American Cinematographer - October 2019 - 16

p Shot Craft editor Jay Holben uses gaff tape as a gobo to emulate the shadow pattern of venetian blinds.
up A standard cucalorus design. uq A "cello" cucalorus design, crafted from metal screen mesh and
selectively coated with "screen glass," creates a pattern of bright and diffused areas.

well. It doesn't have to be a circle,
square or rectangle. A common shadow
texture is the venetian-blind look, as
popularized in the film-noir genre. This
can be created any number of ways:
from a set of venetian blinds themselves, to a metal gobo cutout inside a
spotlight, to a piece of cardboard or
wood with parallel horizontal cutouts, to
simply stretching gaff tape across an
open frame (which generally come in
the standard flag sizes listed above). I've
often improvised by setting up two Cstands and stretching 1" gaff tape in
stripes between them, or even stretching tape across an open doorframe.

Cutting a branch off of a tree and
putting that on a stand in front of a light
is often called a "branchalorus" (a subset
of the "cucalorus," discussed next) -
another type of gobo. Note, AC does not
advocate randomly cutting branches off
trees for gobos. Be sure you have
permission from the tree's owner, and
that the cut is not harmful to the health
of the tree. Sometimes, a good branch
can be acquired from nearby gardeners.
Apparently, studio greenskeepers
happen to favor blue gum eucalyptus or
silver dollar eucalyptus, as those
branches hold their structure over time
and "flutter" nicely.

Quick Tip:
The sharpness of a shadow in a light projection is in direct relationship to the
distance of the object from the light source. The farther the object is from the light,
the sharper and more defined the shadow will be. The closer an object is to a light
source, the more diffuse, or "soft," the shadow definition will be. If you want a
sharp, well-defined shadow, you need a point source (not a soft source) that's a
good distance away from your shadow-casting gobo. Remember, of course, that the
farther the light is from the object that it's lighting, the lower the brightness of the
light will be. If you need a significantly sharp shadow, be sure to use a sufficiently
bright source, so that you can place it at a distance and still maintain your needed
light exposure at the subject. The physical size of the shadow also increases as the
object is brought closer to the light, and decreases as it is moved farther away.

October 2019

ASC 100th Anniversary

The Cucalorus
A special variation of the gobo is
the "cucalorus" or "cookie." It seems to
have a near-infinite number of spellings;
I've seen it in print as: kukaloris,
kookaloris,
cukaloris,
cukuloris,
cookalorus, and abbreviated as cuke,
kuke, kook, coo-koo, etc. No matter how
you spell it, the classic cucalorus is a
mottled shadow pattern - a collection
of leafy amoeba-shaped holes cut into a
piece of thin plywood.
You'll often hear people refer to
any gobo as a cucalorus, but that is
incorrect. The cucalorus is a specific type
of gobo meant to introduce a natural
leaf-like stipple pattern into the light.
These can also be custom-made by
cutting out plywood, Masonite or even
cardboard in this leafy shape.
A "perfect" cucalorus has no
straight edges at all. Even the exterior
edges are scalloped so that it all feels

American Cinematographer - October 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2019