In the Flesh: On set with the BBC

by Dale McCready Issue 86 - February 2014 Director of Photography, Dale McCready recently lit the second series of BBCs award nominated Zombie drama In the flesh with the Rotolight ANOVA Bi Colour V2 LED flood light.
New Zealand born DoP, and Steadicam operator, McCready, has worked on some of Britains most highly rated series such as Atlantis, Dr. Who, and Merlin including the feature film; The Chronicles of Narnia: The lion, the witch and the wardrobe. McCready offers a brief insight on his use of the new Version 2 Rotolight ANOVA Floodlight:
At IBC I came across the Rotolight booth and thought that their Anova lamp, a nice, punchy, lightweight, round LED panel with unique flower like barn-doors could work nicely for me. It dims, is adjustable in colour temperature with a digital readout and also contains a WiFi chip to create its own network which you can access through the Rotolight Magic Eye app. (download from the Apple app. store). It can become a master DMX lamp to allow wireless control of multiple lamps plugged in via DMX. Need a lighting desk program but dont want a desk? Use your iPad instead!
The new Rotolight ANOVA Bi Colour V2 Flood light can be electronically set to accurately reproduce any colour of white light from candlelight through to full daylight in 10 degree Kelvin steps 3150K 6300K maintaining perfect colour temperature across the whole dimming range. Each light is hand calibrated using a Laser Aligned testing process for outstanding colour accuracy.
I measured on my Sekonic colour meter early on and found it to be very neutral in terms of green/magenta cast. On In The Flesh the Anova fits in beautifully for nearly every interior setup Ive done.
Im using it directly as a nicely rounded soft spotlight, bouncing it off poly, diffusing it with Depron, gels, a Chimera Softbox (new Rotolight accessory), hanging it from stands and also often just bouncing it off the ceiling for fill. Its not that tricky LED lamp for last minute eye-lights but not the ladies faces, instead, its the go-to lamp for nearly every setup. The lamps colour is good enough theres no need to think about it as a separate tool. Its just another lamp in the truck. It fits in with the 650s, it fits in with the HMIs, it fits in with the Kinos. I measured on my Sekonic colour meter early on and found it to be very neutral in terms of green/magenta cast. Its quick to adjust, and if I cant reach the control on the back, then the iPhone app can be used to tweak it from by the camera.
Featuring totally flicker free best in class LED technology with an overall CRI=95 and skintone=98, the ANOVA range is now available in 6 new flavours; Bi-Colour, Solo 5600K and Solo 3200K, with a choice of Beam angle 110 ULTRAWIDE for beautiful soft lighting or 50 STANDARD for greater straight-line output. Each Anova unit includes V-Lock battery mount as standard and DMX or Wireless control via the Rotolight Magic Eye iPhone / iPad app. I go back to shooting Atlantis next month and the Anova is going to be very handy indeed
I did a setup today where I wanted very fine control of the level for convincing night fill and could tweak it remotely while operating. Or, as today also showed, the gaffer could use the near instantaneous On/Off switch on the iPhone app to time the lamp coming on with an actor hitting a wall switch. I never spotted a delay once.
I go back to shooting Atlantis next month and the Anova is going to be very handy indeed. Im hoping to have at least two on standby on all interiors. Im hoping my one can be kept nice and tidy, but thats unlikely. Its too useful to keep it in its box.