American Cinematographer - October 2008 - (Page 15)

Rob McLachlan, ASC/CSC explains how Clairmont’s strobes have expanded his creative horizons “Clairmont stobes are a fantastic tool. We’d all seen what they can do with liquid pours, ice cream and other table top applications and we all knew Clairmont’s service and back up was second to none. So when I was there prepping a new series they let me try some tests and that’s when I first discovered a whole new use their strobes on the TV series Millenium. We were looking for a way to make the “internal visions" of our lead character more intense, visceral and unique. Even back then the shaky cam, turn the camera on and off, closed down shutter, snap zoom thing was tired. I wanted something more unusual and visually arresting. We tried shooting our POVs with a camera running at 12 or 6 fps, while tied in to the strobes. With fast or violent movement that meant we got a lot of motion blur where the image was lit normally —but the parts lit with the stobes were razor sharp. After we printed back to 24fps we had images with motion blur —together with intense crisp edges. WOW! I’ve used the technique a bunch of times since then; once on the Jet Li movie The One, where we used them a lot to to show the hyper speed our lead character was capable of. Clairmont even built us a remote system on short notice so we could shoot free while traveling down the road on an insert car with the actor lit with the stobes. More recently on the series Bionic Woman where we achieved some incredible in camera effects with actors sparing. The beauty of this technique is that if the show has a short turn around (as most series do) the effect is done IN camera. Bring the stobes out,hook them up, shoot, process and voila. Now there are other suppliers of movie strobes out there. In fact once I needed so many - enough to backlight a city block - I used another make. Clairmont’s worked. No comment on the other guys. When the pressure is really on —as it always is when you are doing “effects” shots— you don't want to have anything go wrong. That's where I rely on Clairmont equipment’s reliablity. But more importantly, the technical back up that comes with it. If you need some special configuration to make something work you can rely on them to either already have thought of it or they will create it for you. That’s comfort for a DP.” CLAIRMONT STROBE FEATURES & BENEFITS: I I I I I I I I I I I I Rapid Pulse - exposure time of 1/50,000th second Fast Recycle - supports film speeds up to 150 fps Uses 120v AC Power - shoot virtually anywhere No Special Techs - standard crews can easily handle Lightweight - each head weighs only 10 lbs. Compact - head measures only 17" x 7" Easy To Stack - 400-foot-candle source is 34" x 14" Wireless Control - fire dozens of units simultaneously Cool Temperature - great for heat-sensitive shoots Preview Box - check setups without running camera Sync Box - synchronize multiple cameras w/strobe Compatible - with virtually all film & digital cameras Hollywood 818-761-4440 Vancouver 604-984-4563 Toronto 416-467-1700 Albuquerque 505-227-2525 Montreal 514-525-6556 www.clairmont.com http://www.clairmont.com http://www.clairmont.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2008

American Cinematographer - October 2008 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: DirecTV's "Fourth Wall" Campaign Production Slate: Prison Break Production Slate: Need for Speed: Undercover Middle East Intrigue Kingdom of Light Memoirs of a Spook Landmark Gains Post Focus: An Overview of the ASC CDL Filmmakers' Forum: Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Ross Berryman

American Cinematographer - October 2008

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