Contributor

The word gaffer in the old English dictionary is described as the ‘foreman of the docks’, which when broken down is probably the best way to describe the position of a gaffer on a film set. It is, in my humble gaffer’s opinion, certainly one of the most important roles on a film set. As the foreman of the lighting department per se, the gaffer’s role is not only highly technical and creative, but becomes one of management and planning as well. And alongside the other technical HOD’s to ensure that the sets are safe.

I will start with the management side. The lighting department on large feature films can often crew up to 20 or more people, all with different and really unique tasks. The gaffer along with his/her best boy (right hand man) need to manage and co-ordinate all these people which often includes other units, such as pre-rigging and de-rigging teams; bringing in dimmer operators and additional crew for specific days or tasks, and the day to day management of people’s times (and overtime). Additionally, we have to make sure the team runs smoothly and each person knows his or her role.

Equipment management is also very important. The gaffer and best boy will be responsible for not only the everyday use of very expensive and technical equipment, but also need to plan the delivery and returning of additional equipment as and when it is required. If the lighting equipment is not managed correctly it can be become really expensive, and over the duration of a long feature can blow a budget completely.

Another very interesting element of the role of a gaffer is the planning and setting up of sets and locations that are still coming up on the film’s shooting schedule. I normally employ a rigging gaffer, who in the ideal world needs to have a similar creative and technical thought process and style to me. On the bigger films, I often need to hand over lighting plans to my rigging gaffer, and only get to see the setup very near to the shoot day, so I rely on his creative and technical input. Having said all this, I think it’s important to say how integral it is to have a really strong team around you as a gaffer. My preferred rigging gaffer, Danny Smart and myself had spent a lot of time discussing a huge  set on Maze Runner 3: The Death Cure – a feature I gaffered last year in Cape Town – where we needed to light about 5.5km of a tunnel that had no existing lighting in it. We had a really strong unique idea, and it worked very well on our many test days, I only got to see the final setup when we walked into the tunnel on the day of the shoot. I can’t lie, I had a few anxious moments! This is a great example of lighting team work, as well as how the ideas and the desired look come from a brief from the Director Of Photography (DoP) to myself, to my rigging gaffer, and eventually on to the screen.

Besides the management of people and equipment, the gaffer’s role becomes mostly about being able to both technically and creatively make the vision of the DoP become a reality. The DoP and gaffer will discuss at great lengths what the look and feel of the film should be based on the DoP’s vision. Breaking it down into specific scenes and moments in the film; the gaffer needs to know and propose which particular piece/s of equipment and which specific lights are right for creating each look at all times. Often very detailed and specific lighting plans need to be drawn up, costs worked out and then put into motion; this also becomes part of the gaffer’s tasks. Included in this, is working out how much power will be required and how this will be achieved with portable generators. On Maze Runner we had up to 18 generators running at one time on some of the larger night scenes filmed all around the city, you have to try imagine the planning that goes into that size setup, it’s no wonder my hair is grey at my age.

The difficulty with knowing what lighting unit is correct for each application is the fact that so many new LED units are coming onto the market all the time. A gaffer needs to stay on top of the development of new products, as well as trusting the older more proven lighting units. A very good example of this was the introduction of the Arri SkyPanel range of LED units. A large studio set up a few years back would have required the rigging of many many Tungsten lights (space lights for this example), in order to create an ambience in the studio. These Tungsten lights worked really well but needed huge amounts of power, and also were very costly to colour correct. When I designed the lighting for Mad Max Fury Road at Cape Town Studios, we never had access to SkyPanels, so I used a couple hundred space lights (around 650) and over 1 000 PAR Cans – the diesel costs to run the ±2500kilowat of generator power alone was bigger than the complete budget of some feature films.  Today the space lights could very easily be replaced by SkyPanels, which need radically less power and are fully dimmable and colour controlled through any DMX lighting Control system, it’s a game changer! In essence, it allows the gaffer to stand at the DoP’s side and adjust the light levels at the push of a slider, or even on a cellphone.

Battery-operated, dimmable LED units are also becoming really handy and a quick safe alternative to some bigger setups for car interiors for example. In some cases it is no longer necessary to have cumbersome portable generators mounted to the roofs of cars, we can now use these newer efficient LED units. Not only do they save money and time they also are more versatile and a lot simpler to use in these and other setups.

Another very important element to the modern era of filmmaking is the CGI element. A huge amount of Green/Blue screen work is now the norm on most feature films. So as a gaffer I have had to expand my knowledge in this area. Lighting becomes very important when using green screens, not only lighting the green screens themselves, which can become a massive task on its own – imagine lighting a green screen 120 x 20m evenly, at night, to an exposure value of F4 for example, but also knowing how the CGI elements will effect what the final images look like. Lots of planning goes into these green screen setups, and in my experience it is always a collaboration between the DoP, visual FX supervisors and gaffer.

I love what I do and I love being a gaffer, no day is the same and no film has the same challenges as then next. One needs to embrace the modern era and when combined with the tried and tested older ideas, we can really start creating some amazing visuals. Technology is not only simplifying what I do but also allowing me more scope to do more, quicker and more efficiently, and push the boundaries of my creativity.