The Intelligent Lighting Kit

Lighting equipment varies with location, style and weather. These 10 state-of-the-craft tools can give you the professional look you want.

by Matthew Power | Published January 21, 2005

When you reach the point where you run out of room to store your jumble of lighting instruments, tripods, cables and foam core, then, like me, you’re probably “overgaffed.” I just invented that term, but it refers to a common problem with purchasing your lighting gear piecemeal, on a shoot-by-shoot basis. This process gets the job done, but you may end up with too much highly specialized gear. As a result, every setup requires a different combination of instruments, dimmers, gels and stands. Result: Precious hours wasted when you could be shooting. To make matters worse, many items end up being used only once. Why not get your lighting kit right from the get-go? One way to accomplish this is to purchase flexible equipment that can “cross over” and be used in several shooting situations. And while you’re at it, why not choose the lightest, most durable fixtures and the sturdiest stands, clamps and accessories? You want to think about parts and accessories—especially lamps. A more expensive instrument that uses $10 lamps may quickly pay for itself in money saved on replacement lamps.

I asked Kerry Lombard, owner of BarnDoor Lighting Outfitters (www.filmand videolighting.com) in Monroe, Connecticut, to help me select a good combination of lighting tools to handle four common shooting situations: a small studio set/ bluescreen, a restaurant interior, a city park at night and the inside an automobile (also at night). Here’s our list of 10 flexible, state-of-the-craft tools that can save you time and give you the professional look you want.

Scenario 1: Studio Setting

Here’s a challenge: Light a 20 x 20 foot bluescreen studio from scratch, including key lighting and fill light for the talent. This assignment will assemble most of your core gear, which you then borrow from to meet your other needs.

Kino Flo Two-Foot, Two-Lamp Fixture
Approx. Retail Price: $650.00 (fixture);
$130.00 (6 lamps) www.kinoflo.com
Flattering Glow: If you’ve had bad experiences with fluorescent light fixtures (green skin, flickering lamps), don’t let the past taint your view of these multipurpose instruments. Kino Flo units throw a soft, even light and have flicker-free ballasts.

They’re perfect for lighting a bluescreen or providing a soft, ambient light in an indoor scene, especially where you want to create a filmic quality with digital video. Most importantly, Kino Flo fixtures use special color corrected lamps, available in either 3,200K or 5,500K versions, which means no more Vulcan skin highlights. Another big plus is their weight—this two-foot unit weighs only four pounds. You can also purchase fixtures with four-foot lamps.

DLH4 Dedolight Universal Light Head
Approx. Retail Price: $363.00
Super Spot: The beauty of the Dedolight is flexibility. It can be used as a floodlight, focused down to a spotlight or slung around like a practical light. That’s because the fixture only weighs 1.2 pounds and has built-in focus and barn door-type controls. Is it magic? Sort of.

The dual lens system magnifies the inexpensive, 100-watt bulbs to blast the equivalent of 1,000-watt flood lamps. Sure, you could buy about a half dozen stage Fresnels for the cost of one Dedolight, but you’d still need to get barn doors for them (to control light spill), and those lamps cost $20 or more to replace.

There is one hidden cost with the Dedolight: You need a power transformer, because it runs on a 12-volt or 24-volt supply. On the upside, it can also run on battery power (with the right adapter).

Leprecon Dimmer Pak & Lighting Console
Approx. Retail Price: $584.00 (dimmer pak), $879.00 (console)
Control Freak: If you’re not already using dimmers in your lighting set-ups, either you’re extremely clever with your Kino Flo fixtures, or you’re missing a whole range of cinematic subtlety. The four-channel dimmer pack may be all you need for your small shoots. When hooked up to a Leprecon lighting console, each dimmer can handle up to 2,400 watts. That would allow you, for example, to run enough Kino Flo fixtures, Dedolights and Chinese lanterns to create a convincing, artificially-lit indoor setting. The console also allows you to preset an entire array of lights and smoothly transition to another, as is common in stage productions. Imagine the possibilities for time transitions and dream sequences.

Magic Gadgets 2000k Dimmer
Approx. Retail Price: $295.00
Service for One: Looking for a quick, inexpensive dimmer that looks like a prop from Star Trek? This is the kind of “toy” that budget-minded moviemakers find hard to resist. The dude who makes these inline 2,400-watt dimmers builds them with his family by hand in Aurora, Oregon. With this gadget, you simply plug in your lights and dim them on the spot. The unit makes very little noise, measures only about four inches tall and requires no minimum load to work effectively. It also comes in a three-channel version.
Matthews 20 C Stand and

Advantage Shot Bags
Approx. Retail Price: $119.00 (stand) www.msegrip.com; $49.00 (bag)
Straight Up: A light stand is a light stand, right? Wrong. First, we all know about actors. They don’t see light stands. They walk right into them, trip on them and hang their coats on them. Sure, you can buy a $20 tin tripod, baby it along and fiddle with it all through the shoot, or you can invest in a solid, steel-framed C stand like this one, weight it down with some 15-pound shot bags and forget about it.

Scenario 2: Restaurant Interior

You have from midnight to 5 a.m. to knock off 20 restaurant set-ups. You’ll need enough ambient light so you don’t have to reset constantly, but you also want to add spot color for visual interest.

Chinese Lantern and Socket Assembly
Approx. Retail Price: $7.00 (lantern); $5.00 (socket)
Instant Ambience: On interior shoots, it’s rarely possible to create a mood using only the incandescent or fluorescent fixtures built into the location. If you can’t get enough height, stand-mounted lights may create the wrong hot spots and shadows. A common, low-cost solution is to string a few lanterns together and hang them just out of frame. Another thematic option is to actually include the lanterns in your shots. They don’t cause lens flare the way a bare bulb does and you can buy them in different shapes and colors.

Lee Lighting Gel Filter Pak
Approx. Retail Price: $38.00
Rainbow Power: One of the great advantages to shooting digitally is that you can risk using accessories such as gels and gobos (patterns) to create a mood, then check your results against the field monitor. That frees you up to light with flair, even if you have almost no lighting design experience. This basic kit includes 24 12 x 12-inch gel sheets. Along with the range of colors are some useful light-controlling filters, such as black foil, white diffusion and neutral density gels.

Scenario 3: City Park, Night

This time, you need a quick-and-dirty guerilla shoot in a local park. You don’t have a permit, so you want to come and go quietly, not with a noisy generator or a large crew. The two tools below offer optimal stealth.

Anton Bauer UltraLight 2
Approx. Retail Price: $154.00 (light only)
Camera Beam: You might think that using an on-camera light fixture is only for documentary types, but this featherweight 10-ounce light has plenty of mood-setting possibilities, thanks to an optional gel mount and other accessories. This new model plugs directly into most Sony “gold mount” camera power sources. Studio shooters often use it to remove shadows on faces in situations where the talent is lit by top light. But it can be used the same way under a park streetlight or a full moon. It comes with a 25-watt standard bulb, but can handle 150 watts. (If you go for that much power, however, you’ll want to buy a separate battery pack.)

FlexFill Silver/White Reflector
Approx. Retail Price: $72.00 (38-inch circle with zippered case)
Bouncing Away Shadows: Light reflectors are indispensable on almost any type of shoot. This high-tech FlexFill disc can solve a lot of problems. On bright, sunny days, they can erase the shadows beneath a baseball hat. On location, they can bounce a camera-mounted light and remove its glare. Sure, you can do the same thing with a piece of white foamcore or beadboard for about $10, but in my experience, that foamcore quickly gets crushed and beadboard is so heavy that it’s hard to hang without special clamps and stands. FlexFill screens weigh almost nothing, fold up small and transport easily.

Scenario 4: Automobile Interior, Night

You’ve rented a camera mount for the car, a wireless monitor, lavalier mics and a van. Once you get the tools, you need to illuminate this tricky (but common) situation—and complete your lighting arsenal.

Kino Flo Mini-Flo Kit #139
Approx. Retail Price: $743.00
Visor Magic: Achieving the right look inside a car depends on your ability to light the talent’s faces without giving away the light source. This kit includes everything you need. The nine-inch fixtures can be attached to a visor or set on a dashboard. Most importantly, the units include a 12-volt dimmable ballast, so you can reduce light to natural levels. The kit comes with a car plug adapter, two fixtures, two mounts and a nifty travel case. MM

SHARE THIS STORY Digg StumbleUpon Facebook Del.icio.us Reddit Yahoo

TAGS in gear

COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

POST A COMMENT

OUR PRIVACY POLICY | We will not publish or sell or share your email address or other personal information. Read more.

Name:
Email:
URL:

Type the word you see below:

Comment:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

SITE DELIVERY OPTIONS