hey everyone Tyler Edwards here today

I'm going to be talking about RGB

lighting and why I think it's such a

powerful tool for filmmaking and

photography

now for the sake of this video when I

mentioned RGB lighting I'm referring to

two of kind of the leading Technologies

when it comes to RGB lighting for

filmmaking and that's rgbww and RGB ACL

now they both have their benefits and

their pros and cons over each other I'm

not going to get into all that in this

video just know that if you see if

you're shopping for RGB lights look out

for either RGB ACL or rgbww because

those are kind of the most accurate

lighting fixtures out there when it

comes to RGB lighting for filmmaking

okay well with that said let's go and

hop into some of the benefits of RGB

fixtures and and why they're such

powerful tools and the first thing is

you get an extended CCT range now some

fixtures like daylight balance sources

or just tungsten sources like a source 4

or something like that the only way to

really change that color temperature is

to use gels so like for example right

here I've got a number of different gels

I've got some some CTS which I really

love for for warming up daylight balance

fixtures I've got some half and full

rolls here which is nice and then I've

got uh some like these little uh gel

this little gel pack from I think it's

Lee filters yeah and I've got like CTO

um ctbs uh purples and greens and reds

and all that kind of stuff so a bunch of

different uh little gels and that's the

really the only way to change the color

of these fixtures that are only set to

either daylight or tungsten but wait a

minute I know I know what you're

thinking you can you can get bi-color

lights can't you yeah absolutely you can

get bicolor lights and and typically

those will kind of on average be

somewhere between 2500 or 2700 Kelvin

which is kind of warmer all the way up

to like 6500 to 7 500 Kelvin somewhere

in that range it just kind of depends

but the cool thing about RGB lighting is

you can actually expand that even more

all the way from like 1500 Kelvin to

like 20 000 Kelvin so you have so many

more options with regards to like

getting whatever CCT that you want and

those extra LED chips in there kind of

help you get to those uh those lower end

and higher end CCT ranges just to kind

of give you way more creative choices on

set now that expanded CCT range is

obviously a huge benefit of RGB lights

but it doesn't stop there the next thing

we'll talk about is be able to kind of

dial in whatever gel that you like and

what I mean by that is like for example

right here I've got like a CTO it's a

full CTO and right here I have full CTS

and then I have CTS well these both warm

up a daylight balance fixture but they

have different characteristics and some

DPS or whatever the case may be might

prefer one over the other a lot of times

I prefer to use CTS especially if I'm

trying to I'm going to mimic afternoon

sun I prefer CTS over CTO with these RGB

lights you can kind of just go into the

app or maybe on on the fixer itself you

just go into the menu system and choose

a half CTS or a quarter CTS or whatever

the case may be and at that point you

don't have to uh gel like run up and put

a gel on your light anymore you can do

that all with an app which is really

cool so huge benefit there uh being able

to kind of dial in whatever gels that

you like some DPS are quite particular

because they've used certain gels over

the career and they kind of know what to

expect from their gels so being able to

match those with an RGB fixture is so

huge and such a Time Saver on set

obviously with RGB lighting you can

pretty much get any color that you want

and just kind of change that with again

within the app or with you know on the

fixture or whatever the case may be

depending on the fixture and you have so

many different variations of the color

different saturation values and all that

kind of stuff so you can really dial in

whatever color you want and this is when

you can start to get really creative on

set with adding color contrast or just

different splashes of light you think

like music videos or or anything like

that or matching neon signs all that

kind of stuff you can do just within the

light itself and not have to you know

rig up different gels and stuff to get

different effects now being able to

expand that CCT range and changing uh to

whatever color that you want or or even

you know matching to whatever gel

dialing whatever gel that you like on

RGB fixtures is super beneficial but I

think the biggest selling point to RGB

lights is the ability to adjust the

green and magenta shift correction now

if you don't know what that is basically

green magenta shift correction basically

introduces a little bit of magenta or a

little bit of green into your fixture

depending on what you're trying to

balance to so in the past if you you

know if you had a a light that was

really green and you needed to correct

that and bring it back down to be you

know a little bit more neutral you'd

have to use something like this

this is a 1 8 minus green gel and uh

this is what you'd have to put in front

of your fixtures to kind of uh tame that

down so that the light sources were

balanced or think of like an office

building where you have a bunch of

fluorescent bulbs uh in the ceiling a

lot of a lot of times those have a

pretty nasty green shift to them and you

either go and gel every one of those

lights or you have to to gel your key

light to kind of balance those out but

also it's not just those fluorescent

bulbs there's a lot of fixtures out

there that have a pretty nasty green

shift to them in particular I found with

like bi-color lights seem to have a

pretty nasty green shift to them so you

either have to use a you know a minus

green correction gel or if you have an

RGB light you just dial in to whatever

plus green or minus green depending on

what the fixture is so for example I was

filming an interview and our key light

was an aperture Nova which is and RGB

WWE fixture and the key light I can't

remember what it was but it was a it was

kind of one of those like flexible LED

Maps but it was only by color and that

bi-color light had a really nasty green

shift to it because we had the aperture

Nova as the key light just walked over

added to I think it was 0.5 correction

so pretty heavy shift and then it looked

really natural and super balanced and

then you just go into your camera

settings and adjust your magenta or

green settings depending on what you

added in on your light just kind of make

it look a little bit more balanced now

we live in a really exciting time with

regards to the the variety of fixtures

that we have available to us with this

RGB technology now like with soft light

fixtures you have you know your LED

panels you have those like flexible LED

lights you get like full these little

practical bulbs uh and you know your

your tube lights as well I mean those

are really popular to use in filmmaking

as well so you have all these different

types of fixtures these the soft light

fixtures that that are available to you

to use but now recently a lot of

companies have started introducing these

point source lights with the Same Led

technology and I think that's where

things get really exciting and

I think that is really like the start of

the shift towards LED lighting

technology and I think that's going to

be the way of the future because of how

versatile point source lights are and on

top of that the versatility of RGB

technology now you can do things like

have that extended CCT range but be able

to cut that light and have really hard

hard Light Shadows maybe maybe you're

putting an accident on a back wall or

putting a projection mount on it with a

with the venetian blind effect or

something like that you can start tuning

that to however you want and you know if

you want to make it look like a sci-fi

movie and there's a purple sun or purple

moon out there well now you can just

mimic that with a point source light and

get hard shadows and all that kind of

stuff you kind of see where I'm going

there's so many possibilities with hard

light sources that you can get over soft

light sources because with soft light

sources you kind of started off with a

soft light source and for the most part

you can't really make shows a hard light

source and get the same quality of light

that you can with a point source light

so it's really exciting to see that RGB

technology find its way into a point

source light but that's not to say that

like a daylight balance source is a

thing of the past because right now I

mean I'm sure this will be different in

five or ten years but daylight balance

sources are typically just going to have

more output than the RGB counterpart

just because of the the physics of

packing in the same color emitter on a

chip on board as opposed to having to

share that real estate with different

color LED chips so you're just going to

get more output so if more output is

something that you need then the RGB

fixture may not necessarily be what

you're going after but a lot of these

RGB fixtures are kind of getting in that

territory where it's bright enough for

most key light situations and you can

use those daylight balance sources to

like really start pumping in light for

volumetric lighting or whatever the case

may be but with that said I do still

think that RGB lighting is the way of

the future and these gels are kind of a

thing of the past now one thing I do

want to touch on is the cost because

with newer technology it's typically

going to be higher cost than the

daylight or bi-color variants so if the

cost scares you they are more expensive

the cost scares you just consider

renting for your next project in your

next Productions until you have the cash

to to invest in these RGB lights well I

know I packed a lot of information on on

this topic of RGB lighting but I do

think it is the way the feature and if

you can be on top of technology that

just makes you even that much more

valuable on set and much more attractive

to hire for production so it's always

nice to kind of know be in the know of

The Cutting Edge of technology for for

filmmaking or for photography or on

honestly whatever you do so thank you so

much for watching I hope you found

something useful and I'll catch you next

time peace

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