Alberto Ulloa is a Mexican cinematographer and camera operator with an extensive and varied artistic background. As a Rosco Ambassador, he had the opportunity to use Rosco’s DMG DASH™ Pocket LED Kit, MINI MIX®, and SL1 MIX® in a recent commercial shoot for the Palacio de Hierro "Festival de Belleza." Below, Alberto highlights five features he likes most about DMG lights and explains how those features help him shoot alluring commercials like this one.
For this project, Director Memo Matthews had chosen a location with limited space and it required a different type of lighting solution. DMG lights were an ideal choice because they are compact and lightweight. They take up very little space on set and have great light output. For the scene below, a MINI MIX, outfitted with a SnapGrid and some R3034 ¼ Grid Cloth diffusion, was mounted wall-to-wall with a polecat system. This setup illuminated the talent's face from the front with a soft, even light.
All Rosco DMG MIX lights have high stability in terms of the continuous light they generate. Their strongest competitive advantage is that they have a mix of 6 LEDs (red, green, blue, lime, amber, and white) that produce a high CRI (>95) and a high TLCI (>90). For the shot below, we achieved the desired lighting setup by using the SL1 MIX with a SnapBag and some R3030 Grid Cloth diffusion. The setup was used as a backlight for the two characters in the frame, which allowed the light to open and cover them as they moved towards the camera. We also used a DMG DASH, outfitted with a Flat Diffuser & Dome, inside a DOT Round Diffuser Accessory. The fixture was positioned next to the camera and used as fill and eyelight for the female character.
The large number of accessories available for Rosco's range of DMG lights makes every fixture incredibly versatile. This allows me, as the cinematographer, to work with the gaffer and set lighting crew to achieve whatever lighting the project requires. For example, we used an SL1 MIX with a SnapGrid and some R3030 Grid Cloth diffusion to create a soft, diffused light on the talent’s face during the makeup table scene of the "Palacio de Hierro" shoot.
DMG lights feature an intuitive controller and, once it's switched on, its configuration is straightforward and easy to understand. Controlling the lights remotely via Bluetooth using the myMIX app also enables us to quickly and effectively change colour and intensity. A good example of how we used the app was the box scene below. To create this shot, we placed a DMG DASH - outfitted with both its Flat Diffuser and Dome - inside the box. We used the myMIX app to control the DASH as we created uplighting on the talent's face that was balanced and diffused.
For one of the sites within the location, the camera had to traverse the space considerably. This meant that we couldn't have lights on stands cluttering up the shot. Our solution was to make a 6ft (1.8m) high "Book Light" by bouncing an SL1 MIX, without any diffusion, off a white Foamboard. The bounce of that light was then filtered through some R3030 GridCloth to create a soft, warm-toned, cosmetic atmosphere that would flatter the skin of the talent in front of the camera.
Rosco's DMG lights helped us achieve the project's objective thanks to their unique characteristics. The options they provided at each location, the short time they required for setup, and the quality images they produced made everyone's work richer in a production of this magnitude.
This project was achieved thanks to a good collaboration with the team at the production house Adrenorama. Special thanks also to Rosco dealer Grupo Lighting and the rental company D Vision Cine who provided us with the necessary lighting fixtures for this shoot.
To see more of Alberto Ulloa's work, follow him on Instagram: @kinoview. For more information about the DMG lights he describes above, please explore the DMG Lumière by Rosco website. To read this article in Spanish, click here.
BTS photos by @kinoview & @eljimmy_ac
Joel Svendsen March 29, 2022 Questions?
Marketing Director: Joel's Rosco career began in Rosco's Hollywood office in 1999 – first in sales covering the Western US and the Los Angeles Film & Television market, and then as Product Manager for Rosco's Film & Television Products. Joel's knowledge about Rosco's products and how they're used in each of our different marketplaces makes him well suited for bringing the stories in Spectrum to life.