Help with lighting setup for microbudget movie

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coldheartproductions

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I have about $1,000 to get a decent lighting setup for a microbudget feature shot on the canon hv30 with a 35mm adapter. I am going to loose a stop or two of light with the adapter. I was wondering if any pros could give me some advice for a dramatic three point light setup and decent lights to get for about $1,000....I expect I'll end up spending a little bit more so...lets say a grand for just the 3 lights and bulbs. The film is a film noir style movie and I need that feeling in my light setup. I have a basic knowledge of lighting for film/video. I was thinking of getting two 650w fresnel lights and one Hmi. I assume that a hard light setup would work best for me and I need it bright since I am using an adapter. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. I plan on picking up some china laterns/balls so leave those out of the equation as well. I need three good lights for a key, fill and backlight. Thanks for your advice and time.
 
Your $1000 budget is going to be stretched trying to purchase an HMI so I'd stick with tungsten units. Since you're shooting film noir style you definitely want hard light.

If you're planning any long shots on dark streets, abandoned railway stations, etc then I'd start with a 2K fresnel which is the largest tungsten fixture you can run off of a standard edison plug. This would be your distant backlight, preferably gelled blue for moonlight.

You loose quite a bit of light gelling so one trick is to white balance your camera to somewhere around 2100 Kelvin. 3200 Kelvin tungsten sources will now look blue. Basically put CTO gell over your key light, balance for that, and ungelled tungsten will be blue.

Augment the 2K with a couple of 1 K fixtures for key and fill. You can use hard key lights on the guys and bounced soft-light on the girls if you like, although in classic noir the guys got lots of cross light and the girls got frontal hard light. Just be careful in picking the angle, especiall on the girls so they look beautiful.

650s or even small should work for backlights. I normally use 200w peppers as backs for indoor locations.

To get all of this for around $1000 you'll want to look for used fixures on e-bay. I've had good luck buying Mole Richardson fresnels. They typically work fine and if they need anything they're easily repaired although parts from Mole are a bit pricey. The good point is they are Moles which are workhorse lights that will last for years and take tons of abuse.
 
How many days are you planning on shooting ? Are you shooting several days in a row, or over weekends only for a month.?
I ask because you should consider RENTING these lights for your shoot.
650's new, from Arri, are around $ 430-485 bucks each, maybe more. An HMI, unless you buy a CDM type bulb/ fixture from Coollights, are thousands of dollars.
If you rent, you'll have more toys to play with, and a rental house should let the lights go out for a 3-4 day rental and let you use them for a whole week. So, pay for Mon-say Thursday, and get Friday,Sat, sunday for free. Just something to consider.. Best of Luck..
 
What are your shooting conditions? Is it all daytime or night time? People in a car, or a cathedral?

Without specifics, I would go with 1k's at least. You can ALWAYS take a lights intensity down (flood, scrim, ND gel, net, etc) but it's very difficult to get more light. With past work, (using Redrock, Nikon f/1.4's and HVX), 650 was the smallest light I could use.

Also keep in mind that gels and diffusion take down the lights intensity. So if you want to put a chimera around that 650, it's considerably weakened.

I would like to ask you why you want to mix tungsten and daylight? Are you using the HMI because it's going to be a high output HMI? If you only have a limited number of lights, mixing tungsten and HMI's will only force you to gel the lights cutting the intensity by 2/3rds a stop or perhaps even 2 whole stops. (CTB=2 stops, CTO=2/3rds a stop) I assume you are renting, yes? If not, then you don't have enough to buy an HMI. If you rent, you can probably get a decent lighting arsenal for 1k, depending on the length of production.

I see that you are interested in emulating the style of film noir. Will this be black and white, or in color. Black and white, besides tonal differences, will not need your light sources balanced, meaning you can mix HMI and tungsten. The movie 'Clerks' shot b&w for this very reason.

If you can give more details, it would help those here, help you.
 
mlbelanger said:
You loose quite a bit of light gelling so one trick is to white balance your camera to somewhere around 2100 Kelvin. 3200 Kelvin tungsten sources will now look blue. Basically put CTO gell over your key light, balance for that, and ungelled tungsten will be blue.
Click to expand...

Why are you doing this? Best bet is to just loose that 2/3rds of a stop on the CTO'd HMI and have correct balance.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Why are you doing this? Best bet is to just loose that 2/3rds of a stop on the CTO'd HMI and have correct balance.
Click to expand...

Ryan,

The CTO trick is assuming that HMI is out of his budget and he's using a 2K tungsten backlight. Whit balancing to the overly orange front light takes the tungsten backlight blue without loosing any intensity by gelling it with CTB.
 
mlbelanger said:
Ryan,

The CTO trick is assuming that HMI is out of his budget and he's using a 2K tungsten backlight. Whit balancing to the overly orange front light takes the tungsten backlight blue without loosing any intensity by gelling it with CTB.
Click to expand...

Oh I get it. I didn't realize you were factoring that he WANTED to use unbalanced light sources. I wasn't sure on his reasoning for the HMI. I took a different interpretation and thought it was for the power, sine HMI's turn more power into light vs. heat when compared to tungsten units. I understand now. Thanks! :)
 
Thanks for all of the responses....I am still learning the light lingo....I am a bit crazy, I would like to purchase a light setup because I actually plan on shooting a feature and three music videos and one short before the end of February, freelancing editing in the meantime so I can enjoy pasta products and make rent. I have production experience as an actor and a asst. director and a boom mic operator. Light is my weakest link but I am hell bent on learning it. First of all most of the script takes place in houses and apartments. The other locations are mostly outside which I am going to use natural light with maybe some reflectors. I do have a scene or two that take place at a coffee shop, both outside and in, A quick stop kind of store. I am still flushing out some details of a outside night scene which I am writing if I can afford. But for right now advice on a good light setup for bedroom and living room and apartment complex hallway situations is ideal.

From what I gathered so far a 1k light like this could be used as a decent key
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/72043-REG/Arri_532100_Studio_Fresnel_1K_.html
and two 650s fresnel lights (not ideal, but good enough?) like
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/72020-REG/Arri_531600_650_Watt_Plus_Tungsten.html
or from cool lights the same or no?
http://www.coollights.biz/cltf0650-650w-compact-tungsten-fresnel-p-57.html

would this work? better solutions for about the same $?

I have a month or so to experiment in which i was planning on learning....would this be enough light for hd video...I know alot of the noir feel will be made dark in color grading in post....thanks again.
 
ok how about this plan...i like the cool lights website nice cheap lights...i believe these come with stands and barndoors...
two 1k fresnel lights for key and back
http://www.coollights.biz/dtw1000-1000w-compact-tungsten-fresnel-p-58.html
$640.00
1 650w light for fill
http://www.coollights.biz/cltf0650-650w-compact-tungsten-fresnel-p-57.html
$265

They come with baby stand so I would need to replace these with really stand at least 8 feet i believe could i find compatible stands for like under 100 a piece?

I like there power saving ability, I am a little concerned with burning down my apartment for needing a generator or something.

Are cool lights good enough? why are they cheaper then other lights....what weakness will i have to make up for?

Thanks again.
 
For a typical one or two person shot in a bedroom, etc with minimal movement of the actors I'd suggest...

1 1k Fresnel spotlight for key
2 300w Fresnel spots for backlights

For fill you can either bounce a tungsten source (I'd use another 1K as it will let you light a larger bouce card and get softer light plus will be usefull if you need another hard source for larger scenes) or a 2-tube fluroescent light.

I have one of the CoolLights 6-tube fluors. The build quality is fairly good overall. Some of the electrical wiring was a bit undersized but I purchased this during a clearout so I'm guessing things have improved in the latest models.

In general the CoolLights gear is very similar to the other light-weight "reverse engineered" stuff you get from China like the "blue line" fresnels which are vague copies of Arri lights. The difference is that Andrew, the owner, has actually taken the time to work with the Chinese factories to get the best possible quality at low prices. In fact he actually lives in China for a good part of the year.

Any of these types of lights should work fairly well but will require care to keep in good working order. You won't be able to bang them around and abuse them like you would with Mole Richardson lights for instance.
 
mlbelanger said:
For a typical one or two person shot in a bedroom, etc with minimal movement of the actors I'd suggest...

1 1k Fresnel spotlight for key
2 300w Fresnel spots for backlights
Click to expand...

Hmmmm not enough. He is shooting 35mm adapter and HVX.... no?

That is probably under 160 asa wide open.


I still stick by my suggestion to get as much wattage as you can afford. You can always take a lights intensity down, or hell, make your film sharper and stop the lens down two stops. Your 1st will thank you as well. :thumbup:
 
Mirrors

Mirrors

Although they can be bulky to transport and trick to position, mirrors can turn a single hard light into two or more. In film noir style, even a circular or over mirror can be used to create a special shape, or tape or black paper used over a square/rectangular one to the same purpose.
 
Ulophot said:
Although they can be bulky to transport and trick to position, mirrors can turn a single hard light into two or more. In film noir style, even a circular or over mirror can be used to create a special shape, or tape or black paper used over a square/rectangular one to the same purpose.
Click to expand...

They sell kids for that.

Aziz! Light!!!

b8a41360-f8f4-4314-84db-248aa3bac2b9
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Hmmmm not enough. He is shooting 35mm adapter and HVX.... no?

That is probably under 160 asa wide open.


I still stick by my suggestion to get as much wattage as you can afford. You can always take a lights intensity down, or hell, make your film sharper and stop the lens down two stops. Your 1st will thank you as well. :thumbup:
Click to expand...

Ryan,

What wattage for backlights and keys would you recommend at that ASA?
 
mlbelanger said:
Ryan,

What wattage for backlights and keys would you recommend at that ASA?
Click to expand...

Ok... this completely depends on the parameters of the shoot. The background light will be a different wattage depending on what your other lights are, where they are placed, lens, aperture, etc! But I'll just make up a scenario to shoot.

Let's assume the camera with his set scene-file and adapter light loss comes out to an asa/iso of 160. (one stop slower than normal HVX HD Norm setting)

I would like to shoot at an f/2.8 because stopping a lens down will give you a little more depth of field back (wide open on 35mm adapters is insane!) plus you gain sharpness.

So I (personally w/o knowing what the mood or scene is) would want the light hitting the actors face to be one stop over, in a zone 6. My fill light would be around a zone 4. I'd put the background at a zone 3-4 split, detail in the shadows but not competing with the face of the subject. This will also give the face some pretty good contrast.

Let's assume our field of view is a medium shot. We'll be using a 50mm lens.

The following is a list my 35 nikon lenses and general fields of view. Because nikon still lenses are made from 35mm photography (larger then motion picture) and we are zooming in a non-disclosed distance into the ground glass, a friend of mine and I went out and measured different common field of views per lens in terms of CU, MS, etc.
ECU= Extreme Close Up CU= Close Up
CCU= Close Close Up MED = Medium


SHOT SIZE: ECU CCU CU MED 2-SHOT LONG
24mm ~ ~ 1' 2' 4' 8'6"
35mm 1' 1'6" 2' 3'10" 15'10" 11'10"
50mm ~ 1'6" 3' 5'6" 7'6" 18'
85mm ~ 3'2" 6' 10'6" 13'10" 32'
105mm ~ 3'2" 7'6" 12' 17' 38'8
105mm micro 1'3 1/2" 3'2" 7'6" 12' 17' 38'8
Click to expand...
In short, we will be using a 50mm lens at f/2.8 (two stops closed down) and to achieve the medium shot with my redrock zoom settings, will need to be 5'6" away from the subject. This means I can put my lights anywhere from 6" to infinity from the actor. (exception being if the light travels way off camera axis.)

The key light will be 45* camera left. An Arri 120v 1k fresnel will read at exactly
an f/4 (zone 6) at 17 feet away, set between spot and flood.

Next we need a fill. The fill light is going to come from about 20 degrees immediate camera right and fall onto subject as a zone 4. I am going to add a diffusion which will take the light down about two stops. I will use a 120v 650w frensel half spot and half flood. Since the diffusion is going to mess with the photometric results, I will have to slightly guess the lights distance at around 8-12 feet from actor. (Diffusion creates a much faster fall off of light intensity.)

Third, I'm going to skip an optional rim or hair light, and go for the background light. Let's pretend it's just a plain wall, with a bookshelf, pictures, chair, normal house items, all neutral shades of brown, gray, or likewise. No completely black or white objects, furniture or paint.

The lights are going to be raised higher then the key and fill, and will be shot in a downward slash across the background. (Just doing this because I don't know what the scene is)

By the way, the wall is going to be 20 feet from the actor (25 1/2 feet from the camera) (always separate actors from walls!)

I want the back wall to be a dim zone three-four split. This would read an f/1.4-f/2 split on your light meter. You will still see all detail in shadows, but the subject is going to really pop from the background! I'm going to have one 120v 1k fresnel about 115 degrees off of camera left and 40 feet from the wall behind the actor from camera view. At 40' the light would fall on a zone 3-4 split.

That is how I would do it. I never got to a rim, or maybe other background lights, but I'd say without showing you my work, it would require 650's at most.

The grand total is 2 1k's, 2 or 3 650's.

I could have moved the lights forward and used smaller units, but now when the next scene rolls around and it's a really wide shot. You'll be glad you have that extra power to throw around.

But what if you can't back the lights that far? Use scrims, nets, ND gels, dimmers (beware color temp change), change shutter angle, drop a camera ND, stop down lens, etc. Lots of options.

This is an example of using larger wattage lights as a lower one, in effort to have the availability of stronger lighting sources, if needed, in the future.

1220012519.jpg


This scenario is not suggesting lighting setups to the thread starter. It is simply showing my opinion that you need to light with 1ks and 650's minimum whenever using HVX and adapter. Any smaller lights will make wide shots almost impossible, etc.
 
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From my experience with the HVX200 without an adaptor, I have to agree and suggest you get 1Ks at least.

For the HVX without an adaptor, 100W Dedolights (and they have a lot of output for 100W) are hardly enough as hard, direct spotlights. 300W would be a nice size for hard, direct lighting, I guess. But as soon as you want to bounce light, diffuse light, or light larger areas you'll be more than glad to have at least 1K.
As Ryan mentioned before, you can always dim/scrim/gel lights to make them less bright, but you can't make a 650W lamp brighter than 650W.

However, if your budget allows it, you might want to get a mix of lights, not only 1Ks or 2Ks (these are much hotter, larger and heavier than smaller lights). It's definitely easier in a small room to work with a few small 300W-650W lights than to work with gelled 1Ks
 
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filmat11 said:
How many days are you planning on shooting ? Are you shooting several days in a row, or over weekends only for a month.?
I ask because you should consider RENTING these lights for your shoot.
650's new, from Arri, are around $ 430-485 bucks each, maybe more. An HMI, unless you buy a CDM type bulb/ fixture from Coollights, are thousands of dollars.
If you rent, you'll have more toys to play with, and a rental house should let the lights go out for a 3-4 day rental and let you use them for a whole week. So, pay for Mon-say Thursday, and get Friday,Sat, sunday for free. Just something to consider.. Best of Luck..
Click to expand...

Try before you buy? Makes sense to me.
If nothing else it will give you an understanding of what you do or do not want in a light kit.
 
Thanks so much to everyone for the advice...I think I am going to go with three 1ks and use scrims and gels to weaken the lights....I have time before I shoot outside scenes so In the future I plan to pick up a 2k and some 650's...I love you guys every informative...My only concern is advice on lighting with 1k's in like a small apartment or bedroom scenario...I won't always be able to set them 6 feet away...also any good books recommended about lighting continuity(sorry for the spelling)...I have down three point lighting with photography but I am curious as to adjust the lights within the same scene any tips on that would be great....thanks again to everyone...
 
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