Outdoor Lighting?

E

Editor321

Active member
How is it done???

I know generators are commonly used for power in outdoor lighting, but they are so loud.

Do the big boys just place a genny around the corner and run a 300ft cord to the set to eliminate the noise? Are their any generators that are silent that filmmakers use. Honda generator??

Maybe the big boys have huge battery-powered mobile studios that they run power to.

Talk to me guys....Whats the trick here. What do you guys do when lighting outdoors (night or day) without electrical outlets.

Not interested in the type of light used, just wanting to know how you are juicing these babies.

And sorry if this has been discussed. I know that can be annoying.
 
Big generators are BIG. Big big big. And yes, you put 'em a long, long way away.

We just got through shooting a short film in the desert, and we used a regular construction type generator, and it was the loudest of the loud. We built a plywood enclosure for it, which cut the noise in half, but caused it to go smoking nastily if we left the enclosure on too long (heat issues).

I've got my eye on the EU3000 from Honda... rated for 2800 watts, and at low draw it runs at only 49 decibels. That's dramatically quieter than construction generators. Put that 50 or 100 feet away and it might be quiet enough, and 2800 watts will get you some decent light output if you're using fluorescents. And the EU3000 uses an inverter that apparently simulates an excellent approximation of a sine wave, for very clean power.

I believe CMessineo just picked up a Honda 1000 or Honda 2000... we should ask what his experience has been.
 
Barry,

Please let us know if you check one out. Recently used a "sound blimped" Honda 6500 from Gear Rental in Austin and it was awfully loud. Even with a 100' snackbox and another 50' stinger and being staged on the other side of the abandoned grain elevators while we were inside, my microphones heard it well enough to be annoying. So, I'm totally interested in knowing about any option that works well in non-MOS situations or in other words, most situations.

brian wells
 
Fortunately for us, most of the dialogue we were doing was in the car, so we shut the doors & windows, and it did a great job of blocking out the sound.

I'm looking forward to CMessineo's post -- he's the one who's got one of those "quiet" generators...
 
Yes, thanks for your reply, Barry.

I'm curious... How did your production handle dialogue recording while inside of the car?
I'm interested for personal development and that kind of stuff. Thanks.
 
I used a couple of omnidirectional lavalieres, taped to the dash in front of each actor. One was hard-wired, one was wireless, it probably would have been better to send them both wireless but hey, I had the one wireless system, and we just shut the door on the other one's XLR cable. There was enough insulation/rubber around the door that it didn't hurt the cable.

The car wasn't running when we shot those scenes, and the closed windows and doors gave us a fairly silent environment. The dialogue in the car turned out pretty well, especially since the crew was -- well, two of us. There were some scenes where the wind was really, really bad, and we'll have to ADR those scenes, but the car stuff is completely usable.
 
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