New to Filmmaking, but not lighting

J

johnnyevil

Active member
Hello guys. I found tremendous amounts of good advice in the audio forums, and I am hoping to find similar here.

Let me make an introduction first. I'm Jonathan (http://www.jkellerphoto.com/blog) and I have been a stills photographer for almost a decade. I've always been interested in filmmaking, moreso than photography, but till recently, never had the time or the money, let alone the knowledge, or a couple of similarly minded people to help me out.

Now I have some of that. I've built up a good audio kit (as I find that audio is really whats sets apart the good from the bad). I bought a T2i (because if I need better quality I can rent for a job, and it's good enough for personal work.

Now it's time for lighting. I know how to light. I'm used to using good lights too. I have been using Profotos for stills for a while. I know the principles of lighting, and all that, but whereas I know the brands for stills, I don't really know what would satisfy me when it comes to video.

I know that the lowel lights are pretty popular, for being relatively inexpensive, and durable. I've seen mention Arri several times as a good quality brand.

Considering the frequency with which I have been using my Profotos for the last year or so, I am looking to sell those and purchase some continuous lighting. I'll still be able to light for photo with it, but will add the ability to light for video. I can get about 1700-1900 for my profoto kit most likely, and would like to see what people would recommend in that range for video work.

I would like at minimum a two light kit. It'll mostly be used for interviews, and shorts with 2-3 actors on screen. If I need more than that, I'll always turn to a rental house.

I'm strongly of the opinion that I would like to own whatever I need to shoot something simple, quick, and on my own, without having to think "damn, I need to rent this," but fully appreciate that for those things you won't use as frequently, rent them when you need them (I've done this with certain lenses for years, as I hate 24-70s for stills, but find them invaluable when I do a wedding or something.)

Thanks in advance,
Jonathan Keller
 
Arri and Mole Richardson are some of the best tungsten lights. Florescent lights the best would be Kino-Flo, and as far as HMI (both fixtures and ballasts) goes, Arri makes some of the best.
 
Very good questions:

Indoors. Windows could be in shots, but I would balance for daylight if using Tungsten, or be shooting at night (all that day job crap gets in the way at times). I would be running off of mains power 120V.

I would rather add light than add noise from shooting at too high an ISO.

I'm not dumping all my strobe gear, just some of it. Have more than I need for the type of shooting I really do these days.
 
Two fluorescent tube fixtures, KinoFlo or for value, CoolLights for key and fill, and one 500W or smaller tungsten fresnel for a rim light. China ball with several household bulbs in it for ambient, key or fill. All the flos daylight balanced, gel to cool off the rim light if desired. Some blackwrap and diffusion. Flags.

You're welcome :)
 
I'm coming from a similar stills background. I've got some lovely Hensel strobe gear. I really like my battery powered Porty system- controllable fill in flash which can even overpower direct sunlight at a short enough shutter speed with leaf shutter lenses. Adjustments in tenths of a stop, over six stops, all colour stabilised and with a wide range of light formers available.

Lighting for movie making thus far feels like swapping a precision laser-guided missile for a thrown brick.

I started with Arri 800's. Ghastly. Hot, power hungry, dangerous on set, low light output (especially if gelled off to daylight) and cumbersome to use. Their only saving grace was they could be put into a Chimera softbox, which at least gives a more flattering light. The addition of Arri 650's and 150's helped a bit with some more variety, but dimming control is incredibly limited (maybe two stops before the colour shift becomes intolerable).

I added some Photon Beard 330's which at least give a softer and more dimmable light, but I was never really happy with the colour rendition and they are still quite bulky... and absolutely need mains power. Lugging a generator around on location may be the Hollywood way, but I'm used to overpowering the sun with a silent, clean battery strobe unit you can pick up in one hand (and shoot over 200 shots with on full power on a single battery pack, too).

Now I know I'm not going to be able to overpower the sun with battery powered continuous lights. I looked into HMIs but they are too expensive, still too power hungry and need too much mothering on set.

I've just taken the plunge and bought a set of Datavision LED panels. I have four flat panels (hopefully good for soft lighting) plus a slightly harder "fresnel-inspired" unit from Bebob whose beam characteristics are not unlike my favoured reflector-plus-honeycomb spot on the strobes. (I'm interested in the new Arri Fresnel LEDs, but I don't really use very hard light sources anyway).

I'm going to get a small Flolights panel on-camera for catchlights and a second small panel for dangling from the ceiling or putting on a bookshelf for rim/hairlighting when you can't get a bigger unit in. ALL of these have the capability to be run from batteries, which is important to me for shooting on location with hand-portable, silent kit.

Thus far, I'm impressed. The colour rendition is significantly better than the fluorescents, and closer to daylight as well. I REALLY like the ability to power without trailing wires if I need to- a clamp on a door can hold a light in a small location and remove all the floor stand clutter, which will hopefully make for more efficient shoots. Then run cold, they are light, they dim well over several stops, they are easily portable and they are compact (unlike an Arri in a Chimera...)

I'm going to flog the Tungsten lights on eBay, hold on to the fluorescents for now and see if I can figure out filtration to get an acceptable colour match to the LEDs... but if not I'll flog them as well and buy another LED panel or two.

I've not done more than test shots with the LED lights yet, I'm excited to see what I can do with them on a proper narrative film shoot! Fingers crossed!

Cheers, Hywel.
 
For that sum + a little more I believe you can get your hands on one of the Arri Softbank Kits. As a starting point I would look at these. Quality fixtures with all the trimmings (barn doors, scrims, stands, case) that will last for years and have good resale value. After you are familiar with these, you will know what other fixtures and kinds of light (ffluorescent, HMI, LED) you need.
 
The Kino Flows look very nice. I've heard many good things, and I have seen some excellent examples of what they are capable of. Recommendations on specific units? How're your experiences with them?
 
4x4 units are pretty much the standard to have around and I would probably go with two of them to start out. Just make sure you buy the new style units, with the new back plates/ballasts. They really made things a lot better in their redesign and it's worth spending the extra cash.
 
RyanT said:
4x4 units are pretty much the standard to have around and I would probably go with two of them to start out. Just make sure you buy the new style units, with the new back plates/ballasts. They really made things a lot better in their redesign and it's worth spending the extra cash.
Click to expand...

Agreed and the ballasts that let you control each tube separately are more precise than the older ones that control two tubes at a time.

I have two four-foot four banks (each a fat man) and two two-foot four banks (each a fat boy). They are workhorses as directors and DPs like the softness more times than not and actors like the cool.

(You should get good with hard light though - wonderful when managed artistically.)
 
Hywel said:
The addition of Arri 650's and 150's helped a bit with some more variety, but dimming control is incredibly limited (maybe two stops before the colour shift becomes intolerable).
Click to expand...

Just a quick note with regard to dimming tungsten lights. The solution to reducing the output of fresnel lights without color shift is to use scrims over the lights. This allows you to dim down the light in 1/2 stop increments while leaving the color temperature untouched.
 
robotsound said:
Just a quick note with regard to dimming tungsten lights. The solution to reducing the output of fresnel lights without color shift is to use scrims over the lights. This allows you to dim down the light in 1/2 stop increments while leaving the color temperature untouched.
Click to expand...

Right. And the poor man's scrim is ND.
 
Scrims and ND help, but it isn't much of a consolation coming from strobe units with six stop range, in units of tenth of a stop. Putting bits of wire or grey plastic gels in the way feels increadibly crude and imprecise- like I said, going from a laser guided missile to a hurled half brick. It is very energy inefficient, too.

Most of my LED lighting kit has now arrived, will start practicing and seeing what it can do and post when I have something to report :-)

Cheers, Hywel.
 
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