Feature Film Lighting

K

Kalls

Member
I am planning to do a feature film in future and decided to start saving up for movie equipment. The idea is to rent black magic cinema camera/RED. I would like to buy lighting equipment.

I was thinking of getting Arri lights 2 650w and a 350w. Would that be enough?

My locations are

1. Home - Night and Day
2. City - Night and Day
3. Graveyard - Night and Day
4. Office - Day
5. Apartment - Night and Day
6. Park and Beach - Night and Day

I appreciate your input.
 
Could you shoot a feature with just 2 650w and one 300w light? Sure you could.

My input... When it comes time to shoot your feature film, rent a light and grip truck.
 
If you're okay renting a camera why can't you rent lights? That way your setup can be customized to the scene at hand, instead of you being limited to a couple of lights that may not fit your needs at the time.
 
agreed. You can shoot with nothing you would like, but I would at least get a 3 ton grip truck or something with some lights.

And, in reality, I use HMIs/Daylight lights WAY more than tungsten in narrative stuff. It looks like you are more than half daytime, which will probably require some HMIs and kinos.
 
Remember the awful crop factor of the BMC... you'll be hard pressed to find something that resembles a wide angle lens....

You can get by with very little or very much. Every job is different and every DP / gaffer is different. Without knowing the style, the locations the story, it's pretty much close to impossible to tell you how to gear up.
Design the scenes and shots, then I bet you'll suddenly realize what you need yourself...
 
If you were going to write and produce a novel would you go out and buy a four-color Heidelberg printing press, and a building to house it. . . for a one-time use? Most likely, not. If you needed it you would, most likely, rent the service. Most major feature film companies rent about everything. A general rule of thumb is to only buy and own equipment that you use 80% of the time, year in, year out. Use your budget for production costs to improve the film, not for equipment that will gather dust most of the time.
 
You could rent that kit w/ stands and stingers for around 5-600 for three weeks. Will be much more costly to buy them.
 
I HAVE shot fictional narrative with light kits not much bigger than that. I am no so inclined to do it again though. I concur with the above. If you have a feature in mind, and you have all of your ducks in a row in regards to all of the skills necessary to make a fictional narrative feature, I would advise that you may want to look around in your area for individuals that can shoot and light for you and have, or can access, the necessary equipment for you and ask them to help out. There in comes the true essence of filmmaking, working out the details with other people.

Now if you are set on shooting it, I second renting to buying, especially for a long form fictional narrative. If you are set on buying, I would go to the used market and put a healthy effort into also putting together an alternative/DIY kit of a variety of lights. For the record, I believe that if it makes light, it can be used in a film.
 
I guess I'm "lucky" enough to be able to shoot with the tools I need most of the time, so if that means 18K's for exteriors/day interior, so be it. For the abovementioned environments, I like to be able to lob in small units and those are not very common in daylight configurations. Once the LED thing sorts itself out and bicolor (or hopefully RGB) units deliver a more pleasing spectrum, I'll be OK with letting tungsten go.
 
CharlesPapert said:
That's an unusual approach, particular for night interior/exterior or controlled envronments.
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Well, for almost all daytime things I use HMI or kinos. I rarely use gelled tungstens in that situation.

for nighttime or all interior stuff, of course I use tungsten. But for a shoot that has nearly half daytime scenes, having some HMIs (even just one 1.2K) is a god send.
 
Though there are certainly some interesting uses of HMIs in controlled environments (though not by me). The Smell of Success, shot by David Mullen is a good example. He lit primarily with daylight sources.
 
Hadn't seen that but I assumed before checking it on IMDB that it was shot on RED, so in that instance the camera dictated the lighting approach.

Anyway--I think you can see where my confusion came in, when you said "I use HMIs/Daylight lights WAY more than tungsten in narrative stuff. "
 
CharlesPapert said:
Hadn't seen that but I assumed before checking it on IMDB that it was shot on RED, so in that instance the camera dictated the lighting approach.

Anyway--I think you can see where my confusion came in, when you said "I use HMIs/Daylight lights WAY more than tungsten in narrative stuff. "
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I am getting that information based on the RedUser thread on it (a very good read, by the way).

I can see where my wording would have been quite unclear, I apologize.

I suppose a better way of putting it is: "For daytime scenes, which quite a bit of my work is, I use daylight balanced sources like HMIs and Kinos way more than tungsten sources"
 
All good!

BTW have you had the chance to use the Arri M18 yet? Amazing light. So much punch for the power draw, and so flexible in application. They've become a staple of my packages.
 
CharlesPapert said:
All good!

BTW have you had the chance to use the Arri M18 yet? Amazing light. So much punch for the power draw, and so flexible in application. They've become a staple of my packages.
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Love the M18 - had the chance to use a few on a commercial shoot earlier this year.
Fantastic light.
 
CharlesPapert said:
All good!

BTW have you had the chance to use the Arri M18 yet? Amazing light. So much punch for the power draw, and so flexible in application. They've become a staple of my packages.
Click to expand...

As a Gaffer and Best Boy the M18 is extremely frustrating. Can barely put more than 50' of stinger down before the breaker trips and it's impossible to run reliably off of household circuits. I've had numerous times where we just flat out gave up on the M18 because we just couldn't keep it up. It's great if you have a generator and a little cable, but then why worry about trying to pack as much on a 20amp circuit as possible if you've got more power?

The Joker 1600 though...now there's a light. Same output as the M18, less power consumption, works better for slow-motion applications, just all around better fixture.
 
Never run one off household power. I know that's a perceived selling point but most households don't have 20 amp outlets (breakers maybe, but not necessarily anything after that).

I've never put a 1600 Joker up against it but I've found the M18 capable of generating an insane output when spotted. It once overpowered a 12K par on a car rig when I had one head on either side, through diffusion.

My gaffers are fans of the unit. But to be fair: I can't remember the last time we had a Joker 1600 on set (we always carry the 800 though, which we use in JoLeko mode a fair amount).
 
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