Help me light this location

W

watson

Well-known member
I may be shooting a music video at this location and i'm trying to figure out the best way to light it. I was going to set the band up in front of the windows (first picture) or long ways (second picture). I'm working on a really small budget. I have the opition of renting a an Arri 650/300 combo kit or two kinko flows. What lighting kit do you think will work best. Any other suggestions. The arri kit is 50 bucks for the weekend and the kinko are 125 for the weekend. Any other thoughts or suggestions would be awesome. Also is there any good appoach to cutting down the light coming through the windows? The windows in the first picture are facing north and in the second picutre facing east. Would putting sheets on the outside work? Thanks.

http://astro.temple.edu/~watsona/creeprecords/DSC00090.JPG
http://astro.temple.edu/~watsona/creeprecords/DSC00088.JPG

dont mind the images, they were taken with a cappy handycam.
 
Wow, the place is a barn!!!. First off, what look are you going for. If everything was free (it ain't of course) what you you like to see?

Lighting this location with a $50/weekend Arri kit or a $125/weekend Kino kit is kinda ambitious. If that is all you can swing, I would suggest using the windows as you main lighting and get daylight balanced kinos for supplemental light. As a rule of thumb, a north facing window will give you consistent skylight through out the day. A south facing window will give you the most sun through the day (however it will change rapidly through out the day). East and west facing windows will give you sunlight or skylight, depending on location of the sun and will not be consistant for very long. However, looking at those pix, the windows are interesting and under the right circumstances, I would use them.

For additional advice, please let us know how you want this location to look. How do you want to shoot the band? Do you want any long shots to show off this location? Give us more info.
 
I won't touch on technique, but $125 would be better utilized towards the purchase of
some work lights from home depot rather than renting a pair of Kino's for the weekend....
 
I'd suggest you start with 1000 watt open face fixtures. You will be struggling with 300 and 600 watt lights to get something, not that you will not be with 1ks but it will be better for you.
I'd pick one side and light everything from that side. Since it's a raw space, I might (with your budget) take all my fixtures and place them together in a little nest from the left side of frame and aim them all at the band form that one spot probably spotting them instead of using them flood. I would also overexpose it all to give it a raw feeling and probably increase sensitivity on a few passes of the song to edit between cleaner looking footage and grainer stuff. So in the end you'd have a raw feeling. Maybe even white balance a bit off, (bluer) or add a bit of green tinge later in post to compliment the raw florescent feel. TO sum up my first thoughts;

At least 4000 watts of light (4 open face 1k arrilights) all nested together on stands from one side of the room. Maybe one on the other side for fill if you like it. I'd look into altering color either in camera or in post. I am feeling a muted green sort of in tone with that florescent directly above in the shot (see that wonderful green tinge?). I'd shoot some run throughs of the band in a normal setting probably overexposing slightly. And I'd do a few increasing the gain in the camera for some grain and/or some shutter for close ups to add some blurish effects.
 
Wow this location looks really similar to a location I'm shooting at in a few weeks for a music video...don't worry it's not the same location. In my case the director and I have decided to stage the band in an open area where there are some windows and an opening in the roof. Definitely take advantage of any natural light. In our case the natural light is still not enough. I plan on renting a 575 HMI Par and few kinos's to handle it. Keep in mind that the wider your shots the more light you may need...unless having the surrounding fall off into darkness is part of your aesthestic. It all depends. What's your power situation? It looks like the building is completely abandoned.

bandarea.jpg
 
hey guys thanks for the feedback, i actually decided to with a completely different location that i felt fits the style of music better. So now i'll be shooting in a loft studio with tons of Day light. I'll probably bring in a few lights just to fill up the room a bit but over its really well light. Thanks for all your input. There is another band i may do a video for that i might end up shooting here so i'll keep your comments in consideration. Thanks again.
 
Large areas like these are where those cheap Home Depot worklights come in.

I used to do a lot of industrials in cavernous barely-lit processing facilities, and eight 1K worklights (with 3200K lamps) did wonders in lighting things up for a negligible cost.

A Lowell lighting kit was used for "close ups" -- which meant lighting a piece of machinery the size of a small house.
 
On the cheap.. nothings gonna work as well as 4x8 white foam insulation, and use them as reflectors. That is of course, if your shooting in the daytime, so you can use those windows.
 
patio screening will knock down your windows. it looks like theres a lot of fluorescent light I would get some + or - and use more of the same type of source thru out
 
Well you do truly have your work cut out for on such a low budget in such a huge location.

That said, I love those windows, what a fun place to light.

I think using the windows in shot will add some real energy to the look. You clearly won’t be able to balance to the windows, so they are going to blow - which is probably fine (I know I like it).

You could try to place some clear plastic sheeting from home depot used for painting over the windows to cheaply help even out any sunlight that does hit the window.

Also, could you shoot this at night? You will have a lot more control with your equipment. It is obviously a different look, but mite work for you.

If not, I would just try to block the action around the windows to work best for your look.

Honestly, the small tungsten units, once gelled with even 1/2 CTB wont do much of anything except in really close close-ups. I would probably go with the daylight balanced Kinos.

I have some pictures from past lower budget music videos I have done that are in similar locations. We had more resources than you will be dealing with, but hopefully they can give you some ideas.

In this picture:
http://www.ironwolf-legends.com/projects/theLodge/note_to_self/day1/P5210176.jpg

You can see I had a lot of windows to deal with. I used some of the plastic sheeting I was referring to, and just used one light to give me some highlights in the room. I knew the existing daylight would do the rest of the work.

Here is a shot from the inside:
http://www.ironwolf-legends.com/projects/theLodge/note_to_self/day1/P5210214.jpg
or http://www.ironwolf-legends.com/projects/theLodge/note_to_self/day1/P5210267.jpg
I also added some hard light through the open window. As you can see, I used additional lights in the foreground to bring up the action.

http://www.ironwolf-legends.com/projects/theLodge/note_to_self/day1/P5210278.jpg

In this shot I used a Kino-Flo (as others suggested) to bring up, and model the light on the drummer for his close-up.

On another project I was in a similarly huge location with once again a rather small lighting package.
The location before we did any work:
http://www.ironwolf-legends.com/projects/theLodge/nicotine/nicotine_34.JPG
http://www.ironwolf-legends.com/projects/theLodge/nicotine/nicotine_38.JPG

But then art department dressed the location's pillars.
http://www.ironwolf-legends.com/projects/theLodge/nicotine/nicotine_49.JPG

What I did was used small lights on the pillars (650s) to create depth. I then just had one big light up high (a 10k I think) to edge out the crowd (that is not in the picture).
Once again, we just danced around a Kino for the closer coverage.

Here are the results:
http://www.kevinzanit.com/nic

I realize you are dealing with completely different situations than I was, but my point is that these all had simple solutions. Just take a minimalist approach, and work with the light that exists there for you already.


Good luck!
 
Okay, I know you will not be using this location. Walter had good advice and Jarred as well. If I don't have HMIs, then reflectors should be one of the other tools utilized; especially with your budget. It looked like a sky light was in one shot. Shooting down a 2k fresnel gelled CTB may give a good effect. Also with the industrial look, props could have hide some flood lights thrown on the walls to give a better reading. If this was an actual barn and there were cracks, you could have also flood lights through the cracks, a little smoke - bling! Mirrors could have been utilized as well, to reflect the sun in other areas that were not illuminated. But with a big location like this, I really have agree with Walter, that you need a few if not several 1 or 2ks to be somewhat effective. If you didn't shoot yet, send some pictures of the loft where the actual shooting will occur.
 
Here's an idea for you, use the light coming from the windows, if the light is too stong, use the sheets outside over the windows, but make sure that it is consitant through your shoot. You might want to shoot more than one day if the light here changes too much during your shoot. You can use a small strong light behind the band placed where you can't see the light. Also light the band from the front. Now get a few of those cheap ($10) fog in can, and you will get a great look real cheap. You will see the light streaming from behind the band like rays, and the light from the windows will create a nice effect, I hope you get the idea.
Just a suggestion for some great lighting on a tight budget.
Hope your shoot goes well!!
 
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