Converting living room to part time studio

L

LCD

Member
Hello all,

I purchased a Canon 60D last week as my first camera and so far things are going well. I'm using it primarily for video, mostly music videos and other music promos, and I'm looking for the right home studio lighting setup. Trying to draw a diagram would be useless so let me explain what I'm working with:

I am looking to get a white/black screen and put it up in my living room to do some shooting. With some simple rearranging I have about 12'x12' worth of area to play in with 8 foot ceilings. There is also a sliding glass door 5' wide and 7' high to the shooters left. There are no fixed lights in the living room, just a floor lamp I bought.

My question is this: What type of BUDGET lighting setup would you suggest for an area this size? Obviously I'll be doing mostly closeup shots in such a small area and I'm looking to spend under $200 on an initial setup.... the more under the better lol.

*edit*Let me also say that while I plan on getting some of those Home Depot construction lamps, that's not what I'd ideally like to use in the house (too hot). Is a fluorescent setup advisable in this scenario?

Thanks in advance,

-D-
 
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Hey! I would say check out CowboyStudio and see if you can get what you need from there. They're pretty cheap, and I recently purchased an on camera LED light from them that works great!

http://www.cowboystudio.com/product/c16/c16.php

They also sell really cheap backdrops too.

As far as the sliding glass door, you may want to cover it up with some kind of thick, black sheet if you can. When you're shooting studio-type shots the more control you have over the lighting the better.
 
LCD said:
Hello all,

I purchased a Canon 60D last week as my first camera and so far things are going well. I'm using it primarily for video, mostly music videos and other music promos, and I'm looking for the right home studio lighting setup. Trying to draw a diagram would be useless so let me explain what I'm working with:

I am looking to get a white/black screen and put it up in my living room to do some shooting. With some simple rearranging I have about 12'x12' worth of area to play in with 8 foot ceilings. There is also a sliding glass door 5' wide and 7' high to the shooters left. There are no fixed lights in the living room, just a floor lamp I bought.

-D-
Click to expand...

For me the biggest problem with 'multiple' use rooms like the living room, is that either the 'studio' takes over, or the 'other use'... but that aside for the moment, the other big problem with a 'normal' room is the 8' ceiling. To raise your lights, plus any additional items like a softbox/umbrella/screening, etc. the 8' becomes a problem. Additionally the walls and ceilings, most likely 'white' or in any case of light valued paint, allow for light to be bounced from directions that you may not want, to create some lighting effect.

Don't know if you can paint your 'living room' black... so what's left is using a lot of material to create light baffling to control the light.

But with black sheets from Target you can make curtains that you can hang or pin to the wall, maybe even parts of the ceiling to control the unwanted bounce.

That is, unless you're going for the 'enveloping' light look, then the light walls and ceiling work for you...

In another thread, and mentioned here, I looked at the 'cowboy studio' offerings. They look inexpensive, so while one wants things to work right... it's not a major outlay to get started, if they aren't up to years of use.

The softboxes I do have are Photoflex, and while they're pretty good, they may be out of your budget for now.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
For me the biggest problem with 'multiple' use rooms like the living room, is that either the 'studio' takes over, or the 'other use'... but that aside for the moment, the other big problem with a 'normal' room is the 8' ceiling. To raise your lights, plus any additional items like a softbox/umbrella/screening, etc. the 8' becomes a problem. Additionally the walls and ceilings, most likely 'white' or in any case of light valued paint, allow for light to be bounced from directions that you may not want, to create some lighting effect.

Don't know if you can paint your 'living room' black... so what's left is using a lot of material to create light baffling to control the light.

But with black sheets from Target you can make curtains that you can hang or pin to the wall, maybe even parts of the ceiling to control the unwanted bounce.

That is, unless you're going for the 'enveloping' light look, then the light walls and ceiling work for you...

In another thread, and mentioned here, I looked at the 'cowboy studio' offerings. They look inexpensive, so while one wants things to work right... it's not a major outlay to get started, if they aren't up to years of use.

The softboxes I do have are Photoflex, and while they're pretty good, they may be out of your budget for now.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response.... the 8' ceilings are my biggest concern too and yes, my walls are beige. Not going to be able to paint them black but I will look into your other suggestions.
 
Blacking out ceilings: get a roll of Savage seamless (background paper) in black, 9' wide, $50 - find it locally though.

With a helper (or 2) you can staple it to a ceiling. Or get the 4' roll and do it in a couple passes (easier to handle). And you can tear it down quickly - unless your ceiling is smooth as a wall, you won't see the staple holes. And you can always use black seamless.

I use black felt often - it's not as opaque as duvatyne, but it's much lighter weight and cheap enough to be considered disposable, or to cut holes in for rigs, etc (I often use it to shoot smoke plates on black). It takes 2 or 3 layers to fully block out a window, but for blacking walls and making temporary scrims or 8' tall "softboxes" it's killer. Get it at the fabric store, or eBay sellers usually have it in wide bolts for $5 or so a yard, sometimes much less.

Softboxes are just ridiculously overrated for anything but tabletop product and talking-head interviews. I have all sorts of photoflex boxes (and pricey fabric grids) but only end up using them for product shots. Sometimes they make nice open-faced lights if you yank the diffusion and just use the box.
 
depending on what you are shooting, maybe the white ceiling can work FOR you, as a reflector. since you cant get a light up as high as you might like, set it up low and point it up and let it bounce to your subject.
 
Mr Blue said:
What he means is he uses the black background behind the white smoke to make an alpha matte. That way you can make smoke without having to key it out of a greenscreen. Trying to key smoke off a greenscreen properly is next to impossible, and looks like crap.
Click to expand...

Ah, thank you so much. Do you happen to know of any examples anywhere, clips or even vidcaps?
 
slondon said:
Ah, thank you so much. Do you happen to know of any examples anywhere, clips or even vidcaps?
Click to expand...

I've done things where I cut a paper-punch sized hole in black felt, and put a stick of incense or a cigarette under it, to get really specific smoke trails.

One problem with felt is that it's like velcro for hairs and dust, you need to wrap some tape around your hand and clean it if it's in the light... I tend to use a 750 fresnel or a 1k ellipsoidal light at a distance, and flag it just off camera - you get very hard, VERY "aimed" light that way - you can just hit the smoke.

All of the smoke in this video was done that way (hey, the lyrics even say "through a screen of smoke"):

 
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