Car headlights to light an actor during an outdoor daylight scene?

"I get the feeling the OP is going to use headlights regardless of the advice he receives here."

Hey, Luke, DON'T trust your feelings.

Sincerely,

Obi-wan K.
 
Filmkid2003 said:
"I get the feeling the OP is going to use headlights regardless of the advice he receives here."

Hey, Luke, DON'T trust your feelings.

Sincerely,

Obi-wan K.
Click to expand...

right on, glad to hear i was mistaken. how'd it turn out? (or if you haven't shot yet... what are you leaning towards doing?)
 
I realize the brightness issue trumps this, and matching the color temperature to the daylight involved wouldn't be fun, but I just wanted to point out that the height issue could have been at least partially resolved by driving the front of the car up on some of those ramp things that you can get to maintain them, then bouncing the light down from there.

Obviously you'd be losing more light rather than gaining any from that, so you'd be even more stuck on the brightness issue...
 
Hey folks, I am planning on shooting the scene this weekend. I think I will buy this 300 watt power inverter:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2259480

or this one:

http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay...tId=3125957&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=

and four of these 68 watt (300 watts equivalent output) compact fluorescent bulbs:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

and attach them to shop light fixtures which will then be attached to C-stands guerrilla style. Do you think 1200 watts of light will be enough to light up the actor when he exits the tunnel?

How would I white balance these 2700K CFL lights for a daylight scene (daylight at about 4:00 pm) on my GH2 camera? Just use auto white balance? Or should I use a white piece of paper lit up by the CFL bulbs?



I just realized I will probably have to use this inverter because it puts out pure sine waves since I am using CFL bulbs. Correct?

http://www.lowes.com/webapp/wcs/sto...erURL=http://www.lowes.com/webapp/wcs/stores/

Will I have to shoot at 1/60th shutter speed so I don't capture any flickering?
 
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i cant see those lights doing much in daylight. all 300w equivalent flouros are not created equal.

why dont you just hire a gaffer and let him supply the amount of light you need.

cheers
 
Those bulbs are going to be very orange with a color temperature of 2700K. Also fluorescent lights don't have much throw, and if the tunnel your looking into is deep you may run into problems. Judging from your list, your budget is around $120? Alright. That'll be a bit difficult. If you could stretch it a bit more I would say rent a portable 3000 watt generator and a 1200 HMI, it would likely run around $250. Or maybe a 3000 watt generator and some source four (LEKO) pars, and gel them blue. That would probably be closer to your budget. Source fours have a lot of punch, I've been able to light an actor who was a city block away with one of those puppies.

Or maybe still rent a 2200 watt inverter or generator and a 2K Mighty and gel it blue.
 
Filmkid2003 said:
Hey folks, I am planning on shooting the scene this weekend. I think I will buy this 300 watt power inverter:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2259480

or this one:

http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay...tId=3125957&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=

and four of these 68 watt (300 watts equivalent output) compact fluorescent bulbs:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

and attach them to shop light fixtures which will then be attached to C-stands guerrilla style. Do you think 1200 watts of light will be enough to light up the actor when he exits the tunnel?

How would I white balance these 2700K CFL lights for a daylight scene (daylight at about 4:00 pm) on my GH2 camera? Just use auto white balance? Or should I use a white piece of paper lit up by the CFL bulbs?



I just realized I will probably have to use this inverter because it puts out pure sine waves since I am using CFL bulbs. Correct?

http://www.lowes.com/webapp/wcs/sto...erURL=http://www.lowes.com/webapp/wcs/stores/

Will I have to shoot at 1/60th shutter speed so I don't capture any flickering?
Click to expand...

I take it the GH2 does not have a K scale. so yes, use a piece of white foam board. But the ambient will be a different color, more likely blueish.

and for me at least I haven't seen lighting work well in equivalencies. if it's 68w x 4 = 272w. a light meter could tell me I am wrong, but from my work with CFL's I think I am closer to right than wrong.

I am glad to see you've hopped aboard the adjunct lighting train of thought, I just think the train ought to be closer to daylight balanced and a wee bit more powerful, say 1200w; actual-w!
 
The GH2 does have a scale for setting the white balance. I would just go up and down the scale until I reached a happy medium that I could live with. If thats what the OP is planning to do and doesn't mind the color difference, then the following may be an option:

http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Electrical-Tools-Accessories-Work-Lights/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbm8p/R-202066789/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

[URL="http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100644927/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053"]http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100644927/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053


Th[/URL]e main reason I don't like the CFL idea is throw, not necessarily brightness. I figure punchier would be better.
 
Does anyone happen to know the tungsten-wattage-equivalent of the sun?

Did you ever stop to consider that the sun is essentially an unfocused light source over 90 million miles away (on average), which illuminates roughly half of Earth, which itself is wrapped in a giant softbox roughly 300 miles thick, and still has enough impact that we need to throw thousands of watts at the task of meaningfully generating contrast against its brightness...

I want one of those for my kit... assuming I can find a generator that can power it...


EDIT: I found a source claiming it's 2x10^26 if 100% efficient (which none of our bulbs are): http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090113060534AAFzfBY
 
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I honestly think you would be best off shooting this at sundown, It would be easier not to compete with the mid day sun. IDK, what are your thoughts on this?
 
Um, did you even read my last five replies? Lol. I am shooting at 4:00 pm, which is close to sundown and nowhere near mid day. Also, I am shooting in the shade and the actor has his back to the sun which is shining through the opposite end of a 60 foot long tunnel. The actor begins the scene, about 20 feet from the camera, walking towards the camera. I want to light him up when he reaches the end of the tunnel which is about 5 feet from the camera. While he is inside the tunnel, he is a nice dark silhouette with sunlight wrapped around him.

So, I will need about 1,200 watts of light to light him up five feet from the camera?

And I can't use a generator. Trust me. That is why I am going the power inverter route.
 
What you need at the end of the tunnel is very much dependent on what you're setting your exposure at the beg. of the shot.
Are you exposing for outdoors near sunset? If so, what stop will you be at? you'll need to recreate this 5 ft from him and make it look like he's not just walking into a light.
Are you racking your iris as he's coming closer? If so you won't need as much light. Outside the tunnel will look worse but lighting him up close will be easier. Can be a bit tricky to pull off.

Another thing that hasn't really been brought up is, What light source is this supposed to be? Some kind of tunnel glow, torch light, light from the other end of the tunnel?
 
fde101 said:
Does anyone happen to know the tungsten-wattage-equivalent of the sun?
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More often than not, 18K HMI heads are used to create sunlight for exteriors when competing with daytime ambient light level.

A 4K HMI would make a decent eyelight for daytime exteriors (with a layer of diffusion in front of it).

The OP wants to use the late day sun as a backlight, but depending on whether the sun is bouncing off clouds during that time, depending on the elevation there, depending on the surroundings (trees, buildings, etc.) - trying to illuminate open shade with artificial light with the limited resources available will more than likely prove to be impossible.

Thinking creatively for a solution, I would suggest the possibility (assuming the shot is a locked camera shot), of following the actor with a fixture to their side (one or the other), and then shooting a version of the shot sans actor to use in cropping and laying over the main clip on the timeline (thereby obscuring the person following with the light).

You may need to do a bit of keyframing to move the crop as the actor (and light bearer) get closer to camera, but I think it could work and I'd try real hard to have at least 1K worth of 5600K light less than 2 feet from the actor. Ganging up 4 of the 85 watt cfl lamps would give you about 1,200 watts equivalent of 5600K light.
 
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Chris Santucci said:
You may need to do a bit of keyframing to move the crop as the actor (and light bearer) get closer to camera, but I think it could work and I'd try real hard to have at least 1K worth of 5600K light less than 2 feet from the actor. Ganging up 4 of the 85 watt cfl lamps would give you about 1,200 watts equivalent of 5600K light.
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Have you used those lights Chris? I have been looking for some high wattage full spectrum CFLs, with standard E26 medium bases, to use. Every thing I have seen with wattage output that high has had mogul bases. I have a few 2 and 4 socket battens, originally designed for 375 and 500 watt photo floods (Old home movie lighting) that I want to put together as day light sources and was wondering if you think those CFLs would work in something like that.
 
Yeah, I've been using those CFL's for over a year now and to my eye all they need is -1/8 green if you want them to match daylight. Since I started using these, I barely ever use tungsten anymore for simpler setups.
 
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