Need Suggestions on Building a "Short Film" Kit...

A

attrition4u

Member
First and foremost, I realize that there is a search function. I have searched. I have read through pages and pages and am still at a loss. So, here is my question.

I am a, mostly, one man show and am currently in the process of building a small arsenal of equipment for short film production. I have recently realized that lighting will, of course, be an essential component in my little venture. The problem is, I know so very little about lighting, I don't even know where to begin. For my last couple of projects, I borrowed a kit from a friend of a friend. But, now, I am trying to get away from the "borrowing" thing so I can have a bit more freedom in scheduling and artistic spontaneity.

I potentially have up to and including 2,000 dollars in mind. Bare in mind, I don't mind used, I don't mind buying individual lights, stands, and various other pieces (apart from a kit, that is), and I don't mind eBay.

So, with the following information, I was wondering if some of you could give me some suggestions on what you might buy for an "essential" broad use kit...

Camera: HV20 (shoot at 24p and with a 1/48th shutter speed, naturally)
35mm Adapter: DIY static with a Nikkon 1.4
Genre: Dramatic shorts and, perhaps, an occassional interview/documentary

If there is anything else that I haven't answered that would assist, I would be happy to provide that information.

Thank you for your time...

Chris Forrester
 
Okay, I'll give you some opinions. Remember, there is no right way to light a scene, there are many, and, there is no one way to achieve the lighting you want, there are many.

I'd go almost strictly tungsten. It's beautiful, continuous spectrum light that gives great skin tones, and its very affordable. I'll get to the one exception soon. Naturally, it also wastes a lot of power as heat. You can live with this. Don't mess around with work lights, home made barn doors, etc.; you can afford pro lights on your budget. Here are a few examples of what you commonly are going to light and how to do it. I'll make assumptions about mood and look. They won't always be valid for your picture. I'll also talk about how to use your kit.

The average bedroom.
Your actors are in or on the bed. It's night. There is a bedside night light in the frame that you want to carry (add light that looks like it's coming from the practical). You probably want soft light because it's flattering to the talent. You can get this in one of three ways. 1) Use a 400W - 650W fixture: old Colortran, Lowel Tota or Omni, etc. or 650W or so, fresnel. Bounce this from a 48" flexible reflector that's held on a gobo arm up on a light stand 2) An 18" China ball with four 100W equivalent CFLs. Get the 3500K NuVision ones with good CRI from Home Depot and use three Y-adapters so there are four sockets for your lamps. We're using CFLs because we might want a fair amount of light and we don't want to burn up the lantern. 3) A 24"X32" - 36"X48" softbox with eggcrate to control spill using any kind of light source - 500W - 1000W fresnel, Tota or fixture made specifically for your softbox.

To control the amount of light, besides moving the lights in or out, use a dimmer on the tungsten fixtures or screw in or out the CFLs in the lantern to use from 1 - 4 of them as needed. Don't worry about the color shift to warmer as you dim the tungstens. You can white balance it away and you might find you like it when using the camera's 3200K preset, anyway.

You will need to control the light from the reflector. Use the barn doors and blackwrap on the light, but principally, use flags made from flat black foamcore boards with little slots in one end that a grip head can slide into and fit on a light stand or gobo arm on a light stand. You can set these as toppers, siders, whatever. Generally, you are trying to keep the light off the ceiling and walls. For the China ball clothes pin on some Duvatyne or similar around the top and un-needed sides of the light as a skirt. The numerous "little barndoors" of the eggrate on the softbox will make this soft source the one with the least spill. That's good because it generally works poorly to set flags with softboxes as they do not cast clean shadows.

If you need some light in the room as though the room lights were off and you have moonlight or a street light coming through the window, set a 1K fresnel with 1/2 or full CTB gel on it outside the window and blast it in but use a dimmer to tweak. (Blue is the much accepted Hollywood cliche for night light and it just looks right on film even if not natural.) If you don't get some good-looking shadows from the windows and blinds, use a cucaloris with a normal irregular pattern or one with slits so you can create the look of Venetian blinds.

Living room.
You might need two or three simple broads or focusable 400W-650W open-face lights with diffusion gels to raise the general light level in the room. Your key can be any of the three lights from the bedroom, or a simple broad or open-faced light with 10"X12" diffusion on it, aimed right at the talent. If the blocking has the actors move, set keys at the place or places where they will be stopped. If you want hard shadows, don't use diffusion, or try some opal. It's easy to get the Perry Mason look.

Fill with diffused light from whatever you didn't use as the key. Make the fill a stop or two less than the key unless you are going for real drama where you can use less or nada. Dimmers good.

Dining room.
China ball or balls above the table or translucent flexfill with a couple of 650W broads, flooded out fresnels or open-faced lights above it, aimed down. Skirt with Duvatyne.

Outside at night.
use all the light you've got for illuminating a building facade. Get plenty of light on your actors or good silhouettes. Aim a 1K fresnel at them placed off frame and 20' - 50' away. Sounds fakey, but looks good and your audience will accept it.

Use 250W Lowel Pros on backgrounds or to light specific objects on the set which for some reason you are calling attention to - a pretty flower arrangement, perhaps. Use a dimmer and diffusion if needed to get just the look you want.

Interviews.
You have the lights you need. Soft box or bounced light from flexfill as key, diffused light from one of the other lights as fill. A Lowel Pro high and behind aimed at the head for a rim light to separate the subject from the background, and a background light from a well-doored off Pro or similar through a cookie.

Now that we've mentioned a rim light, AKA hairlight, these are universally flattering in narrative fiction as well and can make a shot pop. Use them a lot and your actors will thank you for making them look good.

Use the flags, control the light. The art is less in getting enough light on your subject and more in controlling where it goes and what it does to faces especially, but anything you want textured in the scene.

Don't be afraid of shadows. Even lighting is flat, lifeless and dimensionless. Shadows give shape to your 2-D pictures. Ask your talent to be where they will be in the scene and walk up close and observe carefully the light and shadows you are creating. Unless in CU do not do this solely from the field monitor, and never from a little bitty one (8" or less.) Adjust the height, angle and intensity for the best look. Classically, you want the nose shadow to fall between the nose and lip and on the cheek off to the side of the nose, a little. At times you might have to suggest to your director that the actor would look best if they cheat how they hold their head a little bit so they look best on camera. All depends.

When you can, set your lights as though they were the light coming through the window, door, from an actual fixture, etc., - what "motivates" the light. But remember, no one knows if there is a window opposite the talent in a place they will never see, etc., so don't be afraid to set your lights to create your own reality.

Start by figuring out where to place the key or keys, then fill. After that get fancy with the background if you want. You can light a room very effectively with two lights and sometimes one. A forest of flags, stands and lights everywhere will more often than not create a confused image with low contrast and screwy shadows, where simplicity could have made an attractive, clean, believable one.

Buried in here is what you need in the way of lights. You must also have the requisite grip - stands, arms, grip heads, and expendables - gaffer tape, blackwrap, Duvatyne, gels.

Handle mixed 3200K and daylight sources by gelling your tungsten lights with 1/4 or 1/2 CTB (very rarely full CTB) to go well with the daylight. You can also get daylight NuVison CFLs for your China balls.


Can't believe I've typed so much and not covered the whole waterfront, but it's a start, Hope it's useful. Ask questions on specifics if you like.

Other DPs or lighting techs will have other ideas. That's kewl.
 
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Slondon thats one hell of a post. Too long for me to read :P > I just wanted to chime in and say to original poster, forget the 35mm adapter, sound will make more difference on micro budget.
 
In another thread I spec-ed out a Coollights based starter's kit that would come in at $2000.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=125128

You can buy a lot more in the way of tungston, especially used, but you will run into problems that you could avoid with HMI technology. Tungston problems include power issues (especially if you are on-location), daylight color issues (windows, scenes that go from inside to outside), and heat issues (the infra-red output from a tungston will make actors uncomfortable, especially if you are indoors and have to turn off the air conditioning due to noise).

Depending on where you are located it may be easy or difficult to rent medium sized HMIs when needed, but finding the same output in tungston will be tough anywhere, plus you would probably need a generator. In all actuality, you would probably change your script first...

Bob
 
I followed Gruen's post and I'm one CDM150 shy of a start CoolLights kit.

By the time they get some in I may be ordering two more instead.

A lot of users have also suggested China balls. I'm getting daylight bulbs from BlueMax to go inside of those as well. Worth looking at.
 
Question

Question

Great suggestions.

I was looking at some king of interview set-up and thus far have the following gear:

2 lowel pros (barns, gels & scrims)
1 on-camera Cool Vidled
1 Coolight portable - 4 flos w/crate

RUchard at Coollights had suggested I also consider the 2 flo portable version ...
 
Hey Slondon-- sounds like you really know your stuff. I'm a new member John Bianco, and I was wondering if you mught be able to answer this. I'm used to shooting with the XL1s and XL2 along with a monitor, now I'm upgrading to the XH-A1 and want to shoot with either the letus or SGpro adapter. Still haven't decided which one, but anyway-- focus was never a problem before, just looked at the monitor and what you see is what you get, right! Now someone mentioned I shoud messure to my subject to get critical focus. As if I was shooting film-- what's your opinion? Do you think with an HD monitor on set I can look at it and get critical focus? Or do I really need to start messuring? Cause I gotta be honest, I don't want to have to do that, obviously time is always an issue-- ya know? --- sorry for going on and on... thnx John
 
John, I'm a DVX shooter and not your guy on lens adapters or HD. I've been around plenty of them in good photographer's hands, though. Seems to me they get results the old fashioned way we all use by zooming in on the eyes and focusing, then pulling back to frame the shot.

I've never seen any videographer focus by putting a tape on it, as all film shooters do.

I have made some guys happy by whipping out my little focusing target though. It's just one of those radiating alternating black and white spokes patterns that you can find on the Internet and print out at home. Mines taped to one side of a white foamcore board that also has a large 16 X 9 rectangle in Magic Marker on it so we can tape off our monitor and LCD finder when shooting full frame but planning to add letterbox bars in post.

I'll be curious to hear how much measuring there is for cameras with focus ring markings.
 
slondon said:
John, I'm a DVX shooter and not your guy on lens adapters or HD. I've been around plenty of them in good photographer's hands, though. Seems to me they get results the old fashioned way we all use by zooming in on the eyes and focusing, then pulling back to frame the shot.

I've never seen any videographer focus by putting a tape on it, as all film shooters do.

I have made some guys happy by whipping out my little focusing target though. It's just one of those radiating alternating black and white spokes patterns that you can find on the Internet and print out at home. Mines taped to one side of a white foamcore board that also has a large 16 X 9 rectangle in Magic Marker on it so we can tape off our monitor and LCD finder when shooting full frame but planning to add letterbox bars in post.

I'll be curious to hear how much measuring there is for cameras with focus ring markings.
Click to expand...
Slondon, thanks for you thoughts-- I thought the guy that spoke to me about messuring was a little over the top. He did seem to know his stuff about film, and video, but again, I wasn't absolutly sure. And after seeing you informative post regarding lighting in all the different rooms I thought you'd be the perfect guy to ask. Anyway thanks. John
 
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