And cue the sun……….

In the beginning it was dark and cold. There was no sun, no light, no earth, no solar system. There was nothing, just the empty void of space. Then slowly, about 4.5 billion years ago, a swirling nebula, – a huge cloud of gas and dust was formed. Eventually this cloud contracted and grew into a central molten mass that became our sun. At first the sun was a molten glow. As the core pressure increased, and the temperature rose to millions of degrees – a star was born. Through the process of thermonuclear hydrogen fusion, the sun began to shine.

Then along came the film industry………. “We can make the sun rise and set on our own”

On a recent tvc that i worked on the director of photography requested that we simulate a sun rise effect for the shot that we were doing…

The idea was that this guy was sitting in his car looking out the window and on a cue the sun would  slowly rise lighting up his face and creating the effect of a beautiful sun rise…….

So using an HMI ……”

Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide, or HMI, is a  medium arc-length lamp manufactured for the film and entertainment industry. Hydrargyrum is latin for mercury (Hg). The term HMI has become a trade name for all similar high-quality metal-halide lamps made for film and entertainment, regardless of manufacturer.

An HMI lamp uses mercury vapour mixed with metal halides in a quartz-glass envelope, with two tungsten electrodes of medium arc separation. Unlike traditional lighting units using incandescent bulbs, HMIs need electrical ballasts, which are separated from the head via a header cable, to limit current and supply the proper voltage. The lamp operates by creating an electrical arc between two electrodes within the bulb that excites the pressurized mercury vapour and metal halides, and provides very high light output with greater efficiency  than incandescent lighting units. The efficiency advantage is near fourfold, with approximately 85–108 lumens per watt of electricity. Unlike tungsten lights where the halide gas is used to regenerate the filament and keep the evaporated tungsten from darkening, the mercury vapour and the metal halides in HMI lamps are what emit the light. The high CRI and color temperature are due to the specific lamp chemistries.

Like i was saying using an HMI lamp in this case a 1.2kw arri par we placed the lamp on a small jib arm/crane and did a move from the ground to the roof of our set,which created a lighting effect like the sun was rising ……

My mate kiwi Kim was the grip in charge of doing the smooth slow crane movement that was required for this effect….

At the end of the day the shot came out great and everyone was very happy with the end result…..Just another day at the office ………..