5 minute read
Tech Column
Clam Light
The Beauty of the Clam Light is Illuminating
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dwight Crane.
By Ian harvey
There are curves and there are curves and then there are curves on cars. And therein lies the challenge. Try capturing every nuance, every sexy arch, the gleam of the paintwork and the shine of those rims, and pretty soon it’s apparent: you’re shooting a mirror.
As American director of photography Charles Barbee notes on his website: “There are a lot of drop-dead gorgeous car commercials being seen on television today, but the art of lighting automobiles is nothing new really. The art of lighting car bodies is as old as our understanding of how to paint or draw photo-realistic images, which involves a thorough understanding of the interplay of light and shadow on objects, textures and surfaces in the real world.”
To avoid all those refl ections in the bodywork and to capture the sex appeal, he said, back in the day they used to hold a cotton “sheet” (aka “rag”) over the car to get the perfect light. By the 1950s they went to bounce lighting. It wasn’t perfect, but it’s all they had.
With modern vehicle design ever more evolved with sharper, more intense angles, more specialized lighting evolved, as Barbee notes eloquently: “Modern automobile body design today is described by designers as ‘tense,’ meaning the lines and curves change shape often and thus create more unpredictable results where refl ections are concerned. This is because many complex shapes are being blended seamlessly, as though a membrane has been smoothly prodded into one continuous, compound shape. These shapes provide very unconventional refl ective patterns and have given rise directly to the idea of ‘liquid light,’ where the refl ections fl ow continuously from one shape to the next as the viewpoint changes, rather than starting or stopping or changing shape abruptly where one surface ends and another begins.” So where the rubber meets the road there’s the Clam Light, developed in Toronto by Dwight Crane to solve those challenges associated with lighting those curves.
The Clam Light is a massive half-cylinder of sheer light which is suspended from three points and thus can be manipulated along its XYZ axis. It can be hung from an interior studio ceiling or suspended from a crane, and it’s no coincidence the latter option is available through Dwight Crane as well, since their fi lm industry expertise evolved from their crane business 35 years ago.
At about $10,000 a day, give or take, it’s not cheap, but it delivers. “It’s really all about getting that beauty shot,” said David Dwight, who designed and built the Clam Light. “And it is really geared just to automotive, though we had one production rent it from us as a prop one time. They wanted something cool in the background I guess. We did use it once for helicopter too.”
The assembly also comes with fi lter frame assemblies, ready for standard gels, he said. And one of the biggest features is the lack of clutter. “We had one production where they were prevented from cables running on the street because of a bylaw so they used it to light the whole street from above and it was completely clean.”
The unit is 16 feet wide, 36 feet long and 6 feet high at the apex of the arch, and weighs about 2,900 pounds, including the three onboard chain motors, Dwight said.
Inside there are 32 1,500-watt FGT incandescent bulbs which can be dimmed and sequenced. Running over the bottom is a onepiece bleached seamless muslin with two removable inner layers of silk, which Dwight said means the light is perfectly clean.
The unit draws 450 amps – about 150 per leg and needs a three-phase input, 120-208 volts. It’s all controllable through six Socapex connectors to a console and the now ubiquitous iPhone controller app, he said. “Having the fixture wired so that each lamp within the fixture can be controlled individually provides ultimate in control, only limited by the user’s imagination, dimming, chasing or any other pattern,” said Dwight. “In combination with the beached white seamless muslin, cutters between the lamps provide a more defined shadow line and the ability to colour correct the lamps.” It’s that ability to sequence, to create the illusion of movement with the lights chasing across the surface of the subject which caught Toronto-based DOP Dylan Macleod csc’s eye while shooting a car commercial a few years ago. “We had matted the shot and we had to have the car driving along the side of a wall,” he said. “And to get the illusion of movement we sequenced the lights. It worked really well.”
Macleod has used the Clam a couple of times, both for car commercials, but muses it could be fun to tease some “magic hour” effects from it on features or even music videos. “It has this perfect light, almost surreal, soft,” he said. “You could almost see it shooting a couple on a park bench or in a music video. Of course, it’s expensive so the production manager is probably going to talk you out of it!”
Still, he said, the cost is somewhat of an illusion as well. “If you had to build something like that for that effect, you’d have three electricals, three grips for a day to build it, then again on shooting and then again for tear down, that’s three crew days so it adds up quickly,” he said. “With the Clam, they come in, set it up and take it down. When you compare the total cost of each it’s not that expensive for the Clam.”
Ian Harvey is a veteran Toronto-based journalist who writes for VANCOUVER CALGARY TORONTO HALIFAX VANCOUVER CALGARY TORONTO HALIFAX 604-527-7262 403-246-7267 416-444-7000 902-404-3630 a variety of publications and covers the technology sector. He welcomes feedback and eagerly solicits subject matter ideas at ian@ 604-527-7262 403-246-7267 416-444-7000 902-404-3630 pitbullmedia.ca.
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