Question about lighting for a movie with two DVX's

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David_M_Payne

Well-known member
I've got a couple of DVX 100AP's as well as mics and the computer etc, and I just ordered the Rostronics Britek Studio Lighting Kit, the 1400 Watt Dual Power 3 light Kit with two soft boxes. Tom said this was the most popular for the DVX and he threw in a couple of his better stands to go with them because he was out of the regular ones, and I got the 5% DVX discount. So far so good, but is it enough lighting?

The movie will be filmed in a few locations mostly at a local lab, my house for interiors, a local club to be decided on later, and some trips up to lake Tahoe this summer for more exterior shooting in the daytime. There will also be one night shoot involved lighting up several people outside the lab in a grassy and tree lined area.

My basic question is, do I have enough lights for all of this when using two cameras? I know that is a bit of a nebulous question given the fact that only by trying it out will I find the answer for sure. But I don't want to get to a shoot and find I don't have enough lights to do the job once I'm there. And I can't buy everything I'd like just in case, because of financial constraints. So if any of you who have some experience lighting up scenes like I've described here have any thoughts on any more lighting that may come in handy and not break my bank account let me know. (I could go another $500 max if really necessary.)

As an aside a friend of mine turned me on to a cheaper alternative for lighting that you guys here may find useful. I'm going to get a couple of these and see what they do. I have a local supplier bulbman (1-800-648-1163) that has the 2700kelvin screw mount fluorescent bulbs, a 27 watt bulb that=150 lumens output on a standard incandescent I believe they said, for about $8 a bulb. These bulbs can be placed in any standard socket, like one of those ceramic-based shop light setups that have the aluminum shade around them, or they can be dangled from a fixture or in a regular lamp etc. are these lights in a useful range for matching up with the Britek lighting kit to use as fill in lighting?

David
 
Re: Question about lighting for a movie with two D

Re: Question about lighting for a movie with two D

What are you planning to do with the two cameras? Typically, any lighting setup only looks good from one angle.
 
Re: Question about lighting for a movie with two D

Re: Question about lighting for a movie with two D

Some people shoot two camera set-ups all the time. I like covering two actors together that way so I get the proper reactions from both of them for the same take. This lets them improve a bit to give each take something different, and you still have the proper reaction from the other actor. It takes time to light this well. I would say you would definitely need more than 3 lights if I read your post correctly. If you can't get enough lights on set, just light what's in the frame. Forget about the rest of the room. Just look at your location and figure out how you want it to look. Where do you see the light for your scene in your head, and then count how many lights you'll need. I hope this helps you in some way. Like you said it's hard to advise when I don't know the layout of the location or how you plan to cover the scene.
 
Re: Question about lighting for a movie with two D

Re: Question about lighting for a movie with two D

[quote author=David Jimerson link=board=lighting;num=1109831233;start=0#1 date=03/04/05 at 15:32:09]What are you planning to do with the two cameras? Typically, any lighting setup only looks good from one angle.[/quote]

A lot of the film is dialog between two or more actors David, so one of my advisors said that two cameras would make the shots much faster and easier to do. Some of the action is going to be outdoors in the summer using sunlight, and some indoors using sunlight and the Britek lights. As some of this film is going to have to be shot on weekends and at night after work, the more efficient I can be on shots, the faster I'll get it all in the can. (Or in my case the computer HD.)

[quote author=HagerNYC link=board=lighting;num=1109831233;start=0#2 date=03/05/05 at 11:24:17]Some people shoot two camera set-ups all the time. I like covering two actors together that way so I get the proper reactions from both of them for the same take. This lets them improve a bit to give each take something different, and you still have the proper reaction from the other actor. It takes time to light this well. I would say you would definitely need more than 3 lights if I read your post correctly. If you can't get enough lights on set, just light what's in the frame. Forget about the rest of the room. Just look at your location and figure out how you want it to look. Where do you see the light for your scene in your head, and then count how many lights you'll need. I hope this helps you in some way. Like you said it's hard to advise when I don't know the layout of the location or how you plan to cover the scene.[/quote]

You read my post correctly, and that’s why I was hoping to be able to use the other lights I talked about in my first post here. But it's now my understanding that the light temps will be too great between the Britek lights I have and the fluorescents I was thinking about getting for fill in lights, so it looks like I'll need more Britek lights. Thanks for your thoughts here Hager, it is questions like you pose here that have me thinking about more lights. The question for me is more soft boxes, or more spots or what else instead? I have the Britek 1400 set which comes with three lights, two 300/600W main lights with both barn doors and soft boxes, and a 200W fill with barn doors. They (Rostronics) have a lot of different lights among them are three other lights, a 200W, a 250W and a 300W that have barn doors and focus controls, would they be useful? I have it in my budget to spend about $500 more on lights but at this point, but I don't really know if I should just get another set of what I already have, or get some of the other Britek lights they have at Rostronics. See this link. http://www.rostronics.com/categories.asp?cat=33

Some of the movie will be shot in my house, so I will be setting up the lights in a few days and trying them out as you have suggested here and that will give me some answers as to if I have enough lights, at least on this set. I will be shooting in a bar scene, and a café, though the café will be in the daytime so I can use sunlight for some of my lighting there.

So if you guys look over what lights are available on the Rostronics site and have any thoughts or suggestions on what other lights would be most useful for indoor shots and one outdoor night shot, please post them here. I know it is hard to answer these questions without seeing the sets, and quite frankly I haven't gotten all of the sets, well, set yet. So I'm trying to get enough for most contingencies I may run into and stay within my budget.



David
 
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