Lessons

Lesson Info

Lighting Q&A

What would you recommend for outdoor lighting? Um low budget this on, you know available and you know me control light to a great extent by this is a huge subject way haven't really talked much about shooting exteriors but these materials that you khun by low budget wise from having the vocal miss queen which in large sheets it comes in twenty foot rolls and it will just take the edge off the harshness of sunshine appear in seattle it isn't so much of a problem, but obviously in elaine we have very savage like for many, many days of the year and especially joined them middle of the day when the sun's almost directly overhead in summer and so anything you can new to just take the edge off that harshness is great. The trouble is that an awful lot of silver some things that you would I want to use they they they have a lot of stop loss so therefore your bank rooms and become overexposed eso you know, obviously you khun cheetahs ugo in as you get closer, you congee up more and more than us...

e scrims and nets too dark and then the bank ground and use a soft material overhead. Do you recommend using a foam course about scarred tio sort of fill in the yeah it's that can help quite large? I mean you've got to be careful not to overdo it and I actually use grained material believe it or not a lot of the time doom overcome those odds of issues that vangelis it relates to what we were doing about the yesterday or the day before when I'm being observant about why you looking about who he answers so terribly important like somebody standing on a tennis court is it's going to be all green under there so that's another good reason to be thinking about their soldier techniques as well you know have a question from jeff porter who says when using non standard color temp low cost homemade light sources can you please explain how to determine the color temps settings on the five d mark too well there's a couple of ways of doing it you khun keep your color set to use the same and shooting the ready scale within a large of a known color temperature which would either be a day light source like it later my or a tungsten source with a four cto over it if you if you're looking renee like coming quality or a studio line just completely naked should be thirty two hundred k on then shoot just still with that same scenting and then you can see the relative difference and you could even go as faras you knew it you congenitally sort of jealousy can in very expensive when you buy them by the role but there's you know lots of people that ebay on craigslist and things like that sell old collections of gels and bits and pieces and you can pick them up if you're in the film making community and maybe you'll be amazed at what you see in trash cans outside studios and that you'd like them people throw away large pieces of gel that they're actually very usable in them so by using jealous too can have a look at the difference between the cabin temperature off this new unknown source relative to something you do know well, give me a break good clue or I'm gonna get a college cambridge a medium which is very accurate and it'll tell you universal the cal intemperate and also tell you if there's a magenta green shift going on no so that would be the suggestion for that question from a documentary man does gail use compact fluorescent lights and what are his thoughts about them in comparison to more traditional lights? Um, I am not a great fan of resident light sometimes you have no options. I mean if you go and shoot just seen on any movie and a huge supermarket unless you're on for example, unless you're on a huge budget, people don't like you to uh take the deibel you have the money to change out all the tubes to say color corrected jujubes so what you often have to do is to go with the lighting that exists you figure out how much generally most of the residents in places like stores or supermarkets it tends to have a quite a large green content in it so you either read that with the calledem bridge a medium figure out what that green content is and then the lighting that you used to supplement that your own lighting you add that green component which could be a quarter blast screen and eighth plus screen a half blood screen or something like that so that then everything begins more or less the same degree of green content and then you can correct it overall in post you know with you on your calendar or in you know which have a program used you cover so I'm not a great pan inflorescence and especially not just industrial useful lessons because there first of all, they're not cal obama's properly in second me I don't like the norton continuous spectrum that they created back your awful or essence create you know, sort of fake spectrum you know that helps hopefully yes bernardo would like to know if you could talk about the color rendition index of led lights compared with regular tungsten lighting I am glad we brought that job led lighting as I'm improved in leaps and bounds justice in the last six months alone way don't have it with us here but way surely will be on our web sites and releasing a little film with a gentleman called mike walsh from city mills here's one of responses, they have a massive amount of research and do led lodging. How would you make it work out to correct the color temperature had to take out the green content, which was one of the major problems, and it's getting better and better and better, and they even have a beautiful light panels that you could marry between. I think it's twenty six hundred k, which is really, quite, is even warm of them studio lighting to right through to almost six thousand ok, so it's got a massive range and it's all done on a dialogue so you can use the light for daylight applications, or you can use it for studio lighting applications, all in one unit, and they're initially kind of quite expensive. And when you take into account that the bulb, the dye own life is something like sixty thousand hours or something like that, something like thirty years, so their muse. So if you consider that you don't have to replace bell, miss, if you consider that it uses, I didn't want the statistic is we're probably twenty times less power than, say, a tungsten light on probably half assed, much powers of fluorescent light for the same given degree of lighthouse, but I think the view jim morelli dees is really here on dh um you when you're saying that they've started using any delighting in the streets here in chappelle streetlights in seattle recently been replaced with the's bright led lights which you're very blue I know we had him put in front of our house and it took me like a week or two to get used to what it was like they like even now if I walked by a window it's blue outside it's like so I don't have no idea with the cholera enduring indexes on these yeah, I mean they they bring sample really needs that city millis has been working on a bean and then pretty they're pretty accurate in terms of really being touched two hundred k and fifty, six hundred k of the daylight end and you know, so the leads way we're showing you for the for the cheap lighting of carhenge areas at night, you know they'll they'll come in any kind of keller will be some of them will be my agenda someone will be green, but the ladies that are now coming out in the film minister is it really pretty well made and a lot of people bride you recent work we're sort of overpowering them and actually creating a lot of green content and I think that was what it was about that's what mike said at one point so they're getting they're getting pretty anchorage and you know, I think we're going to see them more and more just because of the in the effort to be green and not to consume too much, you know, which is very relevant way we're going to see more and more led lighting being used all over the place I think you know, how is the throw on the led lights? Espersen well, they announced out into the most recent thing that's a city mills is working on a ce faras I know they're one of the most advanced group skepticism into our indy on leads they've they developed two six fifty equivalent of a led light source in a six fifty what housing and they claim that it's going to mean you know, the equipment and over six fifty what light but it about him I don't know what the proportion is a tenth of the power consumption, so I'm now a nazi unit with them for now levin's on the front said that will start to be able jim throw light you know, to a distant isn't working has a conventional lamp on diet that is or inside it was about a new engine off in diameter so that that would be about, you know, the equivalent of a six fifty what globe? More or less so it should have a very similar kind of effect would sum the research continues, I mean, the problem with a lot of the ladies till this point is that there a lots of tiny little light sources who so people tend to boot panel is over them, so diffuse them and use them in soft lights so they throw very far just to blend all the otherwise you if you used it very close should have a thousand knows shadows, for example, which would be very attractive, but I'm putting on milk plexi or diffuser over the front, it just turns it into a big kind of soft light. So you know what? It's all changing every day, something new is coming along, so I think it certainly will be in the future whether we'll ever get any leads that would be equivalent to like him on aging gay age of mine when that kind of fucked via bauer, I think we're quite a long way away from that or a twenty killer what term? You know, in condition fixture meaning twenty get what they've given us a fixture, that globe is about this big, and I think they cost about nineteen hundred dollars for a globe, a bone blows that was generally a grown from the production department you don't have a seat because that's almost two thousand dollars down the toilet and they don't last all that long, you know, they didn't have a it was that our life and that's the wonderful thing about led xyz that theoretically will last for an awfully long time so every example I think city males to buy one panel it's about thirty, five hundred bucks now yeah, something like that but if you'd taken to account over thirty years like you never had changing global lean the fact that you probably used attends of the power it probably makes up for itself you know pretty fast a follow up question from crabby photo on twitter have you noticed any strobing with led lighting for any strobing strobing? Um actually no I haven't and I think you but it's a very good question in terms ofthe any low budget solutions that you go for in terms of, you know, home depot type lighting always a very good idea to do a test, you know, to make sure because there's nothing worse than shooting them I see them then discovering you had a problem with it so it is possible with cheap vetting zay personally haven't had any problems, but there are several things that look kind of weird with the five day and seventy and all of those things like flash is often look really horrible because it's just you just get a strip of bright light across the center of the image or somewhere in the image like a quick you know so brings on but we in the film business we use light school lightning strikes to simulate sort of lightning when there's a storm going on they do not work into a war with hd dslr is you just get bands and brightness and it looks really peculiar so you've got really use their swords of lights whore that kind of a fact on the hd dslr system and you probably I would need to resort to um you know, doing something in aftereffects oh, you know, using a different kind of camera for that that kind of thing I would say but strobing you know, I haven't I haven't had a problem with that gail in talking about all this budget lighting and ways to save money, julian l would like to know what do you think is the most important thing to not be cheap with probably your scriptwriter things I'm sure that you're right just, um but if seriously joining about technically I think it's an interesting question on I think I mean, I I love being an incandescent light so I would never shoot close ups with lessons or until I've done a little bit more work with leads I wouldn't use those close ups yet, so but you know, brees june, I'm prepared to be convinced, but I you know, so I didn't know you get to love something that gets you well quit and I mean, when you when you see even a crew over here saying safety fire extinguishers yeah actually very much that's a very good point and it's um you know it's some on has resemble these open face courts lights and not very popular with production because it's very easy to cause a fire especially if that pointed straight down you know, the bulbous could make explode and then you get red hot quartz glass that I'm coming showering down and, uh you know there's a danger with all things electric in the end you know, it's just that obviously if right now has a lens between the bulb in the, uh the bulb of the one of the scene on dh so you have a certain amount of protection um you know sometimes you know, but these lambs can be very dangerous. A piece of god can be stuck to a wall of the tape can get hot card can fall down and catch a fire you know very easily and it happens all the time in the studios I mean that we do the best we can. So safety s raises a very, very good answer to that question. Safety first yes. Uh, question from rich weston do you use daylight balance bulbs in the china balls couple people were asking again what what was that they use some sometimes I mean they make him I got him in what they're called but they make bob said I kind of blue and carol what do they call those things here they make actual blue incandescent globes over here so it's not very often on would be the answer to that we often wrapped china bowls in jail for different gallon of aches especially if they're small well ensign dozing samson huge these are these pretty accurate yeah yeah what what would you say was the equivalent lives have put from them three fifty four hundred yeah so wow that's cool very cool s o as we see that I've never seen one of those before so it's changing every day and you know that's really interesting so I think a few more questions and then I'm going to go to the other end of the scale and talk about uh, ally jing problem I had just all recently which is equivalent not quite is insane but equivalent to you through the moon story from yesterday but them's every I have a few more any more questions about lois his budget lodging or quite a few more questions that we're looking forward to your story though we'll question from joe sink of its who want to know how much continuous light in watts does it take to overpower the sun outdoors you know we covered that ready um I really don't know I should have I just the story I'm about to tell is needed to light an interior to about to stop rides in the sunlight into inside so it's funny I've never really got a thought about the sun in terms of being like with a given power attached too rigid it depends very much on time and day very so much from time of game where you are how close to the equator you are and so on and so forth to me this obviously blazing where the um uh I shot him one bout of canada once webb I'm in the middle of the day that some was eleven degrees it never ever got more than eleven degrees above the horizon certain berries enormous leave it it's that's a very difficult question to answer what do you guys have an answer to that? Generally speaking I'd say that that's probably one of the areas where de solares a lot of people say you khun work with less light once you're competing with sunlight that's where you still need truck you know because the sun is a pretty constant a constant source aa lot of times you can you can you have a twelve k you're not so okay but twelve hundred h m I and you know you're ten feet away going through a little bit of diffusion and you're barely getting a key on somebody you know who's his back later side lit from the sun so you still need a lot of wattage when when you have to be right and when you can use obviously way. All use reflect described a lot, because very often, when you working sunny xt areas, reflectors can actually do a lot more than lodging. You know, if you use a shiny boards, which I kind of like slightly dull ish mirrors and put them through diffusion, you can often get more light from those that you can from an aging k age of mine. So all the depends on circumstance and throw distance sounds all kinds of factors like that. No question from the chat room. If you had a budget for only one expensive life, do you have a recommendation? I'd probably take the biggest lies I can get on. It would probably be a twenty four k incandescent light, because it is easy to throw light away, but and when you're short on, you really know it. So I just take one great big for now and actually and tell a lie, and my favorite light of all time would be a carbon art route would take one of those.