Best Cheap Lighting for matching Daylight

nailsproductions

nailsproductions

New member
Hello everyone. I have some stupid questions on lighting (hehe). I've been looking over all the threads and there is some great information. I'm just kinda dumb with lighting and haven't seen answers to my questions. I'll try to describe my situation in enough detail that someone can help me.

I just switched from an XL1s to a DVX100A and am getting ready to shoot a short film in a week or two. The main location is this really cool 80s style 2 story house with lots of huge windows... I have 1000w and 1500w Home Depot Shop Lights. If I try and plug all that into one room I'll probably blow this house up cause it's kinda old. I could get away with maybe 500w on each light. The lights are kinda harsh so I have used that oven safe wax paper stuff for diffusion on the shop lights and it works great, just layer it on till it's soft enough. I only burned it one time and that was because the paper was touching the glass...

I know that I'll need to get some CTB gel to match those lights to all the sunlight streaming in. And there are lots of trees around the house so just the sunlight isn't strong enough.

I am looking at replacing all the bulbs in the rooms we'll be shooting in with some 5100-5600k spiral fluoro bulbs (27w or more)? Or maybe trying to reflect a bunch of light into the windows and get it where I want it... The atmosphere of the home needs to be on the cheery side, but not too happy.

I have great equipment everywhere but lighting and I know that lighting is the essence of a good picture (or any picture at all). I was going to spend my last $200 on a zoom controller, but I'm thinking it would be better spent on lighting (duh). I might be able to spend $500 if I get paid for a job in time. For now, I got $200. I don't know much about lighting other than the basic 3-point, and I always just used a key and a fill... I'm also in a handy-man type family so we can make DIY stuff if that's the best option.

So what should I do for lighting? What types of lights should I get? I want to go with daylight temp stuff and I don't know much about all the different lights or what is a good light and stuff. I kind of hesitate to spend a lot of money on lights cause I don't really know what do with them beyond the basics that I can do with the shop lights. I can make something look decent, but I'm no gaffer by any stretch... I have a Cinematography book (by blain brown), but it says more what to do with the light than how to do it... and I'm still kinda stupid with lighting... I need help with the practical and situational application.

Any help would be very much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

-Joshua
Nails Productions
 
You are %100 correct that you need to spend your cash on lights. Poor lighting and audio are two of the dead give aways that someone doesn't know what they are doing.

When utilizing day light (which I suggest you take as much advantage of as possible) the name of the game is light control. Stop down your iris, and use as much of the natural lighting as possible. If nothing else, it can be your fill light.

Go to an art store, and get foam core. White for bouncing light, black for helping to create shadows.

As for the $200, if you get paid in time, I would STRONGLY suggest picking up a Fresnel. It's one of the most versatile lights you can buy. I suggest one of these:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...020&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

I've got 4, they are fantastic lights.

This post is somewhat sporatic... it's kind of late. Let me know if any of that helped, and I'll come back tomorrow and throw in some more ideas.
 
You have to take into account everything, witout knowing the size or color of your room, or the blocking of your scene it can only be general advice. What's going to kill you here is contrast, you want to avoid large contrasts if you want cheery. So bounce and flood will be your friend. use soft lighting to avoid hard shadows, try to stay within three to four stops from your shadow to your highlight. Your shot will be somewhat flat but you should be able to get vibrant colors.
 
Thanks for the advice!

TC:
I'm gonna try and get the best lighting I can, and I will get great sound with my AT4073a Shotgun Mic...
A friend of mine spent like $22,000 on a 10min film shot with the 100a and it looks almost like film cause he hired all professional crew and lighting and the gaffer did a really nice job. So I've seen what this camera can do with proper lighting.
I will definitely get a bunch of reflectors. It seems like every time I go to the craft store they don't have any white foam core, at least none more than like 1/4" thick... I'm thinking about getting something reasonably stiff and gluing white poster board to it? I could probably even get gold/silver that way too. My dad is a carpenter and has a shop so I might even be able to just put the poster board on some 1/2" plywood or something...or would that be a bad idea? What is a good size for a reflector? 4'x4'? And I'm assuming that you would use the black one for a flag?

Thanks for the link and the suggestion on the light. I love B&H... That light looks good, I think it needs a stand, barndoors, and a bulb, gel holder, as well as CTB gels for shooting with daylight... is there anything else I need to get with it? I'll get extra CTB gels to use with one of my shoplights.. that comes out to around $550... thats a little more than I have even if I get paid... I'll see what I can do.
Thanks TC!

Gopher_Greene:
I forgot to mention that the room is a volume ceiling (probably 12ft) and I think it has that rough acoustic texture... It's mainly white, with lots of mid-dark tone furniture and a wood floor with a big light colored throw rug... I'd say overall it's probably a medium-tone room. The living room is 20x20ish on the second story with 2 opposing walls of windows (North & South) with a covered porch thing that extends 8ft around the entire second story so it will be easy to rig up lights and reflectors outside the room pointing in the windows. But there are trees around the South wall. I am in Kern County which is a few hours North of L.A. so the Sun is probably 5 or 10 degrees South rather than North... so I don't know how much Sun I can get to bounce into the room... We will do everything from wideshots (10 people standing) to closeups, but mostly medium and 2 shots, so lighting will be fun...

(side note)
I'm really wanting the film-look and I have a fairly decent understanding of what it requires, just not how to actually do it... that's really much of my dilemma. I understand more or less "what I need to achieve", but not how to do it. I just finished my first year of College and I've been working with cameras since I was 10, but the last 5 years are really what counts. I "know a lot", but I don't have a lot of experience. Besides that I have reached another one of those points where: you think you know a lot, then you learn a little more, then you realize how stupid you are and how much you don't know. So then you learn some more and think you know a lot, then repeat the process... And right now I'm at the point where I realize how stupid I am... and on top of that I haven't had time to do a serious project in almost a year so I'm a little rusty starting this film... I'm the director, the producer, the DP (I have a cameraman, and I'm not the writer), and also the editor... so I'm trying to do a lot... and that is never a good thing, but no one else knows and I don't have time to teach anyone... But I can delegate some things like scheduling... And we start shooting in about a week and a half... AHH!!!

By avoiding contrast are you telling me to have milky blacks or is that art direction? Or are you just meaning to keep everything in the picture lit up closer to the mid-high tones and try to stay away from darks?

I will definitely try for the soft lighting, thanks. I'm assuming that if I get those flouro bulbs it will help keep my lighting soft? I read all about what type of bulbs to get, so assuming I get the right stuff would it be a good idea to replace all the practicals (ceiling fan that we probably won't ever see, and a lamp or two) with the daylight flouro bulbs for lighting?

I tend to associate "flat" with "videoish" and would want to avoid that, or am I misunderstanding what you mean?

Because of the wonders of 4:1:1 compression I will probably leave the camera color set at -1 as always (and I'm trying to stay away from red in my art direction) and bump up the color a little in post with Vegas 5.

Thanks for the advice! Sorry for the long post. I hope I didn't sound too blunt in my reply, sometimes I come off that way in writing, it's something I'm working on... I'm a nice guy and am extremely happy to get your help! THANKS!!!
Joshua:dankk2:
 
Your on the right track. What I find is if you have to much contrast from your high light to your shadow, your very limited in post, you either have no detail in your shadow or blown out whites. I just did a short where we set the ambient in the room at f2.6 my subjedt was lit at f5.6 and my highlights were f8. It won the little festival it was in and I had three people ask me if we shot it on film. Of course it was shot on the DVX, but you can achieve those results. You will have to manipulate the gamma in post to get the shadows where you want but if your wanting a cheery feeling, you probably don't want a lot of contrast anyway.
 
nailsproductions said:
I'm gonna try and get the best lighting I can, and I will get great sound with my AT4073a Shotgun Mic...
Click to expand...
That's a beautiful mic, I have one myself and can only say good things about it.

It seems like every time I go to the craft store they don't have any white foam core, at least none more than like 1/4" thick... I'm thinking about getting something reasonably stiff and gluing white poster board to it? I could probably even get gold/silver that way too. My dad is a carpenter and has a shop so I might even be able to just put the poster board on some 1/2" plywood or something...or would that be a bad idea? What is a good size for a reflector? 4'x4'? And I'm assuming that you would use the black one for a flag?
Click to expand...
Yeah, the ones I have are that thin too. It doesn't really pose any problems though, they are light, can be held easily by a person or a c-stand, and if you need to break one up (or accidentally do so, it's not that big a deal because they aren't all that expensive.)

I would stay away from the plywood idea, too heavy, makes it much less versatile.

4x4 is cool, standard poster size is cool, any smaller than that and I'd start to question it. (Not to say that sometimes smaller doesn't come in handy.) Having a variety of sizes is helpful.

Yeah, black is good for flags. The weird thing about black is that if you put it close on the key-side of someone's face (only works for CU's) than it darkens that side of the face. Like a black hole, very weird, but can be very helpful.

Thanks for the link and the suggestion on the light. I love B&H... That light looks good, I think it needs a stand, barndoors, and a bulb, gel holder, as well as CTB gels for shooting with daylight... is there anything else I need to get with it?
Click to expand...
You don't need the gel holder, just get some C-47's (clothes pins) and just pin it to the barn door. Just make sure to leave room for the gel to breath, or else you'll burn it up.
 
Gopher Greene:
Thanks! I see what you mean, that is great advice! Congratulations on your film. I had at one time considered using one of those low contrast filters that more or less increase your dynamic range to capture the greatest exposure latitude possible then tweak the gamma in post... its the same general idea just with lighting. I'll do my best to bring everything in the scene into the rage that the DVX can capture!

TC:
Thanks much! Now that I know that I can get the 1/4" stuff and it works that makes it much easier... I had the impression that I needed 1" thick stuff... and that is what I have always seen...

That is a great note about the "black hole effect". I was wondering if I needed to get that gel holder... I use C-47s on my shoplights so why not! Thanks!

Is there somewhere that has good information on how to use lighting in a fairly concise way (like setup examples)? I looked over all the links in the lighting sticky and they didn't help too much, I kind of knew most of it... I dont' exactly have time to buy and read "Painting with Light"... Though Blain Brown's book is pretty good for cinematography (not so much on lighting), I just need to review it... And try to get through the 5 Cs of Cinematography... but what I really need is a gaffer... hehe... When my camera man isn't there I'll have to run the entire camera and lighting crew myself as well as direct... Script meeting today, Storyboards this week, and Shooting soon!!! AHH!!!

-Joshua (much overwhelmed and thankful for the help) Moore
 
Thanks for your help TC & Gopher Greene! I got some foam core, but it is kinda small (24"x30") That was the biggest they had, I looked around and they have those white cardboard science fair project boards for $5. They are 3'x4' and fold down to 3'x2'. So I got some of those too. The production is now on a time budget as half of the cast is moving out of state soon. I decided to just get the movie quality 26w daylight Compact Flouro bulbs for $14ea, and some CTB for my worklights. I was $300 short for that nice Fresnel... maybe next time. We start shooting next week, thanks a bunch for all the help!

Joshua
 
> Though Blain Brown's book is pretty good for cinematography (not so much on lighting),
> I just need to review it.

He has two books, one for cine and one for lighting. I teach both cine and lighting classes and use his books for both classes. They supplement each other well. After auditioning 20+ books for each class, his were by far the best (for beginning students).

Next quarter's students will be happy to learn the book is online...

(BTW, just noticed this thread is almost 4 years old...)
 
nailsproductions said:
So what should I do for lighting? What types of lights should I get? I want to go with daylight temp stuff and I don't know much about all the different lights or what is a good light and stuff. Any help would be very much appreciated!
Click to expand...

Check out this recent thread - http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?p=1874847#post1874847 - on the cheapest (but effective) daylight lighting sources. It covers several options that were not available four years ago.

Guy Holt, Gaffer, SreenLight & Grip, Boston
 
Don't forget that a 26W compact fluorescent is not the brightest light source in the world. On top of that, in normal fixtures what light does come out goes every way possible. Proper video lighting focusses light in the direction it's needed!
 
nailsproductions said:
So what should I do for lighting? What types of lights should I get? I want to go with daylight temp stuff and I don't know much about all the different lights or what is a good light and stuff. I kind of hesitate to spend a lot of money on lights cause I don't really know what do with them beyond the basics that I can do with the shop lights. I can make something look decent, but I'm no gaffer by any stretch... ...............................
Any help would be very much appreciated! Thanks in advance.
-Joshua
Nails Productions
Click to expand...
FRESNELS!
From one beginner to another, I can tell you fresnels are probably your most versatile. You can use them inside or outside to a limited degree. Get quality stuff cheap from ebay---look for Desisti, Mole, Strand, Altman, etc. (Arris tend to stay ridiculously high).
My first lighting attempt was a classic three point setup for a narrative outside at sunset using fresnels and CTB attached to the barns with clothespins. It was my very first time and everything I did was the result of what I learned from this site. I literally laughed out loud when I saw the results of what I shot. HMI would have been nice but I was happy as hell with what I got and I did it with one 650w fresnel, two 300w fresnels, several gels and some clothespins.
 
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