Best "low budget" way to do lightning?

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DJ Lewis

Well-known member
About to start a short where the director wants lightning to flash behind an actress who standing in a dark hallway. He wants to bring a bunch of disposable cameras and have people flash them at the same time....

another option was finding a bright strobe light...

Since it will be dark, and we will be coloring correcting in post, I suggested a hmi (maybe with gel) that we could rapidly dim up and down or us card board block and reveal the light as needed....

what do you think? any suggestions?
 
if you're going to rent an HMI, why not rent a lightning flicker box? It'd be around the same price or less than renting an HMI... Geez, you could use a regular tungsten globe (like a 250watt or something) on a clip lamp and some CTB on a home depot dimmer and just dim it up and down really quickly. If you need more light, rent a baby or something, that will still be 1/4 the price of an HMI... then use some CTB Or, go to any Party FX store or shop, or like spencers gifts, and buy a cheapo strobe light. Turn it on, and use a flag and wave it back and forth in front of it.

An HMi seems superfluous, and unless you get a newer electronic ballast, the buzz will be annoying for sound.
 
Disposable flash cameras would work, but you'll have to find somewhere to hide the operator(s) depending on how many flashes you need in rapid succession - cueing them might be a problem though depending on framing.

Manually dimming or flagging a continuous light is unlikely to be fast and "spiky" enough to simulate the extremely short duration of lightning flashes.

Zoostory's suggestion of hiring a lightning effects box or cheap strobe sounds best.
 
DJ Lewis said:
ctb?
Click to expand...

That's short for Colour Temperature Blue gel filters used for colour correction of tungsten lights to match daylight. But basically it's just a particular shade and density of blue filter material.

1/2 CTB would be the same shade of blue but half as dense, so the correction would only be halfway between tungsten and daylight.

Incidentally, the reverse of this would be CTO which stands for Colour Temperature Orange used to make daylight lights match tungsten ones!

Search for Colour (or "Color" for you Americans) Temperature in the lighting forum, for more information. Or Google it.
 
You could use a large set of wood blinds/shutters for this effect. Put this in front of 1000 watt light out side a window, and open and close the shutter to mimic
your lightening . This was quite common in the days of yore. Some folks even used black powder charges..but I don't recommend it. Flashes from those disposable cameras, will look like flashes from disposable cameras, unless you place them well, and get the timing down just right. A dimmer would work, but use a bright bulb, and use an open face fixture. You'll need someone with fast hands
to operate this gag.
 
One option would be to bring in an arc welder to simulate lightning. The only other thing I have used that looks real are "Lightning Strikes" from LA. They take a lot of power though. The cheap way would be to use dimmers, but you will have to set up several very bright lights and flash them independently. One light will look like one light on a dimmer.
 
Thanks for your help guys... I'll try a few of these out in the next couple of days. I'll post what option worked best for us, and maybe some footy too. :)
 
just go to ikea and buy a bunch of large china balls, lamp cord, and dimmers. then you go to a hardware store and get a bunch of 200 watt flood frosted bulbs and you have a cheep ass light kit. ( for more light use multiple china balls ) to shoot day light inside your going to have to use a few and you can ouline the inside edge with 1/2 ctb, you can also buy you a role of black rap so you can flag some of the light.
 
willshipp said:
just go to ikea and buy a bunch of large china balls, lamp cord, and dimmers. then you go to a hardware store and get a bunch of 200 watt flood frosted bulbs and you have a cheep ass light kit. ( for more light use multiple china balls ) to shoot day light inside your going to have to use a few and you can ouline the inside edge with 1/2 ctb, you can also buy you a role of black rap so you can flag some of the light.
Click to expand...


Willshipp..great idea, but his question was about simulating LIGHTNING..like in a storm....Not lighting..per say....Yes, I do like chinese lanterns though..
 
What about borrowing, buying or renting an SLR camera flash? It would be much brighter and more reliable than the flash on disposable cameras.
 
I have used two SLR camera flash and firing them right after the other. It works great. Use the one that charges really quick. I bought a used one for only $3.00 each
 
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