Shooting a Super Bowl Feature with the Ice Light

Lighting With No Time, On The Fly?

When it came to lighting, we often had very little time–as might be expected on these type of run-and-gun shoots.

What we needed were lights that could be ultra-portable, quick to set up, and versatile enough to work in situations that we didn’t even know about yet!

The “right way” to approach this would be to shoot most of the scenes with natural light and just make the best of it, or to bring in the whole lighting kit, explode the lighting budget, and spend valuable time setting up and breaking down huge set-ups.

We didn’t have hours and hours–we often only had minutes.

We wanted to make the most of the situation, so we found a way to bring lights they could make a large impact in a little amount of time.

One of the lights that made the largest impact for us was the Ice Light, a battery powered LED light that is daylight balanced and offers a very soft light.

We brought along a colored gel so that we can get to 4000 Kelvin or all the way down to 3200 Kelvin. We had the versatility of changing temperatures as needed.

Having a bright light that you can carry with one hand, that’s battery operated, and still offers a soft quality of light is such a powerful tool.

What’s amazing is that the Ice Light was actually designed for photographers, because of that, it may be missed as a solid cinema option. The Ice Light was perfect for our story.

We used it in the underbelly of the Superdome to light photos, we used it as a hair light for interviews, and we used it in nightclubs to light fans and reactions where there’s no way we could’ve gotten a light stand or power.

It was a very different way of lighting for us–yet, it was a very powerful way of lighting that we think gave us much better images in many scenarios.

This is an excerpt of a posting that featured this review of the Ice Light and appeared on Stillmotion Blog: Shooting a Super Bowl Feature: There is No Spoon on February 1, 2013.

Lighting Gear in Action