cheap chinese lanterns

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Neil Rowe

Rowe Cine LLC
...my wife went on a girly trip to IKEA today in chi town. i told her to pick me up some round paper lanterns with cords. i guess they are on sale- 7 bucks for a 23" lantern with cord. lantern is 4.00 and the cord is 3.00. just a note to people that thats a pretty cheap place to get them. on the downside, you cannot order that item online from them. and the lanterns are slightly cream colored and not pure white, so they will skew your color temp a little. .. anyway its not enough of a variation for me to care about it, so i see only a great deal. ..just an FYI is all.
 
cool, glad it helped someone. specially you bro. now i can know that in some small way i helped make the july zombie fest winner. :grin: ..i was going to check places online, but i figure you can actually see and feel and examine what your getting in a store. every store i checked round here only had green and blue ones. .. it was really irritating to keep driving to differnt stores, and only find green or blue.
 
I got some 18" ones in Jersey the last time I went east, since we are Ikea-less in Colorado. Good deal.
 
Anybody know where silk or synthetic china lanterns can be found? I want to see if they'll last longer than the paper ones.
 
I got a couple of Nylon Chinese lanterns at a store call Urban Outfitters. Don't know if you've got one near you.
 
kecorcoran, thanks I just called and they're $14 for a 24" fabric lantern...and they come in white, pink, etc... party flavors!
 
10s said:
Anybody know where silk or synthetic china lanterns can be found? I want to see if they'll last longer than the paper ones.
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The synthetic ones are great. I get mine in chinatown in NYC.
 
..got an urban outfitters downtown here. ill check them out. after my wife got home with the paper ones i thought.. hmmm theses are pretty fragile. but heck 4.00 a peice. i would like to get a couple that i can toss around a little more. ill check them out next week. thanks for the tip!
 
Newbie Question:

What is the purpose of using Chinese latterns? (diffused lighting?)
What situation would you use them? Interviews?
What wattage bulbs are you using in the latterns?

Thanks!
 
-They are the cheapest fixtures you can find, and the nature of the light is a beautiful, soft light.

-Since they output a not very controlled light, you use them mostly for fill, in larger spaces, but they can work as a soft keylight on cosed frames, just beware of spill.

-It depends on their size because just putting high wattage bulbs in a paper ball is a heck of a fire hazard. Most people use them with 250W Photofloods (a bright and tungsten balanced bulb used mainly by still photographers. Will shed a nice ammount of light, but those kinds of bulbs only last 4 hours, so they are kind of disposeable), Sometimes, on larger lanterns, I use 500W photofloods.
 
You can attach them to the end of a painter's pole and boom it just out of frame for desired effect and ratio. This can be useful in an interior or exterior (at night) walking scene.

For the exterior night scene, you can allow the distance of the china lantern to increase and decrease as the actor(s) walk. This can help simulate the light from a sign or street light and the intensity that is relative of the distance of source to subject.
 
I disagree with some of the posts here. This light can be used for so much more than fill. How about an interview key, a diningroom/romantic dinner key, a nighttime exterior key for sitting away from a house in near darkness, a bedroom lamp key and so many more things that I have used just such a light for.
 
A photo shoot in Lost In Translation (Bill Murray) used a rather large China-Ball type lantern as a key light.

I read about someone who used a 4K chinese lantern for key on some night shots... They were tracking an actor on dolly or steadicam and they simply walked the helium lantern along with the camera to evenly illuminate the actor.

I am unsure about the particulars on this "helium lantern" used for this particular application... Anyone else familiar with this product?

Thanks,
Brian Wells
 
thisiswells said:
A

I am unsure about the particulars on this "helium lantern" used for this particular application... Anyone else familiar with this product?

Thanks,
Brian Wells
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We use them for outdoor shoots for the most part, or at least I do. You can use them indoors too. The idea is to have helium to keep it in the air. It's just a big source of light that tethers in the air by cables. Great in fields, in front of a home at night or even city streets.

I don't have any pictures of the ones we use but here are some:

http://www.lightsup.net/film-set-new.html
 
Walter_Graff said:
I disagree with some of the posts here. This light can be used for so much more than fill. How about an interview key, a diningroom/romantic dinner key, a nighttime exterior key for sitting away from a house in near darkness, a bedroom lamp key and so many more things that I have used just such a light for.
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Sure, it has lots of uses. I was simply trying to provide one example. That's no reason to disagree with those who mention it's use as a fill light.
 
That's no reason to disagree with those who mention it's use as a fill light.
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Exactly. I used them as key myself many times. I lit a short once just using one china ball (didn't turn great, but turned out ok). But for that you have to get it close, using the inverse square law to get some contrast, otherwise it's wide spread nature will only flatten your frame up. The great thing though is that you can boom them overhead and win some of the distances in more opem frames. I think in the Book Reflections, there is an example of a beautiful boomed lantern shot, where it simulated the cigarettte light in a dark/twighlight scene.

Every light can serve any purpose, but for a soft widespread, uncontrollable source, fill is the first thing that comes to mind. Maybe in night exteriors, where we don't have to worry about spread, it's easier to imagine them as key lights in the first place.
 
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