Astera Titan & Helios Tubes used on the Sci-Fi Comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

James Whitaker, ASC, reunited with director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean, Rango, A Cure for Wellness) to shoot the sci-fi comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Whitaker used Astera Titan and Helios Tubes to assist mild the fast-paced journey.

When Whitaker acquired the script for Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, his response was “This is bonkers, I have to do this.” The absurdist story follows a time traveler (a bedraggled Sam Rockwell) who should recruit a band of strangers at a Los Angeles diner to save lots of the world. While enjoying with themes of society’s relationship to AI and different new runaway applied sciences, the movie packages a well timed critique within the hero’s journey of an unlikely ensemble.

The movie needed to be finished with a small price range of simply over $20 million USD. Production deliberate a 60-day shoot in Cape Town, South Africa. To make the aggressive schedule a actuality meant a dramatic shift in Verbinski’s method to lighting, and that is the place they turned to Astera to assist with the lighting.

Good Luck is Verbinski’s first dive again into options since 2016’s A Cure for Wellness, and within the intervening years, large-format digital cinematography had matured, and LED lighting had grown from a novelty right into a manufacturing important. A director finest identified for mega-sized movies with intensive sources, the transition to a lean unbiased movie, whereas retaining the important Verbinski-quality required some lateral pondering.

Early into prep, Verbinski was looking for options. They wanted to give you solutions for questions reminiscent of, might we shoot evening exteriors with minimal lighting? Could we mild with out plugging issues in? Gore hadn’t labored a lot with LED lights.

Gore was intrigued by the LED lighting prospects immediately, and he favored the truth that Astera Titan Tubes may very well be positioned into the ceiling with no need to run energy to them. It would take lower than a minute to get the tubes within the ceiling, hung safely, and with full DMX and XY management from the board. The velocity and economic system of battery-powered, wi-fi LED fixtures had been liberating, permitting bolder, wider decisions, even with a decent price range and schedule.

The movie opens with a difficult sequence–a 12-minute dynamic monologue by Sam Rockwell’s time-traveling protagonist as he works to recruit unwilling patrons in Norm’s Diner. Production designer David Brisbin meticulously recreated the Los Angeles landmark (exercising some artistic license) inside an enormous dome-shaped conference area in Cape Town, full with two and a half blocks of La Cienega Boulevard facades.

The manufacturing allotted solely eight days to seize the advanced 12-page sequence. They wanted to be quick and to maneuver round with one thing transportable that would mild faces in a short time.

The total again space of the restaurant, the kitchen, and the hallways had been all lit with sensible fixtures that seemed like fluorescents, however they had been Astera Titan and Hyperion Tubes. Larger items by way of 8×8’ or 12×12’ diffusions had been used, however usually it could simply use a Titan or two in a Lightsock, which may be additional subtle with a 4’x4’ body. With 16 pixels that may be individually programmed from a lighting console or the Astera App, the baton-shaped LED Hyperion and Titan Tubes supplied minutely tunable lighting all through the set.

This all-around lighting method allowed Verbinski and Whitaker to take care of protection from a number of angles, adjusting within the second fairly than dropping time to pricey re-lights. The diner is so authentically Norms, it’s straightforward to neglect the scene itself was shot on the opposite facet of the globe. The normality of the opening sequence lays acquainted groundwork earlier than launching the viewer on an more and more surreal journey.

LED lighting performed an enormous half in with the ability to transfer rapidly. Only a handful of conventional HMIs had been used. The manufacturing knew from the start that there was not going to be time for intensive lighting that may take too lengthy to arrange and make the most of. The gaffer was not going to have the posh of time to form issues.

Throughout the madcap journey, one configuration grew to become indispensable behind the scenes: Astera Tubes fitted with Lightsocks. They used Helios (the smallest, half-meter Astera Tube) on a regular basis for eye lights, paired with Lightsocks for a softer impact.

Many set items nonetheless required intensive lighting infrastructure, with LED Moon packing containers lofted from cranes and arrays of LEDs constructed on Gradalls and Condors illuminating total nighttime avenue blocks. The Astera Tubes, naked, in Lightsocks, or in Kino Flo housings, formed the sunshine instantly on the actors.

The mixture supplied delicate, flattering illumination that may very well be positioned and adjusted in seconds–important when taking pictures dozens of setups day by day. The Lightsock’s diffusion additionally reworked the Titan Tube’s output into a mild supply excellent for close-up work, whereas the battery energy and wi-fi management meant no time wasted operating cables or discovering retailers.

Beyond Norm’s Diner, Whitaker deployed Helios Tubes, Titan Tubes, Hyperion Tubes, and NYX Bulbs throughout the movie’s various areas–from sooty alleyways lit with blended sodium and metallic halide tones to an enormous 150-foot-long chamber with a 40-foot-tall LED wall.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is equal elements a rallying cry and alarm bell. It advocates for even essentially the most unlikely particular person’s capacity to step in and form the torrent of historical past. The film is full of revolutionary, pleasant lighting gags, from teenage zombies lit by their precise cellphone screens to a wild digital twister. Verbinski is understood for sensible results and in-camera magic courting again to 1997’s Mouse Hunt.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is displaying now in theaters.