Cinematographer Sarah Whelden is very familiar with the Rosco DMG DASH. Having been an early adopter of the DMG DASH Octa Kit, Sarah knows just how to incorporate these pocket-sized LED lights into her lighting setups. First, she tackled a variety of compact lighting setups on her film Tight and she furthered her experience with these fixtures by incorporating her DASH lights into a car scene she was shooting inside NBCUniversal’s LED volume stage. Below, we explore how Sarah used her DMG DASH fixtures to recreate car headlights on this project – the short film There's a Devil Inside Me.
A Rosco DMG DASH recreates car headlights on a volume stage for the short film There's a Devil Inside Me.
Without a doubt, LED volume stages have made shooting car scenes much easier. One thing that’s missing, however, is the directional lighting that enters the scene from car headlights while shooting nighttime car scenes. This is where Sarah’s creativity with her Rosco DMG DASH fixtures came into play on this project. These lights are equipped with Rosco's patented, six-chip, MIX® technology for superior color mixing and precise color control. This enabled Sarah to accurately recreate the authentic color and look of car headlights, ensuring the lighting matched the realistic tones and hues needed for the scene.
Rosco DMG DASH lights rigged to a car and simulating headlights.
By wirelessly connecting the CRMX DMG DASH lights from her Octa Kit to a dimmer board, Sarah and her CLT Arthur Garcia could also precisely control the intensity and timing of the lights to ensure they matched the movement of the cars in the motion plate in the background. “When using the DMG DASH lights, we had two sets of two - one in front of the car, the other behind - simulating oncoming headlights,” Sarah recalled. “We looped them into our dimmer board and dimmed them up and down to time them with the cars in the 360° plate we were using from PlatePros. The front set was on a Double Header and we had a grip spinning the unit to give some movement to the effect.”
The short film There's a Devil Inside Me was written by Karina Lomelin Ripper and Marc Ripper, and directed by Karina Lomelin Ripper. You can learn more about the film, including release dates and how you can help fund its distribution by visiting: https://www.karinaripper.com/ To learn more about Cinematographer Sarah Whelden, please visit her website at www.sarahmakesmovies.com or follow @sarahmakesmovies on Instagram.
If you’d like to learn more about the versatile and compact lighting fixtures that Sarah used to recreate the realistic headlights in this shoot, please explore the DMG DASH product page on the Rosco website.
Photo credit: Marc Ripper
Lacey Colter January 02, 2025 Questions?
Marketing Manager - Film/TV/Broadcast: Lacey Colter has been working in the entertainment industry since 2015. She started in production before transitioning to a cinema lens manufacturer and now covers the film and television market for Rosco. She has spent years of her career interviewing a variety of industry professionals.