American Cinematographer - December 1988 - 11

and the electronics cooling
fans make noise-somewhat
less than a 35-3 running at
120

fps. Cool running means
you can shoot, for example,
ice cream. And taping gels is
no problem. Strobe color
temperature is 7,000° Kelvin.

Five or six times
less expensive

"The big advantage of
working with the Clairmont
Strobe," says Ralph

Chandler, "Is that the shot
can end up costing five or six
times less. You spend at
least a half day on one
high-speed or strobe setup.
And you always need to shoot
a

It's the Strobe
that gives

the blur-free
image, not
camera speed; you
can use speed
you

for other effects.

Director of Photography

Larry Boelens used a
Clairmont Strobe for a
Budweiser commercial. One
of the series in which the
customer asks for a Light
and gets all sorts of surprise

lighting effects instead of a
beer-until he learns to ask
for a Bud Light.

Budweiser Disco
"In this one, the

storyboard

called for a disco scene with
strobe lights," says Larry
Boelens. "The agency

copywriter didn't know that
regular strobes wouldn't
sync with the camera. And
yet those strobe lights

the central feature of
the commercial."
were

"Without the

test. That's two half-days."

Sharpness you can't get
any other way:
Specs and Facts
The Clairmont Strobe
measure

Fewer people,
less equipment

"Usually, I'm already
budgeted for one crew and
the Arriflex. I find I save by
not hiring another operator
for the high-speed camera,
by not renting that camera,
by not renting the high-speed
strobe (which costs more)
and by not hiring the

operator that comes with it.
I also save by using less film.
High speed eats film."

$7,000 or
$8,000 extra for
one

shot

"And the Clairmont Strobe is
faster to work with," says
Mr. Chandler. "When you
add all these things up for
the two half-days, the

high-speed rig and crew can
cost you $7,000 or $8,000
extra. That's for one shot"

Flexibility

system Lampheads
17 x 10 x 7

inches and weigh IOV2

pounds. Each one comes
with a light-stand yoke
and a Powerpack. The
Powerpack measures 16
X

the effect, you can
also switch each
individual Lamphead on
and off while the Strobe
To

12 X 6 inches and

weighs 46V2 pounds. Its
suitcase-type handle
makes it easy to carry.

see

system is running but the
camera

Preview Box
for lighting setup

Use any number
of Lampheads

With the Preview

The usual setup is two or
three Lampheads-but

people have used as many
as eight. They all fire in
sync automatically. Each
Powerpack/Lamphead
runs on 110 volts, draws 10
amps and delivers 250
foot-candles at 4 feet.

Only box,
all the
Lampheads at 61 flashes
per second, without
running the camera. At
that speed, the strobe
lights look almost like
regular AC light. You can
look through the camera
and position the Heads for
the effect you want.
you can run

Sync Control

Automatic

The Sync Control box

Lightmeter

automatically relays the
sync signal from the
camera. It has settings
for flash-sequence rate
(marked in frames),
film-and-eyepiece or
film-only, 35mm or
16mm, master on/off.

isn't. And there's

low-power switch on
each Powerpack that
gives you one stop less.
a

The Clairmont Strobe

system also comes with a
digital Lightmeter. Its
LCD readout gives you
incident readings in
f/stops, while you run the
system with the Preview
Box. You program the
film ASA into the

Lightmeter-everything

strobe,

else is automatic.

couldn't have
shot it as written,"
we

says Larry Boelens
"Without the Clairmont

Strobe, we couldn't have shot
it

as written. Just splicing in
flash frames wouldn't do

it, in this case-we needed
to

see the strobe lights
hit the actors and create their
own shadows."

Sync Control, Preview Box
and Lightmeter are small, easy
to use. Cool running makes
it simple to shoot ice cream.

Needed no
familiarization
"I had

never

used this strobe

system before," says Mr.
Boelens. "So I called Denny
and he explained it to me on
the phone. Seemed perfectly

simple. So we shot a test to
find out what rate we
wanted. (One strobe every
five frames.) That test
all the familiarization
we needed."
was

CLAIRMONT
CAMERA
4040 Vineland, Studio

City, California 91604

238 East 1st St, N. Vancouver, B.C. V7L1B3

*

(818)761-4440
(604)984-4563

*
American Cinematographer - December 1988

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 1988
