RyanT
Veteran
Slondon, thanks for the tip on paints to use. I had a look at them and they seem ideal. Only problem is they're all based in the US and I'm in the UK. I'm guessing I can go into a local hardware store here and ask them to mix to a pantone colour of 354?
Is it more practical to change bulbs to stop down or just use higher wattage and stop down with other means. I can see advantages to both. Using other bulbs would obviously be less heat and less watts so less lightly to blow a circuit. But then I'm guessing having to wait for cool down if you need to keep changing the bulbs could be a pain? Where as Scrims and ND would be quicker? I guess the answer would be, it depends on the scene and how many shots need to be shot on that day...sorry I'm sort of thinking out loud here![]()
This is sort of why you should have a few different lights of various wattages. A few 300s, 650s, 1ks, a 2k or two.
One joke you'll often hear is what do you call a 5k with 2 doubles and a single in it? The wrong light.
Pretty funny, I know. Anyways, what you might want to look into is just using china balls to light your green screen. I bet if you had 2 30" china balls with 250 or maybe even 500 watt globes in them, you could potentially light your green screen with that. You might have issues getting enough stop out of that, but it'd be a nice soft light for very very cheap. Just either spray paint one side black, or clip some duvatyne on one side to prevent it from going all over your talent and you should be set.
The good thing about china balls too is even if you did want some edge light on your talent you could forgo the duv and have the light serve a dual purpose, light the green screen and edgelight them. It's similar to what people do with spacelights.
Just one last note, you shouldn't have to worry about tripping breakers!
http://books.google.com/books?id=7u...BQ#v=onepage&q=calculating paper amps&f=false
Here's a book that explains how to calculate paper amps. As long as you keep track of whats on your circuit you can plug as many high wattage things in as you like.