Open faced Mickey Mole lights

N

nyvideo

Active member
On a location shoot in a home (like with one or two people in a living room or a bedroom) would a Mickey Mole 1K watt focusing flood be overkill? I know it would give off a lot of heat, but would it be too much light? I'm thinking about using one (or two) possibly bounced off the ceiling.

Or, if I find a living room that has high ceilings, possibly putting it (or them) up high to provide overall illumination. Would these kinds of lights work to provide soft light with some kind of diffusion?

Thanks to any tips.
 
A lot of variables here, as Paul is touching on:


  • Camera sensitivity and desired stop
  • Aesthetic: high-key lighting calls for a different setup than film noir (e.g., are these "two people" on a romantic date or is one about to kill the other?)
  • What do you intend to do with the light? Sounds like you're talking about just upping the ambiance - bouncing into the ceiling
  • What other lights do you have? Do you just have the Mickeys?

Provide a little more information, and we can be more help.
 
Thank you for the offers of assistance.

I'm trying to hit up people I know for potential locations. I need to have a few different bedrooms and one bathroom sink area. In addition, the living room needs to have a piano, a fireplace, a large coffee table and a comfortable sofa.

The bedroom scenes are all going to be night shots of different couples. Each couple will be in their own bed and bedroom. There will be three very short PG-rated lovemaking shots, but for the most part they'll be in bed talking. So, the look will be "romantic" low lighting. In a few scenes one person will be up and getting dressed with the other still in bed.

The bathroom scenes will be a woman doing her morning routine in front of a bathroom mirror. There will be several of these with a few different props on the counter to help show that time (season) has changed.

The living room will have one rainy/stormy afternoon scene of a single person. She'll get up from working on the sofa on a laptop with some paperwork and reports on the table, move to the window, the electricity will go out, she'll play a little piano, she'll return to the sofa and eventually fall asleep. When she awakens the lights will have come back on with the electricity.

There'll be another shot of the same living room at night with no actors, just some pans of the space.

I'll be shooting with a Panasonic HMC-40, a camera that does not do well in low light. In addition to the one or two Mickey Moles, there'll be a 300 watt fresnel and a 200 watt fresnel available. (BTW, all of these lights are tungsten.)
 
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I own a HMC40 for a B-Cam and love it for some things. For a scene like this, you will want to do some testing with the cam, or at the minimum do some light meter work as the cam comes in about asa50 and has a very narrow range of aperture due to the lens. You can always scrim the 1k if it is too much or use a smaller bulb if the base allows. Make sure to bring a fan for the talent if you intend to use all those tungstens in a small room.

Grant
 
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