Hurlblog - the Blog for Shane Hurlbut, ASC

We have been getting may questions about the 5D and lighting. The sub experience was a lighting challenge to even the most seasoned expert. The lighting approach has to be very different when you are in an active working environment and the SEALS are in operation mode. The luxury of having your static set is gone and John and I talked about we needed to be stealth, fast and unobtrusive to the subs crew. I wanted to feature John Guerra, one my Elite Team members and how he pulled it off.

Lighting On The Sub

“I’m a gaffer. I’ve been a gaffer for over twenty years. That means I’ve done a few things and some of them I’ve done twice. None of those things, however, involve lighting aboard a Los Angeles class submarine while underway. This was a first. It was a unique, exciting life experience that happened to involve a little lighting. In the following piece I may not address all, or any questions, you might have about the current state of motion picture nuclear submarine lighting. Feel free to write to me for whatever specific information you require. I have a very tactile approach to what I do. I’m not big on diagrams, foot candle graphs, the inverse square law or anything appearing in bold face type in American Cinematographer.

There are a few things I feel are essential to the success of any project. The first is information. 90% of my job is completed in the prep. We knew what units to bring on the sub based on our experiences over the past few months. We had good intel. But good info needs to be applied properly to any situation and that requires good thinking. Good thinking is positive thinking – my number one rule of gaffing is simple, “no one is paying you to say no”. If you’ve been invited on to a project, it’s because someone needs your help – so be positive, be helpful. Finally, I like to ramble. I enjoy it. It’s who I am.

At first I thought it might be interesting to compose a short essay about the intricacies of lighting for the Canon 5D, 7D and 1D aboard a nuclear (or nukular if you’re a Republican) submarine. Realizing the dire necessity for a comprehensive instruction manual directed specifically at motion picture lighting for nuclear submarines I took to the task with the zeal of a tele-evangelist. The result could best be described as a six page sleep aid, second only in effectiveness to a happy finish from a Philippine massage specialist. So after a reread followed by a long nap I deleted that tome and began this one.

Prior to boarding the USS Florida, I had shot previously on a World War II era sub, the USS Pampanito. It’s a tourist attraction docked at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. The major differences between the Pampanito and the Florida were as follows:

1. The Pampanito was tiny, about half the size of the USS. Florida.
2. The Pampanito had diesel engines and though they hadn’t been used for fifty years the smell was still overpowering.
3. The Pampanito was dockside so we brought power aboard from a generator on the dock. That meant the only variable limiting our choice of instruments was what we could fit down the hatch.
4. Most important, as we were shooting a music video for the song, In The Navy, we had The Village People with us; a source of tremendous close quartered amusement.

In reality, my experiences aboard Pampanito have little to do with this blog, it was just a good excuse to make a joke about the Village People.

On to more serious matters. If you’re a lighting guy and you get a call to cast some lumens about aboard a submarine you’ll probably have a few questions. I know I did.

1. Is there a decent craft service person on the job or are we relying on the US Navy to supply snacks throughout the day?  The Navy did their best.
2. How much power, and of what type and voltage is available aboard the boat? I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand having to rely on battery powered units of any kind, even LEDs. Perhaps it’s a holdover from the days of unreliable HID sunguns, but battery powered instruments make me very uneasy. Luckily, the USS Florida was lousy with standard 120 volt AC outlets. Considering the reactor aboard the boat makes enough electricity to power the city of Las Vegas for almost six years without refueling I shouldn’t be so surprised.

So power was no problem as long as we relied on small units, 20 amps and under. As you all know the Canon cameras allowed us the luxury of using very compact units that worked within the established parameters of the USS Florida’s existing lighting scheme. Only the underwater sequences showing the SEALs using the DDS (Dry Deck Shelter) to access the SDV (SEAL Delivery Vehicle) employed battery powered instruments. More about that later.

The power question having been addressed the next huge issue was, “how much stuff can I bring?” The answer depended on who you asked. The producer said, “You’re already bringing too much stuff, whatever it is. Bring less”.  Shane said, “Since you’re not bringing a crew and you’ll be doing the work by yourself, think in terms of a five ton as opposed to a ten ton package”.  In keeping with the old adage, “it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission”, no body as far as I could tell bothered to consult the US Navy as to our limitations.  There was one restriction however, everything we brought had to fit into a hard Pelican (or similar) case, and no case could be larger than three feet across.  The reason for the restrictions, everything we brought had to loaded by hand, down a vertical ladder into the sub. Don’t ask me how they get those big missiles in there.

After a day at the rental house picking and choosing instruments, rigging gear and expendables I loaded it all into cases. When I was finished, the lighting package totaled about 40 cases or so separate. I piled it all up on the floor of the rental house and waited for someone, anyone, to come to their senses. “Holy Crap that’s a lot of shit, Guerra” (I might have the crap and the shit reversed but you get the idea), the voice of reason finally tolled from somewhere.  So we pared down the package to 28 cases, a surprisingly reasonable amount. Here’s what we brought for the dry work:

1 Dedo kit

6 – 3×6 LED Lightpanel

2 – 1×1 LED Lightpanel

12 – MR-16 Par Cans w/ 75 watt globes

approx 250 feet of incandescent rope light

I can hear it now, “what, no Kino Flos?” Earlier in the year we had an experience lighting a rescue sub using Kinos, which were the perfect tool for the job. The sub interior looked fantastic but after a full day of lighting we were told that fluorescents were not allowed in submersibles because of the chance they contained mercury and if broken, out gas fluorine  as well as other toxins. Sorry Frieder, Kinos es verboten.

Lighting with Sub SDV

The following units comprised the arsenal for the underwater work:

4 -  Hydroflex LED Micro Lightpanels

2 – Hydroflex LED 1×1 Lightpanels

These Micro Light panels are powered by 6 AA batteries each. The 1×1 panels require a separate battery pack be attached to the lamp exterior making the whole unit a little bulky and weighting it to a state of negative buoyancy. Both these units are easy to use, however changing the batteries requires some disassembly of each unit so plan your time accordingly. The specs for battery life can be found on the Hydroflex website.

Now we’re ready to go. We’ve got 28 cases for lighting, about 16 cases for camera – how the hell did that happen – and we’re on our way. Almost. At the last minute I panicked and make a final Home Depot run. I get some LED automotive trouble lights (the kind you hang inside the hood), more AA batteries (the coin of the realm aboard a sub, good for bartering for an extra desert), more sticky pads and zip ties (essential!!!!!) and some of those anti-nausea wrist bands (yes they really work).

The single most important item we brought aboard the sub didn’t fit into a Pelican case however, nor was it to be found (forgive for saying it) on the shelves of Home Depot.  We brought experience forged in some unforgiving circumstances, the swamps of Stennis, Mississippi and the heat of El Centro. When I was first contacted to do this job, the sub portion was at the beginning of the schedule. When it was postponed I was quite disappointed. In retrospect, that was a tremendous gift. By the time we boarded the USS Florida we understood the limits and tolerances of the Canon platform enough so that we were confident in our choices of lighting instruments. We didn’t know what to expect aboard the sub, but we knew that the sensitivity of the Canon sensor gave us tremendous latitude with a minimum of instruments. Armed with the knowledge we’d collected in months prior we were confident that whatever we found, we could handle it with what we brought. And we weren’t wrong, far from it in fact.

Sub Interior Con Dive

The interior of the sub is lit primarily with small overhead fluorescents. That’s right, fluorescents. Don’t ask me why their fluorescents are any safer than ours, they’re not. The ultra sensitive Canon platform allowed us to use the existing sub lighting and punctuate it with our mini pars and Dedos. Often times we turned off, or gelled all but a few of the existing units and relied on our light panels and a rope light based invention we have since dubbed the “light colon”.

Sub Interior- Helmsman on the con

The Canon sensor really showed it’s stuff when we shot the two helmsmen on the con as they put the boat into a steep dive. The con contains all the ships navigational instrumentation, as well as a bunch of other cool stuff that we weren’t allowed to photograph, and at night it’s kept dark. Really dark. In fact, it’s really only illuminated by its instrumentation and whatever displays and screens are currently displaying information. It would have been impossible to shoot in there with a film camera and expect anything other than the brightest screen to have been exposed. We shot two entire scenes in there using two 3×6 panel lights with red gel, a single 1×1 panel light with medium blue green gel (dimmed way down) and one of our new fangled “light-colons”.

The results were beautiful.

We’ve all seen what it looks like when it’s been built to the director’s specs by the production designer and lit by the DP over the course of a few months after spending untold hours of camera tests, tantrums and the inevitable onslaught of relighting. I’d put our four hours on the bridge up against any footage from any big studio picture. In a nutshell, five guys went down for five days and got five million bucks worth of footage for – well I don’t know for how much but it probably involves the number five.

There are certain experiences that we come to cherish in our careers. We mark time by them, in some way they define who we were at such and such a place in our lives. This was one of those experiences for me. At the risk of sounding trite, shooting aboard the USS Florida was a once in a life time experience. I’d like to be invited back, but it’s unlikely the opportunity would present itself.  One thing I can say for sure is that the memory was made all the more sweet by how the Canon platform allowed me to create within an already established environment. I didn’t have to angst over figuring our how to create a key source that would actually make a dent in the emulsion but wouldn’t look out of place in a darkened control room. I had the luxury of being able to participate creatively, without having to stress about fundamental and rudimentary concerns (such as seeing the actors face).  Because of the freedom afforded me by this remarkable camera my appreciation of this experience and my appreciation of the Canon platform are inextricably intertwined.

Sub Con Periscope

I’m sure there are a lot of questions I haven’t answered in here. Please feel free to ask whatever you wish and I’ll answer it in any way I see fit. That’s just who I am.”

Jonathan Guerra

Hurlbut Visuals Elite Team Member