Lighting + Sound

M

mattdickey

New member
I need to find the most versatile, easy and fast to set up, portable and quality lighting kit. My emphasis is on quality but if I can get it all in one that would be sweet.

Also I am in need of all the same qualities in my sound. I'm mostly shooting interviews.

I will be shooting with the HVX if that makes any difference in your opinions on what other gear I should buy.

And also don't assume I own anything already. I'm looking to buy it all.

Thanks guys!http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/images/smilies/Drogar-BigGrin(DBG).gif
 
Hi:


I guess a more helpful response would involve you posting:

1. What are you mainly shooting?

2. What is your budget?

3. Do you have a clue as to what you are doing with cinematography or sound?

Best,

Dan
 
I will mainly be shooting interviews.
My budget is $6000 for both lighting and sound. (give or take a grand)
That part is flexible.
and if you mean do i know what im doing in a general sense yes and if you mean do I know what I'm doing in a shoot by shoot sense then no because I don't know where these interviews will be taking place and thus I need equipment that will work well in as many scenarios as possible. I'm not sure if I understood your last question.

I hope that helps.
 
Unfortunately there is simply no ONE particular kit that will give you everything in one bang. If you look into any pro's sound or lighting kit, you will find a mix-and-match of all sorts of various items that were collected during that person's career.

Lighting:
get some on-cam lights, and get some basic kit such as this one:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...s&Q=&sku=225025&is=REG&addedTroughType=search
but you're probably way better off to start slowly by getting some great fluor light such as that from DVXuser MattinSTL.

And if you want a truly portable light, I'm going to come out with a nice, HIGH CRI fluor light that is completely selfcontained and portable and will run for about 2.5 hours. 300W halogen equivalent light output in 5600K!

You'll also need gels, and accessories such as light stands, barndoors, etc, etc. Although if you get that ARRI kit, it will include most of that.

Sound:
get an Oktava Mk-012 with hyper cap and with wind protection, get a good LAV mic such as SONY ECM77B, a wirless lav kit, and a shotgun with wind protection such as AT-4073a or Sennheiser MKH416. That and some good head phones of course, and a mixer/pre-amp such as the Sound Devices MixPre (or more channels); you'll also need a boom, and mic stands.
 
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mattdickey said:
I will mainly be shooting interviews.
Cool. This what we neeed to know.

My budget is $6000 for both lighting and sound. (give or take a grand)
That part is flexible.
Not bad, you are in the realm of reality to buy good, pro level stuff. There are a lot of posters here and on other boards I frequent who are always saying that they need a state of the art lighting kit and their budget is $400.00. You get my drift...

and if you mean do i know what im doing in a general sense yes and if you mean do I know what I'm doing in a shoot by shoot sense then no because I don't know where these interviews will be taking place and thus I need equipment that will work well in as many scenarios as possible. I'm not sure if I understood your last question.
My last question was to really just find out if you have any practical experience in lighting and sound. If you didn't, I would tend to make different recommendations on gear than if you have a lot of experience with lighting and sound.

Okay, on to my recommendations:

1. Lighting kit. Flexible for a lot of situations. My answer would be, with lighting instruments, you get what you pay for. I have a Lowell Far and Wide kit that was my first lighting kit. Useful but expensive and flimsy, the lights, accessories and stands fall apart with any kind of repeated hard usage.

Many of the pre-built lighting kits offer questionable combinations of lights, wattages and accessories which is why I prefer to assemble my own kit, based-upon what I mostly shoot. I mostly shoot documentary interviews, which it sounds as you want to do the same. My kit consists of an Arri 650 fresnel through a medium Chimera Quartz Pro lightback with a 40 degree eggcrate as my key source, a 48" white and silver flexfill as a fill source, an Arri 150 fresnel with barndoors and a single and double full scrim as my hairlight, another Arri 150 fresnel with a barndoor and a small piece of 216 diffusion, floated over the camera lens with a C-stand and a 40" arm as an eyelight, an Arri 300 watt fresnel with barndoors on a custom-made dimmer as a background light and occasionally the addition of two or more Arri 150 fresnels as nook or accent lights. It seems sad that many people new to lighting think that the ideal setup is to have 2-3 larger, equally high-wattage instruments is the way to go when in reality, going this way is a handicap for most situations. Most cheap lighting kits offe "three 650 or three 1,000 watt open-faced instruments" with little or no lighting control. In reality, you need to spend an equal amount or close to equal amount on grip equipment and lighting equipment. Most beginners don't learn this until they work with pros on a larger shoot.

I shun the Arri kit lightstands as they take up too much floor space and make me have to pack the Arri lighting kit hardshell case which is heavy and bulky, instead I have packed all of the lights into their own semi-hard case with casters and I mostly use C-stands as lighting stands because I always bring between 8 and 10 to a shoot as grip gear for flags and to put up Duvetyne to blackout windows.

So the point is, through shooting hundreds of interviews over the years, I have evolved to a point where I have a standard kit that suits my needs. If I shot live musical performances in clubs, I would have a radically different kit. Same as if I shot mostly narrative film. I advocate all filmmakers and videographers learning how to light before they just go out and buy a pre-fab kit as often you will end up with the wrong tools to do your jobs.

2. In regards to sound and your audio kit, I wrote this article on Ken Stone's website a few years ago but it will still answer most of your questions in regards to assembling an audio kit http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/location_sound.html

Enjoy!

Dan
Click to expand...
 
Hey Dan;
that's a great article by the way; I even had that printed out some time ago.

I also remember seeing that low cost shotgun comparison some time ago
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/review_shotgun_mics.html

I was especially pleased to see the AT835b there as this mic is often overlooked, and unfairly so, IMHO.

Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to write that all down at the time.
Kudos!
 
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Thanks Puredrifting!
Thanks for taking the time to outline all of that for me. It does seem that we will be shooting much of the same type of interview. I hope I will have the opportunity to gleen more from your experience. Now I will have to go through it all and find places to gather all this equipment. Is there any one place you would go that has great places that would carry all of this. Kind of a one stop shop. or is B&H the best place?
Thanks again for taking the time

matt
 
Dan,

That is an excellent post Man! I agree with you wholeheartedly.. and even more so after getting my hvx. I don't necessarily want some blastng cross lighting pair of 650s and all that spill. Smaller lights and the ability to manipulate the light is the best thing. I too have been acquiring C-stands. Avmona has great stuff for really cheap...

One additional light I would say to check out is a kino flo or videssence. I bought a demo set of 2 videssence lights and 20 daylight and 20 tungsten bulbs.. all the hardware to mount to a c-stand grip arm.. and I got the whole thing for 750 bucks. I love these lights for untrained talent.. For documentary stuff as it produces a great soft light with no heat. They are awesome for overhead lights... I prefer the 2' models because the 4' can be kind of unwiedly... There are a few knock-offs as well that might be worth considering and even building....

Finally, I'd also concure that the AT mike is a good one.. I use it all the time
 
Hi, I picked up two secondhand Ianiro 1kW lights on flexible clamps for only €200 plus for a decent road mic for recording live acoustic bands, I got a new Behringer B2-pro Studio mic with spider shockmount and case for €130 (and the optional Panny rifle mic)
Will work good with the HVX for TV quality and cheap as chips!
 
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