Lighting on a budget

Hi All,

While making my show, the one thing that made a real difference was the lighting. Its not as expensive as you might think. With two or 3 parcans (lighting heads) some gels (coloured film that goes over the lighting head) and a smoke machine (cheap one), you can make any room more epic!

It is useful to have a white lightsorce as well as your coloured light. It makes nicer to look at.

This whole set up should cost less than £50

Olly

I've sure been impressed by the lighting you do, Olly. In fact I told a few people the Magician/Lansing one was arguably the best I'd done so far in terms of production value, because I loved the way you lit your "domain" and the set for Trea's office! That was the voodoo one! I only used one little lamp under the kitchen table, but I got into moving my face in and out of the shadows in that one...

I assumed you must've had lots of expensive gear, though, Olly, to achieve such cool results, so I'm inspired to read how cost-effective it actually is!

Thanks

Its also worth knowing that when your camcorder is recording in a well lit scene, you are using a lower ISO setting, ie much much better image quailty.

If your using low light you will get more grain.

Regarding lights, you can always use a couple of 100w bulbs in spotlight. Coloured gel is only about £10 for a pack. It will last you ages.



follow the links here adrian

Lighting Gel from Oz Ebay

PARCANS 56

This looks good.. maybe

I also used LED Parcans which are also quite cheap. Pros: you can make any colour with them (no gel needed) They stay cool (Normal parcan get very hot). Cons: not loads of light but enough for you I think Adrain.

This Be them

LED parcans 56

Hope this helps

Cool! Thanks Mate! I must take a closer look at these links tomorrow. (currently teaching an online english class!)

My lighting set up was custom built by my dad! I only use the lights to light my green screen correctly and that's it. The rest of the time I either use natural light or a bedside lamp. I love shots of people in siloheutte whilst light poors in behind from the window. Although sometimes that is annoying!

My lighting consists of two spotlights, designed to go in ceilings, on either end of a a 5 foot long bit of wood and that's mounted on a camera tripod. That does the job of lighting my green screen perfectly. But natural light from the big window facing the green screen does a better job at bringing out the green than just than the lights on their own.