Film Lighting

[Jon T]

Hey, at the moment I am deciding on lighting equipment I could use to produce a film. I have been given a budget of £3,000 for the hire of equipment. Now, should I hire some film lanterns from strand (Daylight par etc) or should I opt to hire some wash lights (mac 600 etc).

 

Cheerz

Jon

[gareth]

Hey, at the moment I am deciding on lighting equipment I could use to produce a film. I have been given a budget of £3,000 for the hire of equipment. Now, should I hire some film lanterns from strand (Daylight par etc) or should I opt to hire some wash lights (mac 600 etc).

 

Cheerz

Jon

What's the style of the production? Is it indoor or outdoor? Day or night? What's it being shot on?

[Jon T]

Right, it's being filmed for 2 weeks in the middle of a field in Oxford and then a few days indoor location in London. We are getting power supply (generators etc).

We are filming something with lots of blood and flesh in it. Lots of vampires, warewolves etc. We have 60k to put on this film but 3k ffrom that is lighting.

 

cheers

jon

[gareth]

Decide how you want it to look, work out how to light it in order to achieve that look, then get the gear to suit. Don't just hire in a load of Macs for the sake of it, then try to work out ways to get them into the shoot.

[Jon T]

Thats a very good comment, thanks. Wont be untill beggining of summer holidays untill I decide on equipment but just seeing what people have used in past in terms of equipment and what companys are good for hiring out?

 

Cheers

jon

[Brian]

Hey, at the moment I am deciding on lighting equipment I could use to produce a film.

When you say film do you really mean film or is it being shot on video?

 

EDIT

 

Oh, one more thing. Have you ever lit for film or video before? It is very, very different to live lighting (theatre or concert).

[the kid]

If you want a hire company in oxford there's star-tech

and they'll deliver the lights etc.

[Jon T]

Nope, I have never shot a film before and yes it's a film, not a video! I have 3 other people doing it with me who have lit a film many times and are studying camera lighting etc so it "should" look good.

 

jon

[gareth]

what companys are good for hiring out?

There are several companies who specialise in hiring lighting and grip kit for the film/video sector (many of whom seem to have three-letter-acronym names, oddly enough!). PKE, ELP, VFG, AFM, Lee, even Stage Electrics are all worth trying.

[Jon T]

Thanks for all that Gareth. I have been looking through some of the Strand kit and they do a line of lanterns for the film industry. I quite liked the "Daylight Par" and the "Daylight Fresnels". Has anybody used these before? Good points bad points?

 

Cheers

Jon

[gareth]

One 'daylight fresnel' is very much like another, whether it's made by Strand, Arri, or whoever.

[James]

If you are shooting outside you obviously need a different set of lights for shooting indoors.

 

Last time I did a shoot it was 1 week and If I remember correctly I used something like

 

2 2.5K HMI

1 1.25K HMI

2 Blonde's

4 Redheads

4 Mizars

1 set Dados

Full set of flags,

1 8'4 polly

2 4'4 polly

2 4'4 frost

set flag stands

4 gaffer grips

4 magic arms

2 tall windups

handful scaff

2 short stands

half a dozen stands

roll each of cto 1/2 cto 1/4 cto ctb 1/2 ctb 1/4 ctb

selection of nd's

selection of frosts

handful of primaries, red and blue mainly

all relevent distro, 32A and 16A cable

 

 

This, and the camera and grip equipment came to 1.5K for a week's hire but I would have a word with your DP first, if you are hiring a silent genny then that will take a huge chunk of your budget. particularly if you are outdoors and wanting to shoot sync.

 

I found we didn't have enough to cope outside, I would have liked a couple more 5K's and a 10K or two the 1.25 was a bit small so wasn't used much but did serve a purpose during the day.

 

I also found we didn't have enough for inside - I could have done with some kinos, a 4 x 4' one and a 2 x 4', with both sets of tubes, a couple of pups and some practical dimmers.

 

Oh and you will need transport on that as well.

 

Haven't you got anyone experienced in such things on this shoot?

 

Thanks for the giggle about Mac 600's though (Unless they are a practical requested by the DP or art department.

 

 

James

 

 

PS - If you have time before this shoot and you are having a major involvement with it can I sugest you try to find a low/no budget shoot in your area (try the shootingpeople.org mailing list) before your main shoot.

[James]

Oh - yes, and sandbags, LOTS of sandbags. (I've just seen your post in rigging forum (Why truss - Why Movers???)

 

James

[James]

It's true I haven't worked on a film location for 3 years, but here are some photos of the last shoot I did. (all thumbnailed down for the benifit of anyone on dialup)

 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uczxflm/productions/current/uk_of_a/photos/thumbnails/01.jpg

 

As you can see this shot was lit using the sun as key with fill from lots of polly and the 2.5K just giving a bit of backlight (Note that a 2.5K can't even begin to compete with the sun as keylight)

 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uczxflm/productions/current/uk_of_a/photos/thumbnails/Camera_and_leads.jpg

 

This is a close up of the next shot

 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uczxflm/productions/current/uk_of_a/photos/thumbnails/15.jpg

 

Note again the big polly, Oh and this photo was taken at the end of the shot - we kept having to move the entire shot and the sun kept moving the shadow of the tree into shot

 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uczxflm/productions/current/uk_of_a/photos/thumbnails/13.jpg

 

This was one of the bigger sets, and again because of the brightnes of the sun the best we could do was use the 2.5K's to fill out a bit of the shadows under the trees.

 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uczxflm/productions/current/uk_of_a/photos/thumbnails/02.jpg

 

And this is a wider view of the same set, in a different scene.

 

Hope these help - I know you don't normaly have trees in the middle of a field but this is what film lighting normaly looks like - especialy on a short budget like yours.

 

Good Luck

 

and again - What do you hope to do with the Mac 600's?

 

 

James

[Brian]

A couple of things James says are worth explaining to point out why film and video lighting is different to theatre/concert.

 

In the real world, on a nice sunny day, the ratio between the amount of light falling on a light coloured object and the shadow under a large tree will be in the order of 2000:1 (11 stops). If it's shot on film then by the time it gets to the screen you can only deal with a ratio of 128:1 (7 stops). If it's on video then by the time it gets to your TV set it's down to 32:1 (5 stops). And if it's printed then about 16:1.

 

So, unless you deal with it you will lose something. Either you will have to burn out all your highlights to keep some detail in the shadows or your will lose all detail in the shadows if you want to keep your highlights or somewhere between the two.

 

If you expose the film for the middle then the highlights will be overexposed by 2 stops and the shadow will be undereposed by 2 stops.

 

For an outdoor shoot therefore, most of your lanterns will not be pointed at the cast but into the shadows and, as James says, as backlights. You are aiming to reduce the contrast range.