There’s a saying in the biz, gaffers make light, grips make shadows. It refers to the fact that besides rigging lights and pushing the dolly, grips deal with cutting, netting, diffusing and manipulating the light for the electrical department.
And their main tools to do this are flags and nets. Flags block all the light, nets block some
Why do we need to cut and manipulate light for video and film in the first place?
We need light to bounce off our subjects, sets, and props to get an exposure but also and more importantly to create a look and feel. And that means we’re using lights to simulate other lights. Usually the sun. Ambient sunlight and Practicals.
Flags and nets allow us to adjust the contrast of the lighting in our shots to help us do that.
Nets and Light Levels
Let’s look at an example. If the sun is illuminating an interior wall, that light is going to be pretty even across that surface because the sun is 93 million miles away.
But if we’re simulating sunlight falling onto that background wall with a light, instead of being millions of miles away, our light source is much, much closer. This means one side of our wall, the side closest to our light, will be hotter and then dropping off as it spreads out. It doesn’t look right. We need to even out that spread by lowering the light level closest to the light. Nets to the rescue
We’ll place a net between the wall and the light, open side out into the beam of light and table it a little, angling it with the beam, adjusting its position to bring the light level down on the wall closest to the light. This allows us to even out that spread of light, simulating sunlight.
Flags and Shadows
Nets adjust the light level and therefore the contrast in a scene. In this case, allowing us to simulate the even spread of sunlight. Flags can help in our simulation in a different way.
Since flags stop all the light, we use them to “cut” light, to make shadows.
This light we’re using to simulate sunlight. What if we want to make it fell like it’s coming through a window?
We can use a flag on the top of the light and the bottom to simulate the top and bottom frame of a window.
We’ll set the flag the same way we did with the net, angling it into the beam of light. Note that the closer a flag's edge is to the wall, the sharper the shadow. If we want the shadow edge to me more even, we’ll angle it to be more parallel to the wall.
And generally, we table flags so the shadow edge is angled out, closer to the surface, and therefore a little sharper.
We can also use paper tape or a piece of black showcard between the two flags to simulate a windowpane. I roughly place it and then adjust to the camera. I’ll add extra pieces if needed to thicken the “windowpane” shadow.
Cookies and the Cucoloris
Sometimes you need to break up a background wall even more by simulating dappled light through a tree coming in the window. We’ve rigged branches in front of lights in the past to do just that.
We can also cut a cookie, short for cucoloris, out of showcard or foam core, or rent one. The intent is to simulate dappled light coming through trees, the window, a patterned curtain maybe, whatever it is, that makes a broken up pattern on a wall.
We can create one by cutting out random curved shapes to simulate that set of shadows.
Contrast in a Scene
Now, these examples were cutting light on a flat wall. What about somewhere in the middle of a scene?
Here we have a light needed to illuminate a dark area of the background. What if we have an actor, wearing a bright shirt, walking into the shot and that light? Normally we try to avoid this in wardrobe but it’s not always possible.
In this case, we’ll do what we call Hollywooding: temporarily bringing a net or flag into a light during a shot to adjust the contrast, the light level, on that actor.
As they step in, we’ll bring the open side of the net into the light, tracking them and holding it as they stop. Then as I walk out of the shot, we’ll turn the net and track them out so the open side of the net trails out. Open side in, open side out.
Finetuning
Nothing creative is ever as really simple. It takes some tweaking, finetuning. Here we have a cookie on an actor. To control where the light is hitting, we now fine-tune the cookie with paper tape, placing it right where we want it and opening it up in other places so it works for the shot
Dots and Fingers
This is a dots and finger kit. What is it? Flags and nets for a dollhouse? Well, No but just smaller versions of what we have. But why? Because when we’re adjusting the contrast of our shot, sometimes we need to control a smaller more detailed area.
Cutting light is an art and one of the things I enjoyed the most when I was a grip. Molding raw light until it takes on a new look and feel.
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Equipment Used
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Mole Richardson 1k Baby Tungsten Fresnel Light https://www.adorama.com/mr407.html
American Grip Beefy Baby Light stand https://americangrip.com/product/baby-2-rise-rm-leg-34-x-30-steel-risers/
American Grip Cucoloris https://americangrip.com/product/18-x-24-wood-cucoloris/
American Flags and Nets https://americangrip.com/product-category/sewing/open-end-scrim/18-x-24/
🎭 Actors
James Aaron Oh https://www.jamesaaronoh.com
After Effects Gali Segal
https://www.linkedin.com/in/galisegalhorowitz
🎹 Music
“Right Place, Right Time” by Silent Partner from YouTube Audio Library
Other music from Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com
Stills
By Vancouver Film School - Flickr: VFS Summer Intensive Programs 2011, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20424330
Dolly Shot of crew filming The Alamo by Sean Devine
Crew using a homemade Cucoloris for a scene of National Treasure (2004) photo by Sean Devine