100 things to do with Baby : Mahesh Muthuswami

Around One Hundred Things you can do with a Baby ::( well , almost ))

Numerous Lights and Lighting fixtures were introduced to serve motion picture industry for almost 100 years of film Industry, Many lights now faded away with time for various reasons but one light remains very special and still seen on the sets even today.

Baby , that’s how we fondly call the 1k Tungsten Fresnel Light. One of the first and foremost lighting fixture in the basic tools of lighting.

Recently, I had the opportunity of introducing this light to a young group of budding cinematography aspirants. It set me to think, what are all things, one could do with this light. I started listing it out extensively, starting from the very basics .

Some of the points looked very naïve, on the surface of it.

But on deeper thinking , each and every one of the act in the following list, certainly affects the light output , the way the light falls off, its spread , its quality and hence at the end , its aesthetics.

Its also true that many of the acts in the following list , could be applied to a broader spectrum of other lighting fixtures too. So, in essence, this could be a rough template, for all that lighting fixtures too.

Lets jump into the list :

1. Put it On
2. Take it very close to the subject
3. Take it far away from the subject
4. Centre it properly on the subject
5. Offcentre it from the subject to use the penumbra of the beam
6. Heighten it up in the normal stand
7. Shorten up its height with a half-stand
8. Put it on a low base
9. Keep it flat on the ground
10. Make it full strong
11. Make it full soft
12. Open the Fresnel to make it flat
13. Put it on a Dimmer and dim it to any required intensity
14. From total dark it can be brought into life with the dimmer
15. From full bright ,it can be darkened with the dimmer
16. Put a barn door and use the four doors to shape the light
17. Put a Full Net to reduce intensity from the same place
18. Put a Half Net to reduce intensity
19. Put a Quarter Net to reduce intensity
20. Use a Flag very close to the light to cut softly top or bottom or sides
21. Use a Flag away from the light to cut sharply top or bottom or sides
22. Use four flags from top , bottom , left and right to create rectangular patch of light
23. Use a pattern on the light, to get a pattern shadow in the background.
24. Use a pattern on the light , to get a pattern shadow on the subject
25. Put it straight on the face of the subject
26. Put it from exactly behind the subject
27. Put it from the left half of the subject
28. Put it from the right half of the subject
29. Put it from the left 3/4th from the front of subject
30. Put it from the right 3/4th from the front of subject
31. Put it from the left 3/4th from behind the subject
32. Put it from the right 3/4th from behind the subject
33. Hang it above at dead top of the subject
34. Punch it from dead bottom of the subject
35. Take it handheld and follow a movingsubject
36. Put it on a trolley travel to simulate a moving light
37. Swivel / rotate it on the stand itself to simulate lighthouse effect

38. Put a Lightning Shutter in action in front to create a lightning effect
39. Put a snoot to create a narrow shaft of light
40. Use a Gobo on the snoot to get a pattern
41. Punch it on a Mirror , to get a specular reflected light
42. Bounce it on a White Thermocole
43. Bounce it on a GreyThermocole
44. Bounce it on a Gold Thermocole
45. Bounce it on a Reflector Board , Hard side or Soft side
46. Bounce it off a Soft Silver
47. Bounce it on a Ceiling of an interior room
48. Use a Butter Paper on the barndoor
49. Use a 216 Diffusion paper on the barndoor
50. Use a 216 Diffusion Frame very close to the light
51. Use a large216 Diffusion Frame far away from the light
52. Bounce it on a thermocole and then use a large Diffusion Frame for that bounced light

53. Diffuse it with a first diffusion frame and then double diffuse it on a large , second diffusion
54. Diffuse it through a Grid cloth
55. Diffuse it through an acrylic sheet
56. Use a 216 diffusion frame on only the lower half of the light

57. Use a 216 diffusion frame on only the upper half of the  light

58. Diffuse it through a Honeycomb and aGrid Cloth
59. Bounce it on a thermocole behind a transparent  signboard

60. Use a CTB , to bring color temperature to 5600 K
61. Use a CTO to make it much more deeply warm
62. Use localcolor gels to get acolored light
63. Use it through ProfessionalColor Filters to get a professional controlled color tone
64. Use cookies /patterns very close to the light
65. Use cookies / patterns far away from the light
66. Punch it into a cloud of smoke to get atmospheric light space
67. Dim it up and down , quickly to get a flickering effect
68. Hang different color gel strips infront of light and move it across to get a TV screen effect

69. Position it on a Rostrum , for extreme heights
70. Centre it from a Catwalk in a studio
71. Hang it from a Beam-Clip in a location
72. Hang it from a Rope to swivel across
73. Put it on during the shot
74. Put it off during the shot
75. Put it behind a fan to get a moving shaft pattern
76. Put it on a dimmer and keep it in the frame background , without creating lens flare
77. Centre it into the lens to get flare , from within the frame or outside the frame.
78. Use it as a practical within the frame, camouflaging
79. Mount it on a moving car,to light up interior with a portable power unit
80. Light from the bottom through a glass in the ground
81. Light up rain water from behind
82. Or , finally , if you don’t want it just Put it Off
    To, reiterate, each and every one of the above acts, changes the light output and hence the aesthetics of the shot.This is just only one Baby we are talking about. Think about the many no. of babies and other lighting fixtures present in  a typical shoot set. And  hencethe amount of light effects , possible.No wonder , even in this age of really high sensitive digital sensors , light fixtures and lighting are very essential , to create and control the mood of a shot.Mahesh MuthuswamiCinematographer