Suggestions for putting together a "Cool Lights" rig

Kit Hannah

Kit Hannah

Veteran
Hey all,
I'm looking to put together a complete Cool Lights setup and wanted to see what everyone thought. I've never used the Cool Lights but I am impressed with the overall look of them. I'm not looking to break the bank here, but I'm not trying to go too cheap either.

Budget = +/- $2k?

Most are location shoots, which means that it would be nice if they were fairly portable.

Here's what I'm doing and what I would be using them for.

Small docu-films, mainly inside during the day

Commercials, generally confined spaces (inside offices, houses, etc.), but sometimes a bit bigger of spaces, it varies

Blue/Green Screen and lit screen work

Interviews

I guess possibly some night stuff if it ever came up, but we're usually ok on things, it's just mainly for indoor during the day.

We're using HPX500 cameras, I'm sure it doesn't make a huge difference what camera we're using, but just saying the control is there... (I just don't want anybody to say I left anything out).


We're looking for an all-around package. Maybe 5-6 lights, the CL255, 455 and 655's all look nice. They don't need to be the dimmable versions, just the mobile versions. It would also be cool to have a few of the video softbox fixtures for different things (with soft boxes of course). Many of our clients don't really know the difference, but as you know, presentation is everything, so we obviously want something that looks pretty cool.

So I guess my question to many of you: is this the way to go? We would like a solution that will work for a variety of things.

Also, do we go 3200k or 5600k? Will it matter all that much with a W/B? Which is going to be the most versitile? Or do we get both fro different applications?

BTW, we already have 5 Stands, so unless we are getting more fixtures than that, I will only need hardware to attach it to standard lighting stands.

Anyones help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Kit
 
are you looking for hardlight or softlight mainly? What changes things is the throw distance of lights. If you are shooting for wide shots as well as tight in, you will need something wit ha decent amount of output.

Richard at coollights has released some very interesting new HMI toys. I would check into those. He also has some wonderfully low cost tungsten fresnels that might catch your attention also.

I would generally stick to daylight. Why? Well for one, throwing a CTB on a tungsten lamp kills twice the intensity, where as a CTO on a daylight only kills half.

Daylights generally run on ballasts, which regulates the pulsation of the light to get rid of flicker, which i believe is partly the reason that they output 4-5 times what they input from your circuit.

I have received 2 of my 4x55 daylight banks as well as a 6x55 and i can vouch for their sturdiness and professional quality. They work EXTREMELY well, produce amazing light, and are very budget friendly. Richard's customer service is also next to none, so communication is very easy.

If it were me, in your situation with your budget or around 2 grand. I would get:

2 of the 4x55 banks @ $950
a 1K fresnels @ $320
a 650 fresnels @ $265
and two little 150 fresnels @ $380

Should be right about at your budget and will cover you for quite a bit. Then youll want to pick up some flags, gels, scrims, and diffusion. you'll be all set.
 
Thanks, PaPa.

Yeah, it's not really a question of "IF" I want to go with Cool Lights, I'm completely sold on them. I just need some advice on which fixtures to get like you have provided, which I appreciate. Thanks.

So, the fresnels are tungsten? I really don't want to gel much of anyhting if I can help it. How will that work with both tungsten and fluorescent lighting together? I imagine it's ok if everything is at the same Color Temperature?

Also, I guess I forgot to mention that I really want to conserve power. If I can at all help it, I would like to be able to run everything off of a 20 amp circuit. I think that all soft light would be fine for us (except maybe a backlight?). I'm thinking of going almost all 2x55, 4x55 or 6x55 fixtures, along with a few of the soft box lights.

Most of anything we need to do with lighting is primarily done in a smaller space. We don't need to light up large areas. Soft light seems like it would work well, not so harsh...

Thanks
Kit
 
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if your framing is always reasonably tight, then ya, go for all of the soft fixtures. They will provide soft, wrapping light that flatters your subjects.

Just remember, you cannot get a hard light from a soft source, but the opposite can be said.

for example, try putting a cookie in front of a fluorescent light. If you want to control the light by any means, then a hard source is required to create shadows and patterns.
 
Thanks, Papa, We rarely need to "create" shadows. We don't typically have a need to get too creative like that, but we may pick up a couple of hard fixtures just in case.

Thanks for the info.

Kit
 
One more question....

Are the differences with the 6x55 versus the 2x55 justifiable enough to get the 6x55? or 4x55 for that matter. Would it be ok just to go with 2x55's or should I opt for a mixture of fixtures? We're definitely going to get some soft box fixtures along with the ?x55 fixtures too.
 
well, the 2x55 puts out around 500 watts. then the 4x55 is 1000 and the 6x44 is 1500. The great thing about both the 4x55 and 6x55 is that you can control how many lamps are on, in increments of 2. So you can have 2, or 4 or 6 on the 6x55. More control.

It really depends on how much light you want. Will you be competing with windows? Obviously the higher the power of the fixture, the more potential versatility comes with it. If you have the money, then the 6x55 would be a great choice. I found with my 4x55, that with only two of them on, it was not sufficient, with my letus extreme, to act as a key light. So unless you are using the 2x55 for simply fill, it might not be sufficient. I would definitely op for some 4x55 and 6x55 if the budget allows.

What do you have in mind for the softboxes? Surely the softness of the light coming from the fluorescents is soft enough no? Perhaps adding a sheet of diffusion for even more softness?
 
While we're at it, how about ideas for a cool lights rig with approximately the same budget but for micro budget feature films? Any suggestions there?

I'm looking at these for starters:

1x CL-255P Portable 2 x 55 watt Softlight
1x CL-455P Portable 4 x 55 watt Softlight
3x CL-MF0150 Cool Lights CDM Fresnel
1x DTW300 300w Compact Tungsten Fresnel
 
without an approximate budget, it is hard to help you decide what gear is best for you. But if i understand correctly, when you say feature films, you are referring to fictional narratives?
 
PaPa said:
without an approximate budget, it is hard to help you decide what gear is best for you. But if i understand correctly, when you say feature films, you are referring to fictional narratives?
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yea we're talking MICRO budget fictional narrative here. small crew, fly by the seat of your pants. close to the original poster's 2K +/- budget.
 
That seems like a pretty good kit you put together. I might want something a little stronger than a 150 CDM Fresnel if you're going for anything higher than 650 watts of light. Perhaps throwing in a 1K tungsten Fresnel would do some good.
 
Just got my Coollights in and am very pleased. Ditto on the great customer service from Richard. I went with a couple of the CL-455 and three Fresnels. All of the daylight temperature variety. I also ordered three of the 200 watt spiral big bad boy screw-in light bulbs. These are also daylight rated and will replace the thousand watt hot bulbs that I now have in my STARLIGHT softboxes. Will still keep my 1000 watt tubes handy should I ever need to match 3200k lightsources.

If I didn't already have the Starlight softboxes, I would have ordered a couple more of the Cl-455 units.
 
PaPa said:
What do you have in mind for the softboxes? Surely the softness of the light coming from the fluorescents is soft enough no? Perhaps adding a sheet of diffusion for even more softness?
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The softboxes were going to be for the Cool Lights softbox lights. I would most likely order the softboxes themselves from Cool Lights, but I have see some bigger ones out there. The whole reason for the softboxes would be for some generic extra fill light and really the look. In business, it pays to "look big" when dealing with some clients. I think it will just add to the prestige. It might sound dumb, but it works. We used to use a ton of tungsten fresnels, but they were big daddy lighs and very harsh, even when dimmed. We burned up gels all the time and got a lot of undesired hard shadows. Sometimes the height of the room does not allow for getting lights up high enough, so I think the soft lights will definitely help.

Anyways, that's where we are at. We'll be ordering a package on Monday or Tuesday, so I was just trying to get other people's thoughts on the whole thing. We have not really used much soft light in the past, but from the sound of things, it seems like these lights will be right up our alley and within our budget. Thanks for all the help.

Kit
 
wartez said:
While we're at it, how about ideas for a cool lights rig with approximately the same budget but for micro budget feature films? Any suggestions there?

I'm looking at these for starters:

1x CL-255P Portable 2 x 55 watt Softlight
1x CL-455P Portable 4 x 55 watt Softlight
3x CL-MF0150 Cool Lights CDM Fresnel
1x DTW300 300w Compact Tungsten Fresnel
Click to expand...

Thats a great starter kit. You'll love the MF0150s and won't be blowing any breakers with this. We're talking about 10 amps there total draw and its a pretty good amount of light too.
 
Spartacus said:
Well, then don´t forget to get yourself those foldable director´s chairs :cool:...
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Oh...you better believe it.... Embroidered and everything with things like "director" and "client". I'm telling you, presentation is everything. Make your setup look pro, make your commercial look pro, and people will be knocking down your door to use your services.

I think of it like this... I want people to think that they are on a hollywood movie set. We even have a digital scene marker and all, an audio person, a couple of HPX500's decked out with accessories, and now we'll have a bunch of lighting and some big soft box lights, directors chairs, a crane or track dolly, etc.

"Something big, Children"
Chef
 
pcascio said:
Geez Kit, you got a coupla' HVX 500s? Man, I thought you were poor. :-)
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Well, If you knew how much we got them for, you would be impressed. We went with SD lenses on them, which helped with the budget. They are financed though.......

We just didn't want to spend a ton on lighting. We used to be a sound and stage lighting company, so whenever we needed lighting, we would just use some pars on dimmers, or fresnels, etc. Now we need to purchase some real video lights.

I dunno about the size of the softboxes though. Your's appear big enough, but bigger might be better. I actually like the ones with the spandex type material over the front of them, like 48" or bigger.
 
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