Lighting and DP
- Thread starter JPUSC
- Start date
hscully
Veteran
When you hire a DP you get a DP. It's a person with myriad skills and experience. Depending on your experience as a director, the DP will make sure that you acquire the images you need to cut the piece, and apply his artistry and technical competency to the visual expression of your story.
When you talk about the equipment you need, your DP will guide you based on the scope, scale, locations, art direction and the implementation of your vision. Some don't own equipment but will be there to guide you on what to rent. Many DPs have cameras and lenses and support and equipment, monitors, etc. and yes many have G&E gear. If you need big items like large numbers of HMIs and Condors, (just not practical to own) then you have to rent anyway.
It has become something of an arms race and the DP with equipment is often short changed. Those that own REDs or some other desirable camera will get hired over others who don't, their skills notwithstanding. Sometimes you can hire a Gaffer who has a good lighting kit as well. Often producers expect to get a lot of equipment for little or no expense by hiring a DP who has it especially for really low budget projects and the production benefits at the expense of the DP. This behavior is reason for the arms race. In larger productions, where equipment rental is a much smaller portion of the total budget, it's not an issue.
When you talk about the equipment you need, your DP will guide you based on the scope, scale, locations, art direction and the implementation of your vision. Some don't own equipment but will be there to guide you on what to rent. Many DPs have cameras and lenses and support and equipment, monitors, etc. and yes many have G&E gear. If you need big items like large numbers of HMIs and Condors, (just not practical to own) then you have to rent anyway.
It has become something of an arms race and the DP with equipment is often short changed. Those that own REDs or some other desirable camera will get hired over others who don't, their skills notwithstanding. Sometimes you can hire a Gaffer who has a good lighting kit as well. Often producers expect to get a lot of equipment for little or no expense by hiring a DP who has it especially for really low budget projects and the production benefits at the expense of the DP. This behavior is reason for the arms race. In larger productions, where equipment rental is a much smaller portion of the total budget, it's not an issue.
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RyanT
Veteran
As said before you'll hire a DP, who will in turn hire a gaffer and key grip for you and together they will create a package for your specific production. There are some typical things that you will get gripwise as they usually come with the truck.
https://www.cinelease.com
Take a look at their truck packages and you'll see they have a bunch of different trucks for different sized productions.
https://www.cinelease.com
Take a look at their truck packages and you'll see they have a bunch of different trucks for different sized productions.
Patryk_Rebisz
Veteran
In theory, the DP comes with just talent, skills and great attitude. In reality, though, last year i only shot one job that was too big not to use my lighting gear. Using the DP's lighting gear saves the production money (as the DP usually gives it to production for much less then rental facility) and in turn it ups the DP's rate... so everyone is happy (other than rental companies).
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
On the little jobs I will often suggest a small (1 or 3 ton) combo package that is privately owned, or owned by a small company. The driver also works as a grip or electric. I've opted not to get heavy into owning lighting gear as it's a large amount of stuff physically and the ROI tends to be painful (camera gear is marginally better!), but I do own some specialty LED that goes on most jobs. On the big jobs we book through a rental house like Cinelease as Ryan mentioned above, we have two of their 40 footers on my current show.