I shot a commercial for Los Gringos Loco on the Red using one of my favorite special effects…Fire! In this back yard barbecue we see everything go up in flames. The goal was to shoot both video and stills that the restaurant will use for advertising purposes. Creating fire is one of my favorite special effects. It's not easy and must be done with complete caution. I have been building burn bars of different sizes and shapes for years. This is a little taste on how to make fire. I used a strobe head/constant light form Dynalite. It's the MH 2065v head with a 650 watt constant modeling light. It makes it so much easer to shoot video and stills on the same setup. I do not recommend that people try and create fire at home. This video does not give you enough information to safely do so.

Here is a shot by shot breaking down of the lighitng.

#1 Lets look at the lighting. Here is the ambient light with the house particles on.

#2 We added the party lanterns with 71 watts of light.

#3 In this image we added a 1K pointing out the window at the people at pool side. It lights the room and gives some rim on the people. We also added a rim light on camera left. It's a Dynalight head with a reflector and a 650 watt constant light. I will be using these heads a lot for this reason. I can shoot strobes and stills with the same head.

#4 Then we added a 1K coming through the window in the center.

#5 We added a 2K as a rim light from the roof.

#6 We added a 1000 watt LED on the table camera left for our Mom when she walks in.

#7 We now add a 100 and 500 watt LED panels on Dad at the grill

#8 We also add a 500 watt LED shooting through the white scrim as fill.

#9 Lets look at the clip with the moving light and flames.

#10 Here is the final shot. The goal is to change only the light on our Mom using the continuous light for the rest of the scene.

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