A Gaffer's Dream: Redheads
Health and Safety has been an issue we have taken seriously from the very first minute studying at CCAD. This already began in the first hour by filling in my very first risk assessment and snaked through the whole term. Therefore, it is only natural that Health and Safety would also be highly important in light setting and within the light department.
As we were introduced to the light equipment, we quickly went from LED cool lights and Dedolight Felloni 2 to the infamous 800W Tungsten redheads. Knowing that these lights get incredibly hot in a very short period of time and are thus easily able to burn your skin down to the bones, we all shied away from using them on our shoots.
But as lighting is one of the most important elements of cinematography, and redheads offer a huge potential, you cannot escape its use forever.
So after a term of shyly lurking about, we decided to take them out and practice the correct set-up of redheads at our soundstage to get into the habit and lose the fear for these lights.
What is most important in rigging 800W is the visual inspection at the beginning of every single use. You would naturally the redheads for cracks in the safety mesh (the metal net in front of the lightbulb that prevents greater damage if the bulb decides to blow up on you (which statistically happens, we were told, about five times per year and lamp).
Also, you need to check whether the plugs are bent or broken, the cables damaged or torn and you need to give the plug a short shake to hear if any part is jangling inside it. Once in use, you usually give the redheads about 30 min to cool down before de-rigging them. There have already been cases where people forgot to let the redheads cool and either severely burned themselves or the attached cables while wrapping up. In our case above, we did not have to wait that long since we only briefly switched the redheads on and the surrounding temperature at the soundstage was extremely low.
Since the redheads we use each use up 800W of energy, it's only plausible that you cannot plug in more than two of them into the same circuit (equalling 1600W (or 1.6KW) for a standard 2KW circuit). With extension cables, unless you have one that is designed for that Watt usage, it is usually down to only one redhead per cable, which will then need to be uncoiled to the requiring Watt-number first. Since electrified coils tend to magnetise, this would inevitably lead to heat-up in the cable. So, yeah, uncoil that thing!
Setting up the stands for the redhead first, you need to make sure that the supporting bars of the stand run parallel to the surface they stand on, giving it the most balance and security. Once the light is installed and fastened on the top of the stand, you usually run the cable under one leg to create more stability. This way, if someone were to trip over the cable, the redhead is less likely to topple over and crash (or seriously burn cast or crew), but will rather slide across the floor.
If the light has been securely installed on the redhead, you are only left to open the barn doors, install the desired gels (or scrims, for that matter) with fire-proof clamps and position them to your liking, keeping them away from any flammable materials, before turning them on. You should never move a redhead that has already been switched on, since it will then be more prone to pop the bulb! Also, you should never touch the glass within the light, since the grease of your skin will remain on it, turning brown the next time the light is used and basically boil the glass inside.
Rigging and Derigging the redheads was a good exercise that refreshed our knowledge and helped us get used to the feared beast that is a redhead.
References:
Neil Oseman (2013) Gaffering Basics [online] http://neiloseman.com/gaffering-basics/ [Accessed on 5 December 2017]MerkenMerkenMerken