California State University Northridge (CSUN) students in the Cinema & Television Arts Department recently unpacked the newest addition to their lighting package, Litepanels Sola 6 Fresnel units.
The new LED lights are already at work, demonstrating various lighting set-ups. The facility has used the Sola 6 Fresnels with ½ CTO gels for key and fill lights and with ¼ CTB as backlight to emulate moonlight. It also set up a practical candle-lit dinner scene to demo how they could emulate candle light on subjects sitting opposite each other at a table. The Sola 6 Fresnels provided a back cross key pattern and low front fill.
Students quickly began to understand that Litepanels are cool to the touch and heat-free on the talent. They saw that scrims aren’t necessary because of the Sola 6’s onboard dimming capabilities. Remote control of spot-flood settings and the ability to power with battery packs on location help students light their projects quickly and safely, so that they can concentrate on capturing good imagery.
In addition to the Sola 6 Fresnels, CSUN also has a variety of Litepanels fixtures both in its equipment room and in the grids of the school’s in-house studio. Students can check them out and take them on location, or set them on stands in a variety of set-ups at the school. They have been using a wide variety of the Litepanels for their senior thesis projects, which employ both 35mm film and high-definition video.
