lights for studio?

id be considering 'butchers hooks' with the correct OD to work with scaffolding (48mm in the uk) as you might/should be having some form or grid at that diameter - its all about options.

same grid would hold lights or even a prop.
 
id be considering 'butchers hooks' with the correct OD to work with scaffolding (48mm in the uk) as you might/should be having some form or grid at that diameter - its all about options.

same grid would hold lights or even a prop.

Ahh... so you are saying use the outside perimeter part of the lighting grid which will go over the entire thing to run the curtains on? I didn't think of that
 
yep
I guess this might be non ideal unless you can curve the corners, but cheap and versatile.

can you not go and see some spaces or even google images
 
yep
I guess this might be non ideal unless you can curve the corners, but cheap and versatile.

can you not go and see some spaces or even google images

Thank you. I googled some images and have been studying them. I see that many others have already done the curtain idea :)
 
Your lighting ideas area little odd. A mix of bits and pieces of knowledge but with holes. The quality of your keyed plays a HUGE part in this. My green screen seems to spend it's time on live stuff via black magic switchers and OBS, and one or two cameras and a proper edit. Premiere uses the Ultra Keyer - Adobe acquired from a great Californian form Serious Magic - it's amazingly good and capable of really good keys. Background does not need to be absolutely evenly lit and even creases in small doses are coped with happily. The Blackmagic keyer needs well balanced lighting. It doesn't like changes in green level very much. In my studio, I am height limited so some of the angles get quite steep, and that means brighter at the top, then it tails off. I had some 500W asymmetric tubular floods and these did the cloth lighting from steep angles well - but there's no LED equivalent ..... yet. The only way to get good keys is with very soft lighting and that means a large frontal area. I have plenty of LED panels, but the fall-off at the beam edges creates hot spots. Where you have walls AND a floor to light, it gets very difficult. The usual solution, space lights, works very well, but needs serious height as they dangle down a fair way.

The other problem is shadows. Even with even lighting, the drop off in level for shadows can be enough to give a wobbly key. Difffusion helps - but of course wastes light. My green screen is even enough for Premiere editing, but I always need to fiddle with extra soft sources to get it even enough for black magic. This is not really BM's fault - it's my lighting and space.

You have height, so spaceflights seem sensible but if the cost puts you off, then big home made diffuser panels lit from above could work. You just need as big an area as you can manage. Matts picture is a good example - hotspots, dead spots and worse, shadows. Hopefully the spaceflights will sort it out - I'd imagine they'll do a great job. I've often wondered about buying piles of cheap fluorescent office style tube fittings and making them into rows of maybe 5 next to each other then putting diffuser over them - making say, ten in total. An eye on each corner and then hang them from steels from my grid. It's only an idea, but I've always wanted to try it.
 
I just had a very bonkers idea. that I cannot recommend, have never seen, or tested.. get green lights.. maybe a white cyc when lit green would key!
 
I just had a very bonkers idea. that I cannot recommend, have never seen, or tested.. get green lights.. maybe a white cyc when lit green would key!

Kino makes chroma key green tubes for green screen work, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them used in that manner, only on an actual green screen. It would probably come down to if you could get the coverage even enough, the saturation high enough and if the white would reflect too much and make controlling “spill” unworkable. Should be easy enough to test a proof of concept and then it would become a question of it it will scale up. You would probably still have to put an actual green cover on the floor, though, if doing full body.
 
In a pinch I've done the white cyc with green light and it's a real pain to get a good key. You need to supply a proper greenscreen solution, which can easily be a stretched curtain.

There are LED-illuminated space lights. And once you install them in the ceiling along with flags to keep them from spilling light in the other directions, well then they're just permanents. Leave them there forever and only turn them on when you need them.

If you don't have the money for some decent lighting fixtures in your studio, then I question if you have the money to be building a rentable, functional studio. A realistic facility needs to have the basic proper tools available within it as well as the physical space.
 
Thanks again. I'm now looking at a building change that would allow about 36'W X 44'D X16'H. There would now be wood trusses 24" on centers at the top to attach grid etc and we could bury a steel column in a wall for more support if needed to carry hanging loads.
After losing 2 feet on each side due to cove radius it would still be about 32' wide X 42' deep on the floor.
So given those dimensions how deep of floor would you guys want if it was your space? As in, how far out should I bring the white floor and side cyc walls?

I'm wanting LED spacelights due to power/heat https://dracobroadcast.com/product/d...-8000-bicolor/
but if falloff is a problem for uneven lighitng then I'll need to consider something else.
Looks like they eat several feet of height. The dracast ones are about $2100 at BH each which is manageable and possibly get a discount since I will need a number of them

I'm considering this 25'x25' green for the green screen curtain
https://chroma-key.com/foam-backed-s...-backdrop.html
 
Last edited:
The green lights on the walls with a green floor was somthing that had crossed my mind too, morgan. Sounds like it may be challenging to accomplish though
 
We had our first shoot in our new studio. Used 2 of the 8 Mole spacelites, and 2 Litepanels Gemini 2x1s.

1.jpeg
2.jpeg



Switched over to a GS shoot after lunch and used a stretched 8x8' GS with one of the Gemini's blasting through an 8x8' silk.
1.jpeg
1.jpeg
 
How far the white cyc?

Well this is a hard one - If you look in vogue you will see a 6ft radius.. which looks super cool for fashion shadows but eats floor. 2ft mini curves can look a bit 'cheap'

I wonder if you need a cyc or a white box would be better, again you can get a 4m white vynyle to just make a single axis smooth curve. being temp you can lay that at a 6foot rad.

with a white box you can do a kitchen build (or bedroom or whatever) .. so much depends on the business.

did i ever actually show our now dead space. ?
http://framedogs.com/studio/
a really bad shoot.. http://framedogs.com/portfolio/green-screen/

have a close look!
 
Back
Top