Want a Cookie?

I spent my first couple of years of college as a music major. It’s no wonder I ended up in TV instead of a getting a real job, but that’s for another day. A really great music instructor told me, “many times, the space between the notes is much more important than the notes themselves.” Well, not to make you go waay around the block for the payoff, the same can be said of lighting. Many times, where the light is not, makes a scene much more interesting. One way to make light not be in certain spots, is by using light modifiers. One of these commonly used light modifiers, is called a “cookie,” which is short for coocoloris. Who knows where coocoloris came from…we all just call it a cookie. This same device can also be referred to as a gobo. In most cases, however, a gobo would be used in a light with a focusable lens called a ellipsoidal.

These are the lights that you may see projecting a logo or very defined pattern on a wall or background of a trade show or television show.

A “cookie” is more commonly used to break up a light source into a less defined texture or pattern to add interest or depth to a camera shot. A cookie is simply a flat piece of wood or foam core with a pattern cut into it, through which you can shine a light. So much for not taking you the long way around the block.

Anyway, it’s really easy to make a cookie, and you will find it essential to making your lighting more interesting.

Get yourself a piece of foam core from any number of places. Craft stores, office supply stores, or sometimes even the corner drugstore carry it for last minute school projects. Black is the best color as it does not reflect much light back into the light fixture or into the room.

 
Now, draw some irregular shapes on your foam core. You can make any pattern you like. You can create venetian blinds, circles, diamonds, anything that you can cut out with an
exacto knife.

Now let’s stop here a second. This is where we can go from “clever”  to “that was stupid” in just a few seconds. Please don’t cut yourself or someone else. Don’t cut the patterns out on the couch or the dining room table. And trust me on this, the ER doctor, that has to pull all night shifts, can sew you up, but there’s a good chance your finger will heal looking a lot like the seams on a football.

Now that you’ve created your cookie, you can start creating patterns with your background light. Experiment with the distance between the light source and the cookie. The closer you are to the light, the larger and more out of focus the pattern becomes. The farther you are from the light, the smaller and more defined the pattern.

Tweet This Post