The development journey of the light system for the movie Achsen des Guten started with undusting some of my earlier neopixel softbox experiments. Built around older ws2812 stripes and intended for colour nuances in portrait photography, the relatively wide panels were sometimes to bulky for their relatively low power density.

However it became apparent, that ws2812 is the way to go, so we tested a few more configurations. This revealed 16×16 matrix panels as the main workhorse of the gig. Besides bearing the highest pixel density possible, they have manageable heat dissipation and power requirements, while being flexible & robust. After several outdoor mood shots during night as well as low-light indoor test scenes the concept of hegemonial ambient lights was born.

Flexibility

The basic control functionality was secured very fast thru acquisition on various controller kits. More than affordable, those come with on-board buttons as well as IR & RF remotes. Next research step was focused on IoT-capable controllers and here I settled for an ESP32 solution. This enabled custom coded parametric effects (based upon FastLED library) which later could be governed over Wi-Fi thru a Web-App.

After prolonged positive feedback from operators and director those ESPs completely displaced the commercially available ones: installed in every light fixture, they provided a unified, browser-based control over the Wi-Fi network, which itself can be provided thru a smartphone hotspot.

After a short briefing everybody on set was able to control the lightning. This natively decentralized approach came at no additional dev or complexity cost and enabled a truly flexible way of the lightning crew cooperation and supervision, bringing everybody on literally the same page of a single screen web application.

Modularity

Modular design of the hardware helped to compensate for possible fails, since all components (including LED matrices, Wi-Fi and button driven Neopixel controllers, as well as batteries, mounts , distribution boxes and network routers) were interchangeable and ready to be hot swapped by means of Wago clamps at any time.

Power

All available power sources were utilized: heavy duty USB power banks, VSLOT & NP-F camera batteries as well as those from basic power tools, even going as far as building custom Makita adapter, containing two independent 5V2A Step-Down SMPS’s. The only “real” lights at the set were 2 x ARRI 650 and one hi-power HMI light, which were only used once to contour a building in the background.