lighting everything with fluorescent lights.

Cineaste

Cineaste

Cineaste
Hello everyone, I am working on a film in a couple of months and I would like to use fluorescent tubes and fluorescent bulbs to light the whole film. now my questions are, would I need a fluro filter or can I use the settings on the dvx100a? can i use manual lamp dimmers to control the strength of the light? is it a crazy idea?

I will appreciate any feedback from you guys.

Thanks.

Edwin
 
would I need a fluro filter or can I use the settings on the dvx100a? can i use manual lamp dimmers to control the strength of the light? [/QUOTE said:
If all you're using is the fluorescents, just white balance as normal.

Dimmable fluorescents are more rare than otherwise, if you're talking about run-of-the-mill kinds.

Dan
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Well I was thinking about experimenting and try to buil my own dimmable fluorescents if it's even possible at all (maybe with the help of an electrician of course).

thanks for the reply GenJerDan.
 
If you have a pair of lights in a fixture or more, just put a switch for each bulb from the ballast. This is the strategy that Lowel uses on their Caselight 4 flouro arrays. Simple and cheap. Also use different sizes of fixtures, foam insul reflectors, flags and other inexpensive items to shape and control your light.
 
Fluros are great to shoot with. Just as GenJerDan said white balance to what ever light you are using. If you are going for a stylistic look, try playing with the white balance to get various looks. I used the light from a weak flashlight as my white reference once while shooting under fluros and it caused all the light to take on a beautiful sickly green cast, which was perfect for the film I was shooting. (It was the zombie resurection scene, shot in a morgue... 'nuff said).
 
On a side question, I shot today in an office environment where al the lighting was flouro overhead. What are some good ways to provide a fill light to avoid shadows under people's faces, without shutting the lights off and relighting?
 
For fill light you could get some flos to use as fill as well. Check on Walter Graff's website about how to adapt some $15 home depot flos for use on video sets.

http://www.film-and-video.com/broadcastvideoexamples-30bucks.html

For color temp if you are unsure just check the fixtures in the ceiling, the tubes should have color temps printed on the side. Just get some tubes to match, or at least that are close. Also I'd look at the CRI of the tubes, the closer to 100 the better. If it's below 90 you might want to worry, shoot some test footage, the lower the CRI the more it might have an ugly green cast. Some of this can be removed in post, but it can be hard. I know that they make a minus green gel for lights, do they make a minus green lens filter? I’ve seen filters that are supposed to make cameras shoot under flos.
 
galt said:
On a side question, I shot today in an office environment where al the lighting was flouro overhead. What are some good ways to provide a fill light to avoid shadows under people's faces, without shutting the lights off and relighting?
Click to expand...

Bounce cards will certainly have the least number of wires trailing all over the place. :happy:

And the chances are real good that the color temp will be the same as the rest of the lights. (Not a guarantee, though, if the cards diddle the color any)

Dan
 
I tried that Dan, but my white 5in1 reflector didn't give me much in the way of bounce. Maybe I need to buy/build an actual card ?? I ended up bouncing a 300watt incandescent against the white surface, rebalancing white. It looked okay in viewfinder, I hope it comes out okay.
 
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