Light like a pro with Lights from Home Depot

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darwinandpaine

Well-known member
I just got off a shoot where the UPM's husband is a big-time electrician/lighting guy at Paramount. His name is Jack McLean Jr. and he worked on Titanic, Forest Gump, Terms of Endearment, etc... He told me that he's working on a book that shows indie filmmakers how to light solely with lights from home depot. Apparently, he's trying to get a deal going with Home Depot so that the book would include a coupon worth the price of the book so that when you buy $120 worth of lights you get $20 off. In talking with him, and having him on-set for two days, I can tell you that this guy's got some of the most creative tricks for lighting on location and getting lights into places you can't imagine. These techniques would also be included in the book.

One of the things I like about him is that he's no lighting snob -- he'll use whatever it takes to get the job done, and thinks that there's a lot of over-spending on lighting in the indie/no-/low-budget world. I told him I'd post this note on the boards to see if anyone here is interested. I think it's a great idea.
 
With the credentials you just gave the book would sell a million copies. I'd buy one for sure.

Personally I'm nobody... but I do stick by one hard philosophy, and that is, use what works.

If you get good results with anything then I don't care what that thing is... there are certainly ways to get good looking footage with DIY lighting that doesn't cost much to produce.

With professionals it's no secret that buying professional tools is often times a matter of control, speed, ease, reliability, portability, weight savings, durability, and versatility... now out of ALL those positives I didn't mention the volume of output or the quality of output. It's entirely possible to mimic the results obtained from professional tools... by using ordinary, inexpensive tools... but in most cases you'll be losing most of those positives that you gain with a professional tool.

The fact remains that IF you can't AFFORD those professional tools... what do you do? You accept the trade-offs and work around the obstacles in order to get the job done. There is nothing wrong with that... and like I said, I'd be the first in line for that book.

If you learn to think constructively about everything, then you'll be surprised at just how many ordinary objects have other uses. I suggested this in another thread... but get a roll of flashing and some high-temp flat black spray paint and you can add lighting controls to any ordinary flood light... you may also want to check out the metal ductwork aisle... flat black some of those things and you have ready-to-use snoots, scoops, and other modifiers. Get yourself a muffin pan and drill (or poke) various sized holes and/or cuts in it... now screw that to a 150/250w flood light ($8 at home depot) so that the holes are 3-4" away from the face of the light... BAM! You just made yourself a nice "cookie shooter" (as I call it). If you rivet or screw on some metal tabs then you have a nice way to gel it.

I've even made a speed-ring softbox flood/mount/light out of a $20 worklight and 4 long nuts.

I've thought about posting some of my Home Depot tricks on here also... maybe I should... you can definitely get some decent results with virtually no budget... if you accept some limitations and get creative.
 
Matt, we've been all waiting for YOUR DVD on audio and lighting for a while now, twenty bucks in pocket!
Do it, and we will buy!
 
I would purchase these books.

I have a cupboard full of Home Depot type assorted floods, fluoro's, battery fluoro's, matte black engine spray paint, wooden pegs, large aluminum disposable deep dish roasting pans, etc. All waiting for that rainy day when that Homer Simpson side of me wants to come out to play. I will construct the 'Homer Mobile' of lighting. Although, I would be happy to hire a 3 tonne grip truck where applicable.

Please share your lighting tips Matt, in due course. DIY Flo's interest me mostly atm. We are 240v over here in Australia, so a lot of importing direct is an issue. Thanks
 
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vidled said:
Matt, we've been all waiting for YOUR DVD on audio and lighting for a while now, twenty bucks in pocket!
Do it, and we will buy!
Click to expand...
The audio portion is in the pipe my friend... it's coming. :):thumbup:

Some of the lighting that I did for this project was done with lights from Home Depot that were modded as per my instructions above... check it out. Totally uncorrected, untouched frame grab:

image0.jpg
 
darwinandpaine said:
I just got off a shoot where the UPM's husband is a big-time electrician/lighting guy at Paramount. His name is Jack McLean Jr. and he worked on Titanic, Forest Gump, Terms of Endearment, etc... He told me that he's working on a book that shows indie filmmakers how to light solely with lights from home depot. Apparently, he's trying to get a deal going with Home Depot so that the book would include a coupon worth the price of the book so that when you buy $120 worth of lights you get $20 off. In talking with him, and having him on-set for two days, I can tell you that this guy's got some of the most creative tricks for lighting on location and getting lights into places you can't imagine. These techniques would also be included in the book.

One of the things I like about him is that he's no lighting snob -- he'll use whatever it takes to get the job done, and thinks that there's a lot of over-spending on lighting in the indie/no-/low-budget world. I told him I'd post this note on the boards to see if anyone here is interested. I think it's a great idea.
Click to expand...
Yea, I'd be interested. Bet there would be interest at indietalk.com and indieclub.com also.



MattinSTL said:
The audio portion is in the pipe my friend... it's coming. :):thumbup:

Some of the lighting that I did for this project was done with lights from Home Depot that were modded as per my instructions above... check it out. Totally uncorrected, untouched frame grab:

image0.jpg
Click to expand...

Very Kool Matt. In line for this one of course.
 
Brian/ Darwin...


This is a project that i think should be grabbed and ran with. Why not team up with him and produce a series of DVDs to go along with the book. I'm such a huge believer in the DIY side to filmmaking and or the finding other products from less exploited industries... we are the exploited..


Case in point. My buddy jethro takes out his boom pole holder that's in his griphead. Now these a line for ya...


Anyway he says how expensive they are... but that this is a fishing pole holder he picked up for 8 bucks. Exactly what I need to have a remote studio boom. I have the C-stand and boom pole and so many times I have to go through the friggin grip jungle to get the mike in.


Anyway. BRIAN... Run with this. My white limbo stuff was completely lit with home depot products. I have a new one BTW... 360 degrees/ full body white limbo.


BRING THIS ON!
 
I got a idea from a gaffer at a seminar and he said if you don't have a lot of money you can get some reflectors from home depot and put in some photoflood bulbs in it and some diffusion and it will do just fine. Just make sure the bulbs are at least 3000 Kelvin bulbs. You can purchase them at mole richardson or at a good camera shop.
 
It's interesting how when a newbie posts about their passion for filmmaking and trouble with lighting many of us lead them to $2000-$4000 worth of "professional" lighting equipment and mock them for using lights from local hardware stores such as Home Depot .:kali:

but when someone who worked on a Hollywood movie talks about lighting an entire set from Home Depot we're all like Yeah! you can do this, this and that. :cheesy:

I admire him for doing this :thumbsup:
and I think we should be a little more careful and optimistic with our direction.
 
Hi Omar:

Sure, a professional can get a great result out of Home Depot or other non-profeessional lighting gear, but as we all know, you have to work much harder to get an acceptable result and using these types of tools takes away the usually limited time to be artistic. If you have to spend so much time and effort overcoming the limitations of the gear, it is almost impossible to be truly visionary, unless you have lots of time and a crew and talent who have lots of time.

Conversely, it is easier to for a beginner to create an at least acceptable result using professional tools. What's easier for a soft key source, a 500 watt open face light with a speedring and a small Chimera with an egg crate or bouncing a 250 watt open faced worklight into a piece of foamcore and then having to rig half a dozen flags to control the spill? For a beginner, they don't even know what spill is most of the time so expecting them to have the knowledge and equipment to flag off all of that spill is usually unrealistic.

It is the same with cameras. If you know the least bit about fiilm and can run a film camera, do you know how much easier it is to light a scene and shoot it with a Panavision camera and get a pretty good looking result than to light the same scene for DV and have the end result look in the same league? Film is so easy because it has so much dynamic range, latitude, killer stocks, great colorists who can almost perform miracles, etc.

As in all of production, ironically, the users that have the least budget end up using the tools that are the most diffiicult to obtain a great result from. And the users that have the most budget end up with the tools that make the job so much easier. So I always encourage users to buy professional tools whenever they can afford it because another right of passage in your film and video career is wasting s-loads of money on lame gear that you hate and end up throwing out or selling at a huge loss because it's all crap and the wrong tools for the job. You will never regret buying the best, if you afford it.

When I think of all of the stupid cheap tripods, monitors, lights, no-name wireless mic systems that I wasted money on over the years, I could have actually bought some nice gear that I would still be using today. I have a medium Quartz Chimera. Sure, it cost me $700.00 and the egg crate was another $250.00 and the speedring was another $200.00. Yep, a lot of money but I have been using it for eight years. When I think of all of the shoots I have lit with it, all of the rentals I have saved, it was money well spent. I am still using it today. I can send it off to Chimera for a couple of hundred bucks and they will re-do all of the threadbare seams and that spot where a gaffer cooked a hole through it with my Mighty. When they send it back, I will essentially have another new $700.00 Chimera. And I can use it for another 8-10 years.

I just purchased a Sachtler tripod. Expensive? Yes, but how many cameras will it last me? How many awesoome smooth pans and tilts will I shoot with it that wiill make my work look better than my competition? How many POS Bogen tripods would I have gone through in the years that I will be using the Sachtler?

Unless you are a hobbiest, you deserve the best tools you can afford. If you do this to make money, you have to spend money. I am a big advocate of saving money, I started the battery powered fake Kino thread here in the lighting forum, I just built two of my own homemade Diva 200s, I own half a dozen of the Harbor Freight router speed controllers that I use as dimmers. There is nothing wrong with doing it cheap, but some parts of your kit will actually be a good investment if you spend the money to buy quality. Camera, tripod, lights, mics. The rest can all be various forms of lower end gear and you will still make a killer looking image. But anyone who is halfway serious will relegate their Home Depot worklights to the garage in the first, say, year. Then it's perhaps the Briteks or JTLs. Then it's the Lowels. Then perhaps in 5-7 years, when you have "arrived" you spring for the Arris or Moles. Think about all of the stupid money you have wasted and all of the gear that you have sold at a loss or thrown away to get there? Think of what you could have accomplished if you had just bought something of professional quality to begin with?


Nothing wrong with DIY if it's all you can swing. But I think it's lame that people will lay out $5,000.000 to $10,000.00 for an XL-H1, HVX-200 or JVC GY-whatever, then load up with an M2, lenses, a stupid follow focus and expensive matte box, then will skimp on the lighting gear and sound gear because they don't have a clue as to what they are doing because they have shot their financial wad and forgoot the essentials. It's one thing if you are broke and are nursing an ailing old VX-1000, it's another if you are a mindless twit who doesn't have the awareness to spend your funds on what really matters (technically, not creatively), lighting and sound.

All the best,

Dan
 
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Now all we need is a Key Grip from Paramount to write the companion manual, "How to Make any Piece of Grip Equipment from Stuff at Home Depot."
 
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Can't wait to read the chapter on, "How to Make an 18K out of Eighteen 1,000-Watt Home Depot lights." Or, "How to Correct Sodium Vapor Parking Lot Lights to 3200-degrees Kelvin." Or, "How to Make Dolly Track out of Chain Link Fence Posts," (hey, that actually sounds like a good idea!). Or, "Sheetrock--The NEW Foamcore."

Just kidding. I'm all for cheap, creative ways to light stuff. I've used Home Depot lights exclusively on two of my three DVXUSERfests so far!
 
Sometimes a Home Depot setup will do the job, but there is something big to be said for looking professional. If you want good actors (even the local kind) and good collaborations with pros, you will give them more confidence if they see pro gear and not a pile of jery-rigged stuff.
 
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