STEDICAM ||SCRIM/BUTTERFLY || LIGHITING || MY GRIP TOTE
FILM LOOK FX || CAMERA JIB ARM || DOLLY || SOUND
Lighting
Lighting in micro budget movies is very important. Without light, moviemakers would be radio producers. Sure there’s natural, ambient light almost everywhere. With today’s camcorders getting better and better, they work even in the lowest of light. However, like anything else in moviemaking, the trick to good lighting is taking control of the lighting. One way is to harness the light of the sun. By blocking around the sun, using flags, diffusers, and reflectors, the most powerful light in this galaxy can work for you, not against you. However, as wonderful as the sun is, additional lighting is often needed, especially where the sun don’t shine (hey, get your mind out of the gutter). If lighting is a new concept or you want to get back to basics, take a look at this tutorial for basic 3-point lighting.
Professional video lights are great tools. They are color balanced, versatile, and offer great control over the light they give. There is a wide variety of video lights made for the many situations. Unfortunately, they are also very expensive. The cheapest ones are hundreds of dollars. Fortunately, more inexpensive lights, designed for other uses, can be adapted as video lights. These following are lights I consider good do-it-yourself micro budget video lights.
“ Home Depot” style work light
Buy these for about $40 from your large DIY, barely pays its employees a livable wage, home improvement center. It is a tripod that extends about five feet in the air and has two 500watt halogen lights. These lights are closest to Lowel Tota video lights. In fact, 500-watt Tota bulbs fit in these lights (to get balanced light). They normally come with a wire protector that is great for clothes pining gels or diffusion material to. However, be careful when using this as it casts a lot of lights and doesn’t offer much control. Plus, they get very hot, especially when diffused, gelled, or when using homemade barn doors like these (check this out!). Turn it off between takes. Every kit should have one or two of these lights. |
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Reflector Clamp Light
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Florescent
Lamps
Color balanced regular 48 inch florescent bulbs can be bought to go into any regular florescent fixture. The trick is to find fixtures that don’t have cheap, flickering ballasts. If you’re buying a fixture, spend at least $30. But, how is it mounted it in a portable way? I know people have designed stands for whole fixtures. … and that is one way to go. Alternately, pull apart the fixture and attach the light and connecting element to walls or anything else with gaffers tape. It ain’t pretty, but it is ultra versatile. If the thought of pulling apart a lighting fixture with thousands of volts passing through it scares you, aquarium florescent lighting is great because it’s comes without a metal fixture and is fully sealed, but it will be more expensive. The use of these lights are great because they don’t get as hot as other lights and they diffuse naturally because they are a four foot long light source. Note: 18 and 24 inch “under cabinet” florescent lights are also available for smaller areas where less light is needed. Further, you can find 12-volt florescent lights for car “emergency kits” that work in and around cars–try gaffer’s taping one to the driver’s visor for a driving scene. |
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Chinese Lantern
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White Christmas Lights
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Other Ideas
The above lights will make a nice basic DIY video lighting kit. However,
always interested in trying new things, I have two new ideas to experiment
with. First are the 12-volt lighting systems very popular in interior
design currently. The bulbs are tiny and some fixtures are made to crimp
right onto lampshade cord. This could be great to creatively light background
elements. Also, I want to recreate the original Lowel L-light. It was
made of sheet metal and was designed to be taped to walls, hung on poles,
and attached just about anywhere else that doesn’t require a tripod
or stand.
Hope this was helpful. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Below are some of the questions I've recieved. This is my version of a FAQ.
As a low budget filmmaker starting out, I do have a question
for you about the Reflector Clamp Light idea. I have looked on the internet
and can only find the Reflector Clamp Lights that are rated for 150w. Knowing
basic electricity, if I was to put a 250w bulb in them, it would (or should)
quickly burn out the socket. Does the low cost of these Reflector Clamp Lights
make a low budget filmmaker just throw it out and put another one up when
it burns out? Is this the reason you keep 4 - 6 in a kit? What's the average
time you get out of one of these Reflector Clamp Lights before you have to
replace it?
It often has to do with the amount of heat generated by the larger lights.
You should be very, very careful if you do exceed the recommended wattage–I
really don't recommend it. If you were to 'burn out' one of these lamps, you're
risking an electrical fire (which are really hard to put out!). If you were
to put a 250 watt bulb in it and only run it for short periods of time, it
shouldn't burn out like you described. I keep a bunch on hand because often
I'll use several to light one scene. These are great for concealing in the
background and lighting BG elements to add depth. I'll often use 3-4 lights
to light my actors and another 2-6 lights to light specific background elements.
I almost never use these as key lights, but they work great for the smaller
jobs.
You say that the "Home Depot" style
worklights accept lowel tota bulbs.
What type of lowel tota bulbs? the FCZ? And what is the color
temperature of these bulbs? 3200 K?
By the way, do you happen to know the color temperature of the bulbs that
these worklights come prepackaged with? And where can I find these bulbs?
Use equal wattage bulbs (500 watts). They'll be the same physical size and fit
properly in the home depot style 500 watt work lights. FCZs are 3000k. The most
common one is FDN 3200k. Assuming you are using a video camera that can manually
white balance, you just want to keep all the lights consistent. I don't know
what the exact temp of the supplied bulbs because they aren't balanced. My guess
it would be around 2800k though. Remember the as unbalanced bulbs are used, their
color temp will change slightly. For a minor additional cost, it really is worth
it to use balanced bulbs. Here's one site that carries these bulbs: http://shop.store.yahoo.com/cinemasupplies/globes.htmlThe
FCZ, FDF, and FDN will fit. FDF and FDN are 3200k balanced.
This site is great for expendables in general. Also, check out these websites
for other expendables and supplies (so I'm not playing favorites):
http://www.studiodepot.com/store/
http://markertek.com/
I am a young film maker who has a few under his belt, but I
am wokring at a location on my next one, and I would be terrified to blow
a fuse there with our lights. Have any reccomendations as to a powerbar or
circut breaker to prevent this, or reccomendations for lights that wont exceed
standard current (Do the Home Depot Flood Lights?)
Yeah, get a regular 15 amp power strip (for under ten bucks). It should blow
first. It's always a good idea to find the fuse box/circuit breaker before
it blows. It's a lot easier to find with the power (and lights) on. If it's
fused, spend a couple bucks and get a box of fuses just in case. Then, if
the fuse
box
does blow, it will ruin your take, but not your day.
As for what lights to use, it's all about counting wattage. The home depot
lights are 500 watts per bulb. If you're running on a 15 amp power strip,
you can put 3 lights bulbs (or 1 and a half of the lights) on it (15 amps
times 120 volts is 1800 watts--the max you can use before it'll blow). Remember,
this is per circuit, so you can run extension cords to the bathroom or garage
and tap off another circuit to increase the number of lights you can use.
You might also consider fluorescent lighting if you need to throw a lot of
light with a little bit of power. Each 4 foot bulb is only 40 watts and is
pretty darn bright. And, of course you can intermix fixtures and types of
lighting--just count the wattage if you think you're remotely close to exceeding
it.
So, count watts and be prepared to the fuse/circuit to blow and you shouldn't
really have to worry too much.
My question is this...I will be making a
small set on one half of my garage. It will accomodate two different scenes. One of
a small office and the other of a romantic dinner scene. Now, I at first
had thought about going the home depot cheaper light direction. However,
I started looking at more professional lighting. 600 watt quartz lighting
and such. Talking with another friend who has had more experience then
I have, he suggested that with 3 home depot style lights of about 100 watts
each, that that is plenty of light. And that sounds ok with me, however,
I would also like another opinion. I really have gotten alot from your
site, and it's links, and I would value your thoughts. I can see pros
and cons for both paths. And if you even had any suggestions for specific
lights, I would really really appreciate it.
Whatever path you decide to take on purchasing lighting, I think experience
and practice with your specific tools as well as with lighting in general
would be a much larger factor in whether lighting looks good or not. With
that said, if money isn't a consideration, I would absolutely by 'real' lighting
instruments. Know that you will probably need $1500 dollars for a basic kit.
If money is an issue, I'd spend 300-500 on hardware store lights and pro bulbs
(and light stands/grip equipment). The main thing is to be versatile. Don't
just get three of the same light. Get a variety of lights (you may start by
looking at the lighting section of my site). For the office set, you'll need
a lot of light blasted everywhere (you could accomplice this with one or two
halogen work light trees (40 each) . The dinner scene will be low key so you
may want to use just one heavily diffused halogen work light and a bunch of
clip lights (both to work with the halogen to light the subject and to light
specific background elements to create depth and atmosphere). So, whatever
you get, I'd get 2 or 3 larger (500-600) watt lights and 6-8 smaller lights
(50-300 watt easily interchangeable). And take a look at my grip tote stuff.
It's as much about controlling the light, than just having it. You'll easilly
spend more money/effort on controlling the light with reflectors, flags, etc
than you will with the fixtures themselves.
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