How "light" could you really go?

legrevedotcom

legrevedotcom

Veteran
I know... there's a setting for every scene in every movie. But nevertheless, how light would you let yourself go for a piece of fictional work? Could you get away with say 1 fresnel and a bounce card? Could you let yourself get away with two work lights through a bedsheet. What's the minimum? Today's cameras are really sensitive, as we've seen with the FS100, but could you totally emerge yourself into a dogme type of shooting?

Right now I have
- 1 Fresnel 650w
- 1 Open face 800w
- 1 Diva knock off with 6 daylight tubes (1500w equiv)
- 2 par 64 long with 500w lamps
- and a microbeam 256.

Then I also have my flash kit (2 lights) which utilizes 250w pilot lamps.
The video lights I've picked up along the way when I spotted a good deal, but I feel like I'm missing something to "complete" this initial gear setup.

More medium fresnels? Bigger fresnels (these days I've seen quite a few big tungsten fresnels from Germany on Ebay.
Or is it time to invest in some Westcott flags / scrims to cut down on the fiddling with improvised flags etc.?

The need is for fiction mostly and the locations are most likely private homes or site without power.
 
Enough light is well enough. Control of light will make or break your production. For example, you can't focus a cheap open face or work light like a fresnel. Maybe you could kludge up some barn doors and scrims for a work light if you have more time than money, but for most fresnels, this is standard equipment. You didn't mention anything to soften your light sources except your flo, bounce, and bedsheets, so you might consider a soft box with a grid. Maybe you are ahead on this curve, but the point is once you have enough light, shaping it is paramount.

Grant
 
I was actually looking at the Westcott large kit with diffuser and bounce. It could double as a large source as well as being sized down for doing a softbox look if needed. So in other words, that along with some more decent stands, black wrap and flags?
 
Yeah I did read that. Nice tips and tricks. I just get the feeling that I still have some way to go before I understand how different lights act, but I guess that's just down to actually just trying them out.
 
The kit could be perfect or unusable - it depends on the location and the context. You've got a lot of kit with very different features - so what are you actually doing, where is it, and what is the result you want to achieve? Without these - we could be thinking a tight interview, close in, or a church with no existing lighting? So answers don't really mean much without detail.
 
legrevedotcom said:
Yeah I did read that. Nice tips and tricks. I just get the feeling that I still have some way to go before I understand how different lights act, but I guess that's just down to actually just trying them out.
Click to expand...

Absolutely.

I have shoot some very low budget features, with very small light kits, and have had, out of necessity to learn to use what is cheaply available. A lot of folks might laugh at this, but, for low budget/no budget filmmaking, the most versatile light I have found is the simple clamp work light, with the E-27 Medium (Edison) base.
Like this:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100354511/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=work+light&storeId=10051

When using them, I always use a large spring clamp over the light clamp, not exactly, but like this:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100348650/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10058&langId=-1&keyword=spring+clamp&storeId=10051

What I love about the lights with the regular household screw in bulb socket (E27, Medium base) is just the vast amount of lights out there that you can use in them. Besides the Home Depot type clamp work light, I have also picked up, very, very cheaply, a large lot of E27 base light bars, with 2 to four sockets, that were made back in the 8mm home movie days and sold as movie lights. Like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Acme-Lite-Mov-E-Lite-Photography-or-Movie-Light-Tripod-Mount-/180876952660?pt=US_Movie_Slide_Projectors&hash=item2a1d1b4454

What I like about these lights is that, even through they are old, is that, because they are old, have very good build quality and, because they were designed for lighting very slow home movie film, they are rated at very high wattages. All of the ones I have has a 1/4-20 screw hole on them, so I am able to screw in a "Spigot"
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/304651-REG/Manfrotto_013_013_Double_Ended_Spigot.html

and then use an umbrella adaptor:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/546375-REG/Manfrotto_026_026_Swivel_Umbrella_Adapter.html
to give the light tilt, up or down, capabilities on a stand or other standard mount. I really like these lights. With them, I can put any light with an E27 base anywhere I want to light a scene. A very versatile E27 base bulb that has great potential for filmmaking is this 250 watt halogen bulb. I found these on eBay and they are, as far as I can tell, the same bulbs that are sold on Filmtools.com for $11.95 a piece...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-250W-Model-Modeling-Lamp-Light-Bulb-Monolight-Photo-video-Halogen-Bulb-5-/280745282957?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415db90d8d

Shipping is kind of slow on those, but $3.99 a piece can't be beat. These bulbs are great to switch out in practicals (Obeying wattage ratings on all of your lights, of course) and in China balls.


After that, how you use these types of light is up to you and your ingenuity. Grant is right, control is absolutely essential. Get some stands, grip heads, super clamps, spigots, black wrap, baby plates, white foam core, black form core, spring clamps and lots of tape, to start.... and work with your lights to see how you can shape them and really control the look of where ever you are shooting.
 
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Thanks for all those links. I found Cinelight in Hungary who sells cheaper versions of grip gear. I think I'll order a couple to see what kind of quality they are putting out.

But yeah, I just wanna get more out! These days I seem to be stuck with still jobs, and while it pays the bills it just doesn't thrill me anymore. I can't watch a single movie or tv series without trying to figure out how the lights were placed in a particular scene. Today I saw 5 min of an episode of Game Of Thrones and thought that they were almost Nordic lighting it and then thought "Hey I can do that with a large frame of diffuser and a 1k lamp or two", but on what project.... ;P

Anyways, great tips.
 
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