Bare light bulbs

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Polaroid22

Well-known member
What bare light bulbs do people use on films? I see David Fincher uses a lot of bare light bulbs in his shots. Are they a particular brand? Or just a wallmart light bulb at a particular kelvin temperature?

Any recommendations?

Thanks!
 
string lights, bare incandescent bulbs, chinese lanterns, I see almost anything being used as practicals in films. Are you looking for a particular effect?
 
that looks like a plain old incandescent lamp. They will be warmer than 3200K. Choose the wattage based on your overall exposure, but they often end up being pretty low like 25w.
There's a softbox or 4x4 on camera right as the key, and a fill light up high near or just left of the camera axis, probably at 3200K. If the rimlight on him is only from the lamp in the sconce then it may be higher wattage
 
ok so nothing in particular that I should look into then. I will just grab one or 2 next time I am in a store :)

BTW my guess there is no fill light, and a tungsten kino flo 4bank as a key :)
 
I'd take at least 2 each of several wattage. If your working with one it's bound to blow out......

I assumed a fill from the reflection in the middle of that "bedknob" on the dresser, and the top of the sunglass frame
 
Yes it will affect color temp to a degree. Depends on how much you dim them. But do realize this can also be used to an advantage if you know what you are doing, just like the example you posted. Or color balance your camera accordingly. In the real world sometimes you need to dim a practical.
 
Polaroid22 said:
Thanks, but will they not affect the color temperature like it does on thungsten lighting(I know my arri set would go more orange if I tried to dim them)?
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In practice, the intensity of the light pretty much always takes precedent over its color temp. We usually try to get the intensity roughly right by selecting the right wattage, but it's almost always going to get dimmed down to get it perfect since you can't really dim upwards of line voltage except with a variac.
 
Agree with David but be warned that those Harbor Freight squeezers are cheap and with certain instruments, they can cause quite a buzz which will affect you if you are shooting dialogue or sync sound. I have half a dozen of them laying around and have used them for years, sometimes they are silent yet with other instruments and voltages from various locations, I have had to not use them when shooting interviews and or dialogue. I have a Mole squeezer I bought years ago for about $150.00 and it's heavy and has a big heat sink on it. The Mole squeezer is typically more silent than the Harbor Freight ones. Just something to be aware of. You will also find that even low wattage incandescents have to be dimmed down a surprising amount with lower latitude cameras like many of us have. When I shoot with an Amira or RED, there is a lot less dimming necessary to get an incandescent to not blow out because those cameras have 14+ stops whereas my little C100 MKII probably has 10-11 stops of latitude tops and DSLRs and some mirrorless probably only have 7-8 stops.
 
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