Theo Van de Sande was born and educated in the Netherlands, graduating from Amsterdam's Dutch Film Academy in 1970. After winning many European awards for his cinematography in feature films and documentaries, in 1987 he moved to Los Angeles. He has continued to make significant films, including Miracle Mile, Crossing Delancy, Blade, Cruel Intentions and High Crimes.

Like many cinematographers, Van de Sande's first experiments with directed softlight were with metal honeycomb mounted on a softbox. He soon realized that the need for three stands to support the honeycomb arrangement was not very practical. However, the experience of working with projected softlight that could be placed very close to the edge of the frame, without flare or a forest of flags, was significant. This was even more evident when the camera was tracking, because previously even with a flag, the flare was only blocked for one position.

"As soon as the Lighttools® Soft Egg Crates® became available, I saw how useful they would be and started using one on a Chimera Lightbank," he recalls. "This gave me a single stand, with a directional softlight, and high light efficiency, while the rapid fall-off of the coverage gave excellent control. Previously I would have needed nine stands: one for the source, four for the softbox, and four more for the flags to control the spill."

Van de Sande then began to experiment further with softlighting techniques. "The tight control, allowed me to set up a series of Chimera Lightbanks with Lighttools® and precisely cover the movement of the actors from source to source, without any change in the exposure or the soft modelling. I could also have someone walk towards the camera, and let them softly walk out of the light, instead of them becoming too bright when they got close to the lightsource."

"When the larger 6 x 6 and 6 x 8 Lighttools®, with the narrow beam angles, became available, I immediately took them up, because they were so lightweight that I could use them anywhere to create tightly defined areas of softlight. The only problem I had was convincing production managers that their cost was justified. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to show them the efficiencies that the Soft Egg Crates® bring."

High Crimes, one of Van de Sande's recent projects, he used Soft Egg Crates® to solve the problems that arise when shooting just a few shots in high-rise buildings. The location was selected for the view and involved shooting against two windows at right angles. This severely limited the placement of the light sources to avoid reflections, a problem compounded by the need to avoid the time and expense of bringing power up more than twenty floors, for a single day's shooting. Van de Sande's solution was to use Kino Flo's 6 x 6 Blanket Lites, fitted with Soft Egg Crates®. The high-efficiency fluorescent fittings gave him the required level of natural soft light from available power, while the Soft Egg Crates® enabled the source to be shielded from window reflections.

The impact of the Soft Egg Crate® on Van de Sande's approach to cinematography has been profound. "Before I began using Soft Egg Crates®, the idea of a very controlled softlight had seemed to be a contradiction. Even today I find that there are a lot of people who don't yet understand what you can achieve with them."

"Often in film we are creating a new reality, and to make that believable we have to use the same soft light sources that exist in the real world. Today we finally have the light sources and the control to achieve that. I have discovered that my freedom to create becomes stronger, when I can hold onto my schedule. Lighttools® allow me to achieve what I want more quickly, so I don't have production watching over my shoulder, pushing me, just to get a result."