Problem: Work Lights for Green Screen

S

SVCMatt

New member
A bunch of Youtube videos and sites have suggested using work lights on your green screen. So I purchased a couple work lights at Home Depot. They are WorkForce brand, 1000 (2-500w) Halogen Powerlight.

When I turn them on they create lines on my screen, not a glow of which I was hoping they would do.

What am I doing wrong here?

worklights.jpg
 
Work lights are not the most ideal lights to work with. They are hot, hard to control and have varying color balances.

That said, you could still use them for your setup if you know how to control them. Shoot through a thin white sheet or bounce off a white sheet or foam board to diffuse and even out the light. Use black foam board as flags to block off unwanted light.
 
Thanks G. With that being said, is the light lines you see in the above photo, normal? I didn't seem like other people were using sheets or bouncing the light from these.

And yea, they are hot and blinding!
 
Hi Rob - yea, im already not using the grates :( Im gonna try some rip stock nylon tonight see if that works, or reflect it.
 
It looks like that's how the reflector inside the worklight is bouncing out the light. It's just what that light does. It isn't designed to give you even light or any particular quality of light; the only thing that matters in the purpose it's designed for is that it throw bright light in a general direction.

Obviously, film requires much more than that, which is why work lights are often a poor choice for filmmaking -- especially for things like greenscreen where the evenness and color of the light are critical. Even under the best of conditions, by itself, a work light is going to give you a very, very, very bright hot spot in the middle and a halo around it, which will make keying very difficult.

That said, you can try to make the best of it by bouncing and diffusing, as others have said. Try to diffuse it out so that it's as large and even as possible. Keep in mind that you'll be losing some of the brightness along the way -- but then, being very bright is one of the good things about work lights.
 
So I bought some ripstop nylon and put it over the light. It did "even" out the light but I was amazed on how dim it made the light. Seems that nylon does a great job of reflecting not only the light but the heat. I thought I was going to melt the metal frame LOL. The nylon did not get hot at all - thats about the only thing that worked.

We are planning on buying some softboxes this week (either the QL-1000 or similar) but I was really trying to cut down the cost of buying 2 more (on top of the 3 already ordered) .

Any other lighting suggestions for the green screen?


Thank you all for your input!
 
If you're really on a budget you can experiment with baking paper. It's designed to get hot and doesn't cut the light too much. Moving the light further away might also help somewhat.
 
Here is a way to save yourself some money on the softboxes. Order barndoor kits for your work lights from richard at Coollights. Then, like when did in the days before Chimera, cut four trapazoid shaped pieces of white foam core, tape the edges together to form a funnel shape that ends at the size of you barndoors. Clamp these onto the doors and cover the open end with tracing paper or cheap fabric. TA-DA ..... DIY softbox.
 
Fluorescent worklights. Not incandescent. Normally ordinary domestic fluorescent lights are dreadful for shooting film or video because of the nasty green color spike. But for lighting greenscreen, it works to your advantage. Plus, of course, fluorescent lights are naturally "broad" and even, unlike discreet incandescent fixtures.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone! As for the fluorescents, can I just use the same work light but switch out the bulb?
 
SVCMatt said:
Thanks for the advice everyone! As for the fluorescents, can I just use the same work light but switch out the bulb?
Click to expand...

No. You have a small "work-light" fixture which takes a tungsten (incandescent) bulb.

Fluorescent lights have long (like 3-4 feet) tubes and ballasts because they work completely differently than incandescent lights. Be sure to use fluorescent fixtures that have electronic (high-frequency) ballasts. The old kind have magnetic ballasts and they have an audible hum, but more importantly, they "strobe" with the 60Hz power mains frequency and cause problems with video. The more modern electronic ballasts don't have those problems. Don't buy/borrow any fluorescent fixture without confirming that it has an electronic ballast.
 
I purchased a couple of Home Depot work lights for a quick, impromptu project a couple months ago. As soon as I plugged them in I saw that harsh horizontal line. I realized it was the flat spot in the reflector that ran horizontally behind the bulb, put a slightly crinkled piece of aluminum foil in there and that completely evened out the light. Be very careful though, it would probably be best not to let the foil reach either of the prongs at the ends of the bulb, I was also sure to mount the foil in a way that it wasn't touching the bulb at all.
 
Exactly my issue, Lucere. Sounds like an interesting solution. Can you take a picture of that for me?

Right now Im using nylon over the lights. Its not too bad but it makes the whole light very hot and light is leaking out the side onto person.
 
Putting additional metal inside a light is asking for shorting out or a fire. Be EXTREMELY cautious about anything like that.

SVCMatt, the solution is to either ditch the worklights you've got and go get some fluorescent ones, or to use some manner of diffusion fabric in front of your lights. Forget trying things like nylon, go to filmtools and get some real diffusion. And, as mentioned before, baking paper is the no-budget solution.

Or just turn them around and bounce them off a sheet of foam core.
 
I agree with Barry. I just laid the piece of foil in there briefly just to see if it would solve the problem and it did, so I wanted to share that. But I didn't end up using it at all beyond the quick test project, purchased professional lights instead because I was much too concerned about how dangerous the foil solution could be. Bouncing off foam core would probably be a wiser and safer solution. I was more frustrated that the lights didn't serve me after purchasing them and wanted to know why, before I moved on... to a much more expensive, but more importantly, safer solution.
 
yea I used work lights on a white back drop I had the same problem but I just adjusted and used a back light
 
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