LED Fresnels from Litepanels’ Sola ENG Flight Kit were used to light locations with restricted space on Farzana Trejani’s short film, The Other Woman, a co-production between Mandala Films and Beyond Mirrors Ltd.
Directed and written by Tipurita and produced by Chris Carr, owner of Beyond Mirrors, the short film depicts a life-changing encounter at a beauty salon between a wife who is hiding her unhappiness behind Gucci shades, and a mistress who is concealing her frustrations behind a professional facade. The Other Woman will be presented in the short film corner at this year’s Cannes film festival.
During the filming, DP Chris Moon used HMI lights with daylight conversion filters for the general lighting set up. However, for particular locations with limited space – notably, scenes shot in a bedroom and a treatment room – gaffer Matthew Riley suggested smaller Litepanels LED Fresnels should be used. One benefit of the cool-running LEDs was they prevented the small set from becoming uncomfortably hot.
“We tried out the Litepanels Sola ENGs and one of the greatest benefits in using these heads was being able to match the daylight fixtures easily, and gel them up the same,” Riley explained.
The daylight-balanced Sola ENG provides controlability, and single-shadow properties inherent in a Fresnel light, but uses just a fraction of the power of conventional fixtures. Like all Litepanels fixtures, Sola Fresnels feature smooth dimming from 100 percent to 0 with no noticeable color shift, and offer beam control of 50º to 15º.
The Sola ENG fixtures have been designed for on-camera or stand mounting, providing manual focus and dimming control via camera-like ergonomic controls. Output from the LED fixture is fully flicker-free, and remains consistent even as the battery voltage goes down.
“We mainly used the head as an eye light, and to back light some smoke on a few shots,” Riley said. “We discovered that a Sola ENG, full spot, dimmed right down and with the soft box on, created a beautiful quality eye light. It provided a slightly larger source, with a soft drop off around the edges. On a couple of occasions we even used it to give us our key against daylight in tight spaces.”
“The Sola ENG fixture opened up a number of creative options on the shoot. We were really impressed with the quality of the flood and the spot, and the amount of punch the fixture had, like a lightweight pocket par. One outstanding feature is that the dimmer is integrated into the head, we actually used this for a gag in a shot as a door opening. It’s a very handy little kit, and perfectly transportable as it all fits into a Pelican 1510 carrying case.”
