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We showcase this production, "Stop Thief", because it clearly demonstrates why the Porta-Grid System is the best production tool you can have when shooting under drop ceilings. Though long in detail, the following explanation is sure to reward you with a wealth of insight into how to achieve the best lighting you can when shooting under drop-ceilings. It also reminds us that sometimes a little thing, like a light hanger, can make a big difference in a production.
"Stop Thief" is a heart warming children's film about the magical coming together of a group of senior citizens and the children who gather every day at a playground next to their retirement home. The production team consisted of veteran Boston filmmakers. Peter Rhodes, making his debut as a Producer and Co-Director, has edited countless American Experience programs for WGBH, the Boston affiliate of PBS. While the Director of Photography, Boyd Estus, has lensed countless programs for American Experience, Nova, Discovery, and Unsolved Mysteries to name just a few. The cast, however, consisted of mostly nonprofessional actors with very little experience in front of a camera. In fact, the cast of children had more acting experience than the cast of seniors.
The advanced age and lack of experience of their cast of seniors was a major concern for the Directors. Because Peter was afraid that they might not be up to the rigors of production, he wanted to minimize the demands placed upon them. For this reason the Director of Photography, Boyd Estus, decided to use mostly large Kino Flo fluorescent banks to light the principle set where most of the action takes place - the community room of the retirement home.
Where most of the scenes called for the seniors to sit around tables or stand in small groups, Boyd decided he would use Kino banks to create pools of light over key action areas. As large soft high frontal keys, the Kino banks would be very forgiving to the elderly nonprofessional actors in a number of ways. First, with such a large source the seniors would not have to hit precise marks. Second, they would not be fatigued by sitting under hot lights; and, third, the softness of the Kino banks would be very forgiving to the Senior's wrinkled complexions. The Kino banks were draped with Opal to create something resembling a Bay Light that would dig under the brows of the mostly stooped actors and create a sparkle in their eyes.
All the same, the director was still worried about the endurance of his elderly cast. To assure that he got the coverage he needed he decided not to strictly follow a script; but instead shoot the scenes in Altmanesque long master shots that would allow for improvisation. And, in order to make the most efficient use of their limited time on set, the director wanted to eliminate the downtime required to relight between shots. This meant that all the scenes to be shot on the community room set would have to be prelit. The action for each scene was carefully blocked out several days before, so that the position of the multiple keys and backlights for all the scenes were worked out in advance.
Though this style of production made sense given the elderly cast, it would have been almost impossible to accomplish using the actual community room of the elderly home as a set, if it were not for the versatility of the Porta-Grid System. First, prelighting for all the scenes at the outset meant that nothing could work off of floor stands. The stands for the multiple keys and backlights required for one scene would, without a doubt, be seen in another scene. Everything, therefore, would have to be rigged from above. Unfortunately, the architectural design of the elderly home made that nearly impossible using traditional grip hardware. The building was of a concrete slab style construction which meant that there were no joists (as you can see in picture #3) above the drop ceiling on which to rig the Kino Flo lights. Though there were some pipes as part of the sprinkler system, the position of the pipes were no where near where the Kino banks needed to be rigged for each scene. The second problem was that it would be almost impossible, and even hazardous, to rig that many large 4' Kino fixtures to the drop ceiling with traditional scissor clips with studs.
Scissor clips would not work very well under these circumstances because they were sure to buckle under the unbalanced load of the Kino Flo Banks. If you have ever rigged a Kino fixture on a scissor clip with stud, you know that after you have focused the light, as soon as you let go, the scissor clip rolls and twists under the heads' weight, making it impossible to focus. Under these circumstances it would have been impossible to give Boyd Estus, the Director of Photography, the pools of light where he wanted them with traditional rigging hardware.
Without a doubt, having the right tool - like a hammer to drive a nail - can make an impossible task easy. Likewise, the Porta-Grid System can make the impossible possible. For example, several features of the Porta-Grid System made it easy for us to overcome the obstacles that confronted us here and give Boyd the pools of light that he wanted.
The first feature that helped us was the innovative design of the Porta-Grid Clamp itself. The cornerstone of the Porta-Grid System, the clamp consists of an extremely lightweight fiberglass I-Beam track between two fiberglass mounting brackets with scissor clips on each end. The scissor clips are spaced 2' apart so that they can attach directly to standard drop-ceiling "T" Channel spaced to support the most common 2'x 2' and 2'x 4' ceiling tiles. The mounting brackets, on each end of the clamp, have wide flat bases that keep it from rolling under unbalanced loads, like the Kino Bank seen in picture #4. As seen in picture #6, the Porta-Grid Clamp can be rigged so that the mounting brackets actually lock the scissor clips closed, eliminating any chance that they might spread and the clamp fall under a heavy load like the 4'-4 bank Kino fixture seen in picture #5. As you can see here, the innovative design of the Porta-Grid Clamp made it easy for us to securely and safely rig even 4'-4 bank Kino fixtures to the drop ceiling of the set.
A second feature that helped us tremendously was that the Porta-Grid Clamp can be rigged anywhere on a drop ceiling - even under recessed ceiling fluorescent banks. Because, it attaches directly to the drop ceiling, the Porta-Grid Clamp is not dependent on rigging points above the ceiling to hang a light. As seen in picture #3, it eabled us to rig Kino banks precisely where required for each scene - regardless if there were a sprinkler pipe or not.
Still, there was one more obstacle that we had to overcome before we could satisfy Peter - we had to prerig a lot of large Kino fixtures on the drop ceiling at once. Where the community room was the principle set for the drama, there were a number of scenes to be shot there - each one requiring multiple keys and backlights. And to make matters worse, they had to be rigged as high as possible so that the lights for one scene would not appear in the wide shot of another scene.
To get the Kino fixtures as high as possible meant popping the drop ceiling tiles so that the Porta-Grid Clamps could be inverted (as seen in picture #5). Rigged in this fashion, the clamp sits above the drop ceiling enabling the Kino fixtures to be rigged just a few inches below the ceiling (as can be seen in picture #4). The problem, however, to this approach was that if we removed tiles for all the keys, backlights, and even set lights that had to be prerigged from the ceiling, we would severely weaken the structural integrity of the ceiling. Without the tiles to space them, drop ceiling "T" channel has a tendency to float and the joints break apart. But here too, the innovative design of the Porta-Grid clamp enabled us to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of prerigging all the lights required for every scene.
Properly installed, the Porta-Grid Clamp spans the parallels of the drop-ceiling grid, and binds them together. Once securely attached by its' scissor clips, the clamp anchors the drop ceiling grid parallels and keeps them from floating apart, making the entire ceiling more secure and stable, so that's its capable of carrying more weight. As you can see by the concentration of large Kino fixtures in picture #7, the drop ceiling grid can actually support more weight in the end than it could with only its' tiles in place. In fact, the Porta-Grid Clamp worked so well that we used twelve of them to prerig the keys, back lights, and even set lights required for all the scenes.
The Porta-Grid Clamp is not the only part to the Porta-Grid System that enables it to rig not only larger lights, but also more lights, than had ever been possible before. What helps make the Porta-Grid System a more secure means of rigging to drop ceilings is its' ability to wrangle a lot of cable. When more lights are rigged on a ceiling, there is also more cable as well. Where the cable to a light can weigh as much as the light itself, it is important to distribute the load of the cable evenly over a large area of the ceiling. The Porta-Grid System also features innovative cable keepers that offer you the capability to safely and securely route cables along the ceiling, distributing the load, until they can drop down out of shot.
As seen in this production, the Porta Grid Cable Keepers come in two varieties and serve two purposes. Cable Keepers with twist-lock nuts attach directly to the Porta-Grid Clamp's I-Beam channel. They are used primarily to route cable from lights back toward the clamp (as seen in picture #4) so that the weight of the cable does not pull laterally on the light. By relieving the lateral strain on the light from its' cable, the Cable Keeper reduces the strain on the drop ceiling from the clamp. As seen in picture #8, Cable Keepers with scissor clips attach directly to the drop ceiling "T" channel. They are attached to the ceiling at regular intervals in order to distribute the load along the ceiling, until the cable can drop down out of the shot. We recommend that you always leave several coils of cable at the light in case you need to move the light.
Both Porta-Grid Cable Keepers feature our exclusive spiral cable keeper loop design. The loop makes a nearly complete circle so that the cables can't fall out. The large size of the loop enables it to hold many cables at once. While, the spiral of the loop makes it easy to put a cable in, as well as take it out of the Keeper. Without a doubt, this capability of the Porta-Grid Cable Keeper's to safely wrangle a lot of cable is an integral part of the Porta-Grid System's capability to safely rig more fixtures on a drop ceiling than had ever been possible before. But, this is only half of what makes the Porta-Grid System revolutionary. For truly great lighting, you must also be able to shape and modify the light itself for optimum effect.
The Porta-Grid System offers just such capability. For example, in this production we had to cut the amount of light on one actor coming from the key for another actor, while cutting it off a third actor all together. The only way to accomplish this, given the softness of the light coming from the 200 Par with 216 on it, was with a net close to the light to feather the cut on the one actor, and a flag far away from the light to make a precise hard cut for the other actor. Clearly it would have been impossible to do either with a grip arm on a traditional scissor clip with stud, and unfortunately there was nothing to rig a grip arm onto above the ceiling. Fortunately, however, (as can be seen in picture #9) the versatility of the Porta-Grid System enabled us to easily accomplish both cuts
The key to the extensive grip capability of the Porta-Grid System, is that it replaces the bulky and heavy 2 1/2" grip head and rigid arm, with the compact and extremely lightweight articulating arm seen in picture #9. It features the same secure "Posi-Lock" connection as the Porta-Grid light mounts so that it can be rigged on the same clamp as the light (as seen in picture #10). The narrow profile of the arm's "Posi-Lock" connection, and its' light weight, enables you to even nest multiple grip arms with the light for unparalleled grip capability. The arm's joints feature a locking mechanism that enables rock steady placement of even 18x24 gobos.
The Porta-Grid Articulating Grip Arm is only a part of what gives the Porta-Grid System unparalleled grip capability. The system also features a large assortment of grip accessories - including drop down extensions, risers, offsets and small lightweight flags, nets, and printed gobo patterns - designed specifically for cutting and modifying lights rigged into drop ceilings. Taken together they offer unparalleled grip capability in a drop ceiling hanger, to chop, silk, net, tease, and breakup light. In fact, the Porta-Grid System offers you the same control on location that you are accustomed to having in the studio.
Overall, Boyd Estus, the Director of Photography for "Stop Thief", was very happy with the production values that we were able to accomplish with the Porta-Grid System under the circumstances. While Peter Rhodes was very pleased with the performance he was able to get out of his elderly cast because of the Porta-Grid System.
This production demonstrates just a few of the many exclusive features of the Porta-Grid System that enable it to turn any ordinary drop-ceiling into a full blown studio grid. To be certain, the same features that made the Porta-Grid System so effective under these circumstances, also make it effective under any circumstances. By virtue of the fact that it worked here, when nothing else would, proves that it is sure to work anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances - site unseen. How many other grip lines can make that guarantee? Without a doubt, the Porta-Grid System is the best production tool you can have in your bag of tricks when shooting under drop ceilings.
The Porta-Grid System is registered w/ U.S.Patent & TM Office.
Sample Productions