first attempt in shooting with flour, and the lighting design was something we had planned in advance, so it was a case of fine tuning the settings and A LOT of trial shots (9 to be exact) to produce 2 images from the shoot.

Here you can see a behind the scenes shot from the location.

As you can see, we were lucky to make use of a VERY large veranda... actually this was at the mansion house built for Captain Livingstone's return from exploring Africa.
I can't stress enough the mess that flour creates... in Von Wong's work they went so far as to use electric fans to disperse the flour... it took them hours to clean up the mess produced, and they were shooting in a vacant warehouse. We chose to lessen the required cleanup, and still it took ages to vacuum the walls and everything in sight... Be warned, only leave essentials you are using in the vicinity!

In this 'Lighting Diagram' the full lighting arrangement and settings are shown.

The lighting was something we created to work, and it did. The hardest part of this type of photography is that you can't meter the flour in the scene or compose for it exactly. It becomes a trial and error at first till you home in the lighting and the way to disperse the flour at the chosen moment.

We found that a third amount of flour was needed to be thrown in, and added to what Deborah was throwing out.That came from the camera assistant throwing in a handful, using a verbal countdown to be in sync with Deborah's throws. A technique in actually throwing the flour was needed so it spread out correctly... A lot of variables we hadn't considered till on the actual shoot.

We shot 2 further clean plates, just of flour being thrown in front of the lens, to be backup elements in Photoshop... a very necessary move!!!

The final 2 images were graded in Lightroom, and composited in Photoshop.

Here is the second finished image from this series titled 'In The Clouds'

Well that's a wrap for now, but keep checking in for more 'Behind the Scenes' write-ups from us at Light Hackers.

Light Hackers Photography - 'Lighting Deconstructed'

2011-09-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

Lighting a subject is part technical, part intuitive and part creative.

Here we will be posting some of our recent shots from our portrait sessions, and 'deconstructing' the lighting that created them.

First off to get us started is 'At Rest'

In this portrait of a dancer we wanted to explore the theme 'At Rest' ... However for a more visual treat I loosely based the portrait on the famous image, Lewis Morley's 1963 portrait of Christine Keeler.

In my mind I wanted to include a great deal of shadows both in the subject, and in the scene surrounding her. The difference to Lewis Morley's original, was that I wanted to reverse the setting / location, to have elements of a high key portrait. The very large windows with net curtains were a perfect option. I chose the natural light streaming through the windows to burn out slightly around the central focus.

For the main key light I went for my favoured modifier, a 24" Beauty Dish. I wrapped the light around Deborah's face, by feathering the beauty dish so the light falls off dramatically with only the edges lighting her, this is the typical 'Rembrandt effect'. Metering on the highlights in Deborah's skin tones, I exposed at f4.This meant for a 1 - 1 1/2 stop over exposed window, metered at f5.6 - f8.

Making the pointe shoes the focus an added accent came from another gridded strobe positioned just off camera left. Being that this was a 'Strobist' set-up using flashguns and no modelling lights, the accent strobe was the hardest to position... Several test shots were need to position it to only illuminate the pointe shoes with no extra shadows created from fall-off. Then based on my set exposure of f4, my camera assistant simply dialled down the power output to an equal ratio.

In this 'Lighting Diagram' the full lighting arrangement and settings are shown.

The final BTS shot shows the setup we created... although taken prior to the final beauty dish placement, being directly above Deborah.

Well I hope you gleamed something positive from this write-up.. We will continue to post more 'Lighting Deconstructed' blogs in this series. Not only in photography, but also in genres of filming and especially in specialists subjects we carry out in chromakey work.

Please feel free to comment and let us know what topics you would like us to 'deconstruct'.

For any enquiries or bookings, please get in touch.

Regards

BBC 'So You Think You Can Dance' - Tutorials

2011-09-06T05:22:00.001-07:00

For BBC's series 'So You Think You Can Dance' we were brought in to shoot 13 x dance tutorials with the series choreographers. From Cha Cha, Waltz to Hip Hop and Disco, we covered the lot. These all were to support the series being TX'd and went online as part of the S.Y.T.Y.C.D website's goodies.

Sisco warm up for one of the tutorials.

Down time in between shots.

I love the catchlights our 'kisslite' gives for this type of filming... very soft and wrap around.

Shot all on location we provided 2 x HD camera crews shooting on jibs and dollies with an EFP lighting package and for the main key and fill we went with follow spots to move with the talent.

It was a very tight schedule on these shoots with an output of about 3 dances per location scheduled over 5 days,...however we managed to complete the series in only 3 days of shooting.

In this example, Charlotte Stevens puts you through the paces to learn a DISCO routine.

... and here Sisco Gomes runs you through a POP routine... for the ladies!

So dust of your glam rags, sparkle you shoes and take to the floor!

DOP On Another Green Screen Chromakey Shoot

2011-09-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

Une Herzer, our DOP has worked a lot over the years with London Film Studios, Broadley Studios.

They had a green screen shoot they asked to have him run for them for US client Staples Advantage. During the day we shot 2 series of PTC links for their various services.

Using a favoured wrap-around lighting rig

For the size of the studio, 20,000 watts of light would be a tad much, however Une wanted a soft 'wrap-around' light with double baffled sources for both Key and Fill, that meant 2 x 5ks off the top.

The final results were VERY nice... wrapped early which the clients liked too!

A great place to film where in the past we have booked ALL of our 'BBC Training' shoots there as well as several commercials too... well recommended location.

Light Hackers Photography - Post Services

2011-08-29T03:26:00.000-07:00

Here at Light Hackers, we are not only commissioned to shoot for our clients, but also provide a 'post treatment to images already shot.

In this head shot we were asked to glamourize the shot provided to us. We ask for the high res file from which to work, and in this case we adjusted the levels, adding a treatment to the skin's texture and a slight glamour style effect found in many print advertisements.

Our photography post services are not strictly confined to portraiture work, but can be applied to both commercial, still life and landscape work too.

Please contact us for more details.

Light Hackers

National Treasures Live Trail

2011-08-25T04:40:00.000-07:00

For Red Bee Media and BBC we shot the trail / promo for the current series, National Treasures.

Presented by Dan Snow and Sian Williams, this 'live' event sees them travelling the British Isles exploring great sites of historic importance.

We shot the trails at Greenwich Naval College as PTC lead links.

New BBC Trails just TX'ed

2011-08-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

We shot new trails for BBC's 'National Treasures' a series that will tour Great Britain uncovering the history of these Isles.

Again commissioned for Red Bee Media, this was a ...'walk in the park' if you pardon the pun!

The shoot was with presenters Dan Snow and Sian Williams in the picturesque setting of Greenwich Naval College

We will be posting the final trail soon!

Light Hackers Blog... All Welcome!

2011-08-05T02:41:00.001-07:00

We here at Light Hackers are just ironing out the final kinks in the new site.

Cross browser viewing is a nightmare... damn you Chrome and Internet Explorer, hail Firefox and the winner Safari!!

Still a few pages to design, like our 'Behind the Scenes' gallery, and page entries for our core personnel.

This blog will keep you up to date with our recent work and also a portal for training and general viewpoints from us to you.

Recent work like a new trailer for BBC's 'National Treasures' where on a beautiful sunny day at Greenwich's old Naval College, we shot Dan Snow and Sian Williams for the series that sees them touring the country and discovering what treasures it holds.

A promo from the archives - BBC 'Genius'

2011-08-05T02:33:00.000-07:00

Going through content for the new website, there was too many projects to have them all listed. Here is one from the archives, 2 promos for BBC 'Genius'. We got a call from Red Bee Media on a Friday afternoon, can we set-and light on Monday morning for a 60m2 garden set with shed, live turf and plants with the shoot on Tuesday?... YES Of course we can!

So Monday we were there with a 3 man HD crew, and lighting plan for the Gaffer and his team... our green fingered camera assistant, Danny Etheridge even laid a hell-a-lotta turf as well.

First a base light arrangement of a dozen+ space lights

... then a couple 10K lamps get wrapped in cookies n' flags

.. well the riggers 'SkyJack' was free!

'Genius' set almost complete... now for the landscaping, and we're good for rehearsals.

The shoot was a great success, and we actually wrapped this one ahead of time by several hours!... it's all in the prep!

Keep checking in to our blog for more projects and stuff!

New site is almost ready to launch... getting excited now!

2011-08-01T01:30:00.000-07:00

In keeping with the old philosophy 'measure twice, cut once' we have been a tad picky in getting things ironed out for our new site.

However phase one is almost complete and so we hope to be launching the new site soon!!