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Affordable Lighting Solutions

I would love to do is to once again for the third day in a row, I apologize to everybody on the internet that we are have bean so basically handcuffed in terms of what I could joe from my work, I think they've bean pumping out my website and I'm not actually trying to, uh, advertise my own website more than on direct people to a way to see the kinds of things that I was shot because I'm not being an independent filmmaker I've attended always to work for a large company is like hbo or fox or nbc universal and the ability for us to show clips on creative live on basically it has been impossible because of the licensing agreements in copyright laws and ownerships and the I mean you wouldn't believe how hard create him live work to try and get his permission to show certain things which were relevant to what we're talking about. So it's been rather sad that this has been the case, but everybody went very hard, but it couldn't happen. We've done a few things in that workshop and I loved you...

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I know whether we're ready for it, but I loved to show a little music video we did for a fantastic article on rebel who lives in l a in his that's fantastic artist and we and did it in our workshop is issued in broad jacked in them on afterwards I'll explain how it was done but like everybody to pay particular attention to the lighting on ge also to the reflection of the light in the eyes and and then I'd like to ask everybody have they thought it was done before I explained how we did it um occasion whenever we're ready we can show that way hey is like in the serials no way can a woman that wait so one day so so so the next status file everything so when you can't think it craves for because god wants me this is love yeah I can tell you live fast played some natural get lou I want to make your day like a special case oh wait a minute you keep coming back to this video s o that was made it out a little workshop on dh I love somebody whether it be from the internet and all from wonderful student is here to sort of taking gas it what kind of lighting we used that does anybody have any idea just by attn least one big soft box I when you a couple of interesting things about lighting if you wanted to look biting first of all if you really want to concentrate on the lighting in the film or in a promo or in the commercial or anything down this end off that's the first thing because you get so involved in the story or so involved in the story telling that you tend to miss just being able to concentrate on the lighting and you wanted to look it, you know, a film even even a a full length movie like road jeb addition or something like that, would you one of my favorite lit films just turn the sound off on you going to see ten times more than you would if you get involved in the story, you can always see it in some of the stage, you know, to see the story of the movie, but in this case we purposefully built a a light box for this particular promo on dh I'm going to attempt to I'm a really bad artist, but we're going to attempt that we how we build it it was all built with basically and material is that you could pick up a tem depot and things like that and it was just one light and it was basically on the square equivalent of what is often called the ring light. Amazingly, what we did was way you start off my it was about four by foreign son is with a hole in the center, those are always about nine inches in ah proportion more or less on then I'll try and get some perspective going here basically a box like this like that so basically about a foot, maybe everything around the bank on the top of the edges with black fabric it was all made with basically welded together pieces of steel to form the box I'm the interior of this shame not too bad the interior of this is a hollow hole and we were able because it was nine inches were able to get especially because the way we were shooting with five years were able to get two shots at the same time we used a hundred mil macro judy all the beautiful shots of on ray's mouth and her eyes and things like that this is all lined in black like that so you don't get any flowers in completely sealed on dh is well black obviously all the way down here all the way across here and and steel structure union steel straps here on down here that basically held the whole thing together still strong misty always struck is making sense ok so basically the enemy translucent fabric in this box is on the front side the interior of this little nine inch tunnel the boxes about that deep ysl line didn't blank on the enemy surface that's translucent is the front office which was something like what we call like grid closet I believe like grid clauses actually sail material you khun get it really quite cheap sean would know it like like grid I mean it's often its sale material isn't it it's and they use it for sales yeah andi it's look like yeah and it's um it's beautiful fabric it's incredibly strong it's uh um pretty silent outside in the wind is one of the problems with gels and things you know, some people go crazy so even when it's quite windy, this doesn't make much noise it's incredibly strong because obviously, you know, stas I anticipate pulling oceangoing your tip sort of in a forty mile an hour winds so on is actually really relatively inexpensive, so basically this would have formed, you know, the front surface of this box and then everything else was basically lined in black the actual light sources that we had insiders on the interior but the back we basically I had a a whole bunch off ceramic on ivo beholders like land and we used one hundred watt light bulb so it was something, but I think they actually had fourteen in reality been on fourteen, one hundred what light bulbs and the whole thing was made for literally oh, I don't know written twenty bucks or something by the time we pay them a friend of mine do wells and stay all together and so both ends up about four feet in damage and we shot that entire commercial with that one light and so this is kind of like the kind of lighting that you couldn't put together we'd unfortunate couldn't bring it all the way up to seattle because it's bulky and have me and and it was purpose built it at you know predictions on the side so you could make it high or low for different shots hanging letten things like that it's an example of how you khun think outside the box build some of your own lodging and really achieved quite beautiful results on dh just if we could go to live again you can see what a beautiful reflection in books in andres eyes I mean it's almost fills her eyes with light and bye bye gutting masks phyllis you could create literally a circle you know by catching a black mask or you know, blanking one side out you could create different effects different reflections in the eyes he could put cutler on one side a different color on the other side that would blend together where the face equally then you know for example, if you put blue on this I didn't seed you you're in maui showed yesterday how full cdo and four cdb basically cancel out if you said had half of this beautiful city on officer for cdb you'd find that all the parts of the face that and we're hit flat on by both sides equally would be very mutual but on one side if that was the orange side it would wrap on become orange around here and blue around there you can play with those sorts of effects will do it the other way and really achieve one light that you could make yourself around twenty bucks or something that man a lot of very usual things beautiful light for shooting product on tables you know you can spend it on I've done in my past sort of commercial history quite a lot of food for jaggery this would be a great light for food photography as you can use it it is a beautiful back soft line okay it's a little bit over the top when you could maybe just user just a straight fusion thing but it's got a multiple degree abuses and very useful device toe haven't you, khun? You know, if you think about sort of ideas that you have thirty rapidly you khun generally build a light little do it you know you could line the inside with silver you khun knew all kinds of things to get more power out of it. So this is just a typical example of you something low budget that was built for a specific need and provided and created a rather beautiful of act. And you know, so against that anderson and that's how we achieved this when I want you to talk about just a whole bunch of cheap lighting solutions on the first one is let's grab the china ball over here if we may and is it jump? I don't understand why this center is hollowed out on has ever photo shoot through you shoot through the center so you of light is wrap wrapped right around the light sorry that it's wrapped around the land probably the most important thing of all I've got to tell you understand now thank you it then she reforms just a ring light around the lens that is that's how you get this lovely reflection in the eyes of cops get close yeah, I was really and if you look really close you can actually see the lack of reflection where the black hole is that the cameras is shooting through you know, nobody essentially on dh ring lights and lights off this nature actually incredibly good for beauty photography for have shots you know from cause magic type shoots you know those sorts of things where you you you wanted to make a skin look beautiful and this was without any that was processing a tall I mean, you know, we were talking before about what programs that have come out to help thie hdtvs and our markets some software that have come out one call beauty box which again is kind of very inexpensive and on some of those shots you saw that we get so close you actually see the pores in this skin and beauty box or help just smooth those hours a tiny bit and you know if you have a slightly heavy handed makeup person that's going a bit overboard on the makeup, it will just help sort of blend that and it's a very clever program because it it finds just the skin turns and doesn't affect anything else. I haven't personally used it, but a lot of people that, um I know having swear by it is, you know, really sort of useful tool in terms of beautifying skin. When you're looking for that kind of effect, could we save a little bit of lives here? What have we given them? Let's? Just switch this one off. In fact, let's switch both of those often dr ally camera guys here, crazy. And then, uh, let's pan off the kino, if we may. What don't what wattage bulbs air in these boy, listen, seem too much power that saved the kino. Sorry is in demand right now. So incredibly dim. Anyway, I can I can I have a volunteer? Can I borrow you for a second? Simple china bowl pier one. Oh, I don't know where else they just go back a little bit towards the board. I mean, just look at the beautiful light that you get from that just instantly from, you know, uh, let's just come forward with it if we met were just comported tiny bed, yeah, so you know, just from a very very simple device like this that costs I think I mean this looks like a fairly nicely made one search probably twenty bucks or something that baby ones I think yeah, this is one's family I mean, you you just get absolutely beautiful soft light and um uh of course they make, um lamps that do this effect in the film in this state but you suddenly find yourself paying six hundred bucks for them, you know, on dh I think this probably cost about three or four bucks. I mean, the ones that being just made a paper about seven bucks and things are happening we use these all the time when we're doing a steadicam shot bringing our guys like we have a lot of walkin talks on a show like house where the whole team kind of is striding down a corridor and we often them providing brass bass with the sound recordist because we'll have one of these on a pole just to get some life into their eyes into the actor's eyes just to get some lights because generally, you know, as you know, as you probably noticed and corridors in hospitals tend to me lit with overhead fluorescents and the trouble with overhead fluorescence is that when you walk underneath, um you have black eye sockets which is coming quite ugly and in the case of how is everything that looks like in fluorescent in corridor is actually and actually tungsten lighting but designed to look like your essence but it gives us control in terms of dim ability I think we talked about this yesterday a little bit but we often march one of these or attach this to the back him that dolly if we're doing in dolly shot with the actors just to get right into their eyes but you can see this beautiful softness on the fall off and this is it is really if you turn slightly that way yeah that's sitting and turn back this way this is what I was doing that yes they said a rap when you start getting like that just starts to round the minnows on the other side and just turned just a tiny bit more this way yeah let's just a little bit yeah that's what? You first start getting it and you couldn't just with the simplest of objects even a daylight scene which you shot in an office I mean if this was the right keller quality when you get in close you can just sneak this seventy kind of because mattis eyes and beautify the life you know it's so easily done on dh you can obviously book more powerful globes in these you can use clusters off them to create a wall of them which I've done sometimes is on dh a really wonderful dp and you can I mdb him call fili krushel oh that uses these all the time is hit this is sort of catch rate is almost he uses china boards all the time so so there we go that well I couldn't tell you about china balls that they're really useful to for you know just bank in the corner of a set way down you know that looks a little bit dead you can take one of these and just drop it down behind an armchair or be near a book case or you know hidden from the lens and just glow it's a tiny bit to give you some detail ing in the backgrounds of this they're incredibly useful and incredibly economic and very useful for that those sorts of purposes we talk I think we talked about john fixtures a little bit yesterday and again and there's the old kino which is off but today we're really more talking around not that these air terribly expensive but uh let's have a look at our little wedge could we bring out your we're jelling or a book line yeah I think we're done with this that's great guys thinking this is something I use all the time and it's kind of like way almost don't need a stand for it which is one of the reasons I like it just ends up by itself and basically it's a double diffusion on dh let's show that start off by putting a conventional them if we're gonna one k or a six fifty first night sean this is shown by the way that's have had his baby yesterday and s o say hi to shawn and he's joining us today he wasn't able to join us yesterday I mean just name it illustrated that um let's save this guy now for that this is what I call a balk like some people called a wedge can I I'm sure do me a favor just pull that piece of card around towards me a little bit that's it again you can see exactly what this is a creates a really beautiful soft light and just go back just a tiny bit and then we just turn this way a little bit and that's the wrap but we're still here about just this sort of really beautiful fall off those that's happening on the shadow side I'm not going to do it now but the anything that I would do that was doing a beauty shot here is to basically just have a little source back here just to pick up a little bit of light on the sort of this is what I was talking about the three quarter brother three quarterback principle it works really well and it'll never happen all the time of course because actors move and they change their positions and so on and so forth but when you knew that they're sitting at a table or something for quite a long period of time or in a dialogue situation it's um something that you can take it round to george just especially if you you know, in the wider shot there was a window over here that kind of idea but you know, this is incredible again you could make this just out of sail cloth you can make it out of diffusion paper you can use shower curtain you can buy it from your local anna's linens or whatever but you know, I don't know what these cost there certainly not cheap but you couldn't do the same exact thing by, you know, sort of ah lights that you can get from him deeper, which I'll demonstrate which these guys which people used to like barbecues and things like that they're heavier them or cumbersome, but if you're short of money and you need to light up the use and stuff like that, you can do a lot with the same kind of thing that the like qualities identical, you know, this is probably I think these these these air about fifty bucks or something and something like that I mean they're certainly not expensive and so it is just an illustration of how you could use units that are necessary designed a photographic photographic lighting to do really sort of unlawful lots of stuff you could use these is the general bounds on the ceiling to grade and overall ambiance you could probably put gels on is although they might burn fairly quickly yeah, they and they get very, very hotly so you have to be a little bit careful in them I'm not advising anybody to set their homes on fire in the drive tio save money that you do have to be a little bit careful with some of these lands where is this before and kind of divert something that sticks out from it attached to the stand that the whole tell you could certainly do that or just put the gel in them in a curve you know? And you know as long as it is out here somewhere be fined yeah, yeah he's actually, uh at home I want to see the nbc you could just put this together with two by one lumber and screw it together and then you know and you know that that could be just campus at the backyard there or or you know which would probably yeah this is just pvc pipe in them it's a card stock and egger its cards don't but you can just use um just wide fabric which being lighter, you know, so then the whole thing just folds up but it will sit in the back of your car in I use these on harrison loss I mean even in small sizes like ones about this tall to sit on top or even small it is it on double somebody's desk too create a really nice very soft light source and you get it in really close and you because obviously the the closer you can get it like to enact to them more cause magic it becomes to a degree so because even a small source becomes quite a large source when you get it close I mean the opposite of that it is true I mean that's actually quite a large source but when you take that away twenty feet it becomes a it's also awesome so the light is hard and so the closer you are the bigger the source the softer the light and I just happened to be a lover of soft soft line because I think it does wonderful things to the eyes as you can see and you know it works it works really really well and you know this you're taking lodging in out of context this is a component of a much brought the kind of thing I mean it could be old battle scene going on back thinking there and this is just what you might be using in foreground so it's not it doesn't necessarily just work by itself in favor rarely would it's really just a component of a much larger thing but when an actor comes into four grand you khun bring in a combat zone in like this it really is quite beautiful you know, if you want it to look like that you know and just by tipping these if we can that's everything we could lose the filter you will see a complete change in quality when you actually approve it don't cipel that far forward but right just by tipping it then it becomes slightly more joe manchin you know, slightly more scary movie to tide them look and then by tempt you you see you got this much just come to the front and you a little bit more yeah then you just face that way it's not you I'm just by chipping them down. Change is the quality of the light completely and then by tipping the mob that becomes much more kind of conventional begin season just lite direction lights on angle is a huge component of what you're trying tio do based on the arc of the story you know so that's all I can tell you about this what what other devices to be have doing? And I think we're done with this one s oh, this is ahh wedge book lied on dh again. Any kind obliging into this um it's kind of very useful um it's great sean thanks do you want you could get your seat if you want this wonderful thank chewing on thanksgiving way even things like and I text areas and you should have seen in the car at night then you know the conventional way of lighting a carrot night is to pretend that life comes from the instrument panel I mean it's what all dps do and it's a terrible cheat because there's very little light comes on the instrument panel but you know it's the way when did you manage to see an actor there's all kinds of ways you can do that you can you can have depending on how many anchors were in the car you could put a little sports yeah that's great you can put a little spot just on why fabray clips on them and put on the dashboard and usually usually start casting with that because somebody's put armor all on the dashboard know almost nothing will stick to it which is really annoying that you could put a card there you could put a little led panels but you know I've even shocks car night interiors with these which did anybody know how much these cost me they came from home depot but it's just basically a little led flashlight you thing at least that andi it's got it's got eight dollars and you know if you stick this on the dashboard and you know get the diffusion to the point where you like it it's not too hard it it really is a way of in a low budget uesugi in competition conversation between two people in the car you know you put these in the center and it'll like two actors or at a production probably afford a second one but amazingly useful and uh you know, led light panels which are beautiful and I'm going to talk about it a second I'm much better keller controlled in these you have to do a little bit of work with all of these you have to test them because very often there are the magenta or greed which is annoying so you need either a color temperature meter or do some tests on your you you dslr with the gray scale compared to a normal to see if there's a greed magenta shift on it and them then correct it is best to correct it with gel you know which you khun obviously you didn't need very much gel for that what? Yeah there's there's a different joe's on their welling it's not like these guys because you can't screw top and they're like twenty bucks at a home depot and slide gel right down well that's very clever again so e right so you can plug him into the cigarette lighter and yeah and you know you can you can spend I mean you like the roscoe panels they cost hundreds of dollars and you know, so I'm not in any way you know, response and workshop responded by cindy mills that makes the most fantastic lives and for our work on house that would meet I wouldn't mess around with these because we have lights that already keller corrected they tend to be bride to we're talking here about when you really are trying to achieve something with opposite no bucks in total and and figure out ways to kind of make your budget stretch as far as possible, you know, in which will be also involves eating at mcdonald's rather than, you know, eating it a five star restaurant at the end of every day of shooting and you know, so these are all sort of very, very low budget solutions for solving problems, and if you just take a walk around home depot or lamps plus or any lighting store you going to seized up that you know, with a little bit of imagination, you can adapt and you can I mean, even those you know, there's crazy flashlights they sell, they say half a million candlepower, you know, even even that best off a piece of card on a dashboard or, you know, just hidden behind the door or, you know, it's amazing what, what you can do with, you know, the simplest thing and it's, just a matter of playing, you know, you can you can play with the effects of these with stills on then you know, work out what you couldn't do with it little give you that an arsenal of all kinds of low budget devices that you khun use for different effects I mean uh, you know, one of the hardest things to do with the hardest things to justify is lighting interiors of cars at night is really bad and it gets really really bad when there are people in the back seat because there's generally absolutely no justification for life watch over other than what comes in through the window and if you're shooting a big wide shot you know, most streetlights era too high an angle to actually come in through the side windows of a car in light anybody so you you have to like them if you wanted to see them and then you know the director will be pretty annoyed if he's paid for his casting you can't even see them uh, you know, so you could use devices like this to really help yourself just pretend it's kind of coming from the front dash and just click them on the back of the seat so there aren't a picture or, you know, put white fabric on their knees bounce these off that feels like the batteries on its way down on this but, you know says not very bright, but I'm sure when it's fully charged it's really brian so these air ideas and, you know things for their budget lighting, what else do we have on our list? I think we might have, you know, there's, uh, big flashlights, a really wonderful lately, there's a very big and rechargeable you can use those for, um, you knew banshee and white card to just sort of creates of overall ambience loved to bring out some can we bring your source for over here? Because one thing, even though this is, isn't on a really low budget left there actually incredibly versatile and so on, they're also theatrical worms. They're not film lights, which makes them half the price there would be if they were actually a film like, you know, because they millions of these around the world used in theaters and things like that during incredibly useful on guy I've got to go into this yesterday, some sort of retracing my steps a tiny bit. Could we shave most of the red heads on the red edge of the open face toward slams, by the way, people might wonder why they call it red heads, but they used to be made, I think, initially showman they made by an arrow, and they're always read, I think so that's, why they got notice redheads in the big two killer, what wasn't said called loans uh just because they were yellow so it was just for that reason but you let's just pan off the the kino if we cannot maybe save our for them andi I think we didn't get into a little bit of this yesterday but just so that you know these are incredibly versatile because you can put a light basically anywhere free jumble if I wanted a light source coming from that corner it's riel pain to actually get a light pitching up there where is to get a lander and taped piece of white card up there is a hell of a lot easier and uneven met in that is there's a material that I actually don't think they make very much anymore called white rap and I think we wei saw the equivalent off yesterday do we have any m black wraparound? Well we're anyway well we're running well we're trying to find some black ram um you know basically you khun put it light anywhere with these if you need a little bit of hair lives I'm just looking over here just a little bit of separation from the background you khun you can locks it in you khun control the bright loose of it just by leaving the blades if you see that you know you create any shape you want with it so you can you can target it onto under a small piece of card and you're basically put up a piece of card or piece of white rap. Do we do have any like rap anywhere? Oh, cool again is perfect. This is, um, open this up so that cameras can see amazing there. Listen, just a heavy, heavy gauge aluminum them anna dies down metallic tinfoil and that's all it is it's used a lot for light philology in the film business to stop lite spilling around the edges or, you know, to control them, to know a lot of lights like red edge up there. Um, you know, a lot of light leaks out of the side, so you tend to wrap them around the edges to stop, like, bleeding out through the sides. They also make this in white on this stuff because it's aluminum it aiways absolutely nothing. So if, for example, I'm working in a in a a place where the ceiling is very precious or the house owner doesn't want anything attached to anything, I can probably talk. That means you're just taking a piece of this and using a piece of that blue painter's masking tape that people's off without taking the bank with it, as they promised, just attach that to a ceiling and then use this to bounds the source for into just to get a little bit of separation on the hair or two you get a little bit of light on an actor can just be a little bit of above a shot and then just used them blades on this completely to control you know to keep it within within the cards you don't get spill like so very, very useful and and can be used from multiple multiple applications and something nice about this is john can we take the barrel out off this to something we discovered purely back by accident uh huh. Being able to use this is a cz abounds light that you could you know a broad bands like and you can control the vm brightness just purely with blades without changing the keller because normally you know you know you can create just a tiny glow and way use these actually quite a lot with that lens on has because first of all on the light distance of you know leak out on the sides and you can put it on on on the ground hide it behind the sofa blowup of section wall that's out of picture than control identity just by the blade cutters and some of them even have iris is on I don't think this one does you know some of them have irises so they are us up and down and you can control the brightness just purely buying using the areas all the blades but very very versatile and useful them by used these all the time then you put out a line you can you can indeed I most mission the patterns I find kind of rather crude they're kind of a little bit tacky but you know given the the shallow depth of field of your hd dear solares if you throw that way out of focus and it's probably fine they do all kinds of patterns like window frames and leaves and yeah I mean you know should have if we had a much wider lamp and that we should have out of focus than you'd probably get away with it is an element in the background and yeah, you know it's they are incredibly versatile and you know, wears so hee I think we've done let me just check my little cheat sheet here and I think we've kind of covered most of our low budget so you know that one of the uh one of the things that again or rear traitors you know low budget they use often we will find ourselves shooting out in street lighting and I think I mentioned this again some repeating myself a little bit for those that went tuned in yesterday all those that were asleep, huh? It's a really good idea of yours eugene showed him and they polite to just disintegrate I'm just in the saturated couple of points in your menu just so that that's incredibly intense orange spectrum is just reduced in tiny bet it you just take it, take it, war into the monochrome world, and you'll be much happier with the results because, you know, as we talked about the, um, you know that the sony in labor lights are almost of an absolutely pure yellow spectrum and there's not an awful lot you can do about it, but, you know, she didn't know budget films, you will and never really find yourself shooting with it because you just don't have the money and to get a muse. Eighteen k silver bullets from sitting orders or sixty foot condors like locks and streets are locked and find yourself, but script script everything so that your characters had enough nearest door window or something like that. Where then you can like them nicely with tungsten light or a mole cosmetic source than mercury or sodium labor, which is great for chase scenes or correct areas or running man the streets, your moments? Or maybe you just like it that way. Anyway, I personally don't like, certainly, mabel, I think it's really ugly reminds me of kind of, you know, horrible industrial lighting, but and, you know, and it's not designed to look very pretty on the human face.