Trounce Alley Lighting Company

Mirza Sahiban is one of the most famous stories in Punjabi literature, and one whose origin goes back hundreds of years. It is a story that has been told and retold for generations, so when a film takes up this tale and labels it The Untold Story, ears were certainly perking up among the millions of Punjabis worldwide. The traditional story is one of forbidden love, revenge, and tragedy; not unlike many legendary folk tales from the world over, but this tragic ending is a bit notorious, because of a twist at the end that gives the story a part of its name.

There’s a new trailer out for Mirza 2012: The Untold Story. The film is causing a huge stir in India.

We worked with our good friend, and Vancouver’s best kept cinematographer secret: TOBY GORMAN, to create an action-packed big-budget movie look with a skeleton crew of only 4 guys (which includes a dual gaffer/key grip, a best boy, and two swing technicians). We added a tow-generator, and a 6k Par to supplement the TALCO LIGHTING & GRIP PACKAGE, and that was it.

This is proof that a new era of image-making is upon us. Sensitive digital cameras — tightly knit crew of skilled independent filmmakers — making the most of limited tools — we can create huge budget-like features! We’ve proven this. Watch the trailer above (!).

MIRZA 2012: The Untold Story Theatrical Film Release

This time lapse from the first portion of a 6 day film shoot at VFS with director Michael Chayse — Head of Production for VFS Entertainment — shows what can be done with TALCO’s 5-ton lighting and grip package truck out of the box.

Vancouver Film School’s equipment was booked by multiple graduation projects from the cinematography program. Michael was leading an inter-department collaboration between the school of business and post production code named Project Space Squid, which involved students, faculty, and alumni. The project was based on the sci-fi cosmic horror writing of HP Lovecraft, an american writer from the turn of the century.

Michael needed professional lighting to bring Lovecraft’s surreal Cthulhu Mythos to life.

VFS Entertainment turned to our grip truck to convert an unused space which had no lighting grid into a functioning green screen studio with lights and equipment. We performed lighting services while business management students oversaw the shooting of 5 short films. They were titled: C’Thulhu, Dagon, Dunwich, Erich Zahn, and Rats.

The students are maintaining a comprehensive blog of their progress in post production.

The project was overseen by VFS head of the Entertainment Business Management department, Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin, who also produced a 7-minute behinds the scenes documentary of the production titled, The Interactive Lovecraft.

Further there are some photos taken by a student here.

The VFS press department seems to be on a roll with this project…more will follow.

Factoring in 41 years of inflation since Woodstock ’69 LOVE has somehow managed to stay free in Canada suggests, The Higgins, in their first single from their second album, Dreamers Like us, which is scheduled for release in Spring 2010.

Official music video for “Free Like Love” by The Higgin.
Directed by multiple award-winner Stephano Barberis and produced by Arkadia Pictures Inc.

Scroll down for a technical lighting summary of the setup.

The Higgins are John, Eileen, and Kathleen Higgins, brother and sisters, from Delta, BC, Canada.

Lighting Summary:

We rigged the stage for cinematographer Ron Williams C.S.C with a 4×8′ softbox above the band.

The rig consisted of 3 blondes and a frame of 216 diffusion. It was built with pipe and burtons from a goalpost allowing it to “pendulum” down so the angle of light would be less overhead and more in the eyes of our talent. Due to the weight of the rig our goalpost consisted of three 20′ schedule 40 pipes (1 1/2″ Aluminum) joined together into a triangle formation using Modern Studio Equipment mini-truss brackets. We cranked the rig up in super-crank roller stands (12.6′ max height). The wheels on the stand allowed us to roll the entire rig closer to the camera to make the lighting more frontal for the closeups.

Of primary concern to Ron was beauty lighting for the band’s two female musicians.

In addition tot he softbox over the stage we filled from over the heads of the crowd using a 10k fresnel through a 6×6 frame of half grid cloth. We used solid blades and flops to cut most of the spill off the crowd so it would project over their heads into the eyes of our band. There was also two tungsten units on the ground through diffusion frames to fill from below the stage in front of the band because that was the direction they would look down at the crowd. These units were hidden from camera between the crowd and the stage on the ground.

TALCO built a 4x8' softbox with pipe & burtons and suspended it over the band with a makeshift 20' truss on super cranks. A 10k key through a 6x6 frame cut off the crowd provided fill.

Technical Notes:

If doing a similar rig consider using a specialized truss lifting support from the theatre/live event industry in place of super-crank stands. They are usually load rated much higher then super-cranks and some of them can go upwards of 20′ in height which would be a huge asset if the stage was any higher (compared to 12.6′ for a super-crank stand).

Also consider using real truss for less sag across the span. We used ropes and pulleys from the truss of the studio to safety our rig but if you didn’t have access to a lift to get up there you’d certainly want to make your truss more rigid.

We provided additional fill from tungsten units on the ground through 24'x36' Diffusion Frames hidden from camera between the crowd and the stage.

Beach fun at Burnaby Lake — Director Mitch Bax of Monument Pictures completes a choreographed music video for Brandon Paris Band. The song ‘Can’t Hate You,’ plays out entirely in four steadycam takes operated by Pieter Stathis with cinematography by Randy Che.

We rigged the house with MSE (modern) pipe spreaders to keep our movie lights out of view of the roaming steadycam. The camera chases a girl around the house and exposes band members who crawl out of the cupboards to try to charm her.

(BARNA-ALPER DEC 07) a condor rigged by TALCO lights a Delta farm set

As the SAG situation and economy combine to create a slow start to the new year for us in Vancouver, we look towards our next projects…Any takers?

At the moment we are passing our time collaborating with Brant McIlroy and Martin Testa of the innovative Brant FX company (their website is being redesigned) on a unique animatronic project completely unlike the last film we met them on over a year ago. A photo to the left shows a taste from the past as TALCO illuminates a large night exterior using a condor flying above a rural landscape supported by fog and rain towers by the effects duo, BrantFX.

They created the rain somehow without a pump truck because this was a docu-drama, not a big budget feature and the show could not afford the $3000 it would have cost to have a pump truck. They couldn’t afford a pair of 40′ trailers either with seperate grips and electrics. That’s where we came in with a carefully planned, minimal set of subrentals and our basic 5-ton package truck. Together Trounce Alley Lighting Company and BrantFX created a big budget hollywood look on a docu-drama budget. In fact, we were able to work out an arrangement to have our truck for 2 months of interviews preceding this shoot. This allowed us to push a new standard forward as far as what cinematically could be done in the confines of a docu-drama structure.

We like Brant and Martin because they have the same “can-do” attitude as us. They can literally take on any challenge no matter how immense — and pull it off for relative peanuts compared to a large studio. Like us, they have built a truck for the motion picture industry and they have the equipment and knowledge to create anything out of electronics, chemicals, metals — you name it — they’ve done it — their workshop is something straight out of Ironman.

Personally we’ve seen them cut steel like butter, use explosives, build circuit boards, weld, and experiment with rare mineral oils, all to the blaring sound of heavy metal on their studio’s sound system!

Of even more potential: the studio space BrantFX owns — when teamed up with TALCO the possibilities are endless! Whether its music videos, commercials, or anything that needs special effects and lighting — together we raise eyebrows for a fraction of a cost of the big studio outfits! We can provide everything from 20′x20′ green screens to a camera dolly and gib arm — your complete lighting and grip needs. They can provide the studio, animatronics, and effects. Good things are in the future.

Who’s going to be the first to bring us together and create million dollar results for relative pennies? We’ll keep you posted as this latest collaboration develops.

In an effort to gain more clients we are in the process of developing our website into a blog format. This will allow us to have more fun with the site and post announcements, tidbits of media surrounding our projects, or other press releases. The world of internet technology is changing so rapidly that we have turned to open source web-publishing software to keep us afloat.

Our platform of choice is the widely established WordPress project which gained popularity over Movable Type when the later temporarily revoked its public licenses in an attempt to go fully private. In the spirit of independent filmmakers we choose to go with the purest project because the two are comparable in features.

BARNA-ALPER DEC 2007: a TALCO technician demonstrates his lighting and grip skills on set at TERMINAL CITY.