guerrilla lighting

[aldebiasi14]

Does anyone has the answer for the ultimate guerrilla lighting kit (that could work with raw/ scarlet)?

-cheap (as much as possible)
-resistant
-easy to carry around
-compact
-powerful
-that could give a professional look

I'm planing to film guerrilla style, fast and effective.

I'm about to finish a feature scrip where most of the story happens in the jungle. As things are pretty slow here in brasil (and being an independent production) I'm not planning to start shooting anytime soon: make final draft, get $$ money$$, start/finish pre-production "it'll take time"...If Red doesn't have to much delay, i'm even planing to shoot with Scarlet:thumbsup:.

on RED myth-buster they use a camera mounted LED spot that looks pretty good. LED are resistant, powerful, cheap and don't need much power...am i right?...does it mean that LED is the best solution for gerrilla filmmaking?

thanks for any info.

[Yannick Hagman]

What is your budget for lighting and what is the look you're after? There is no such thing as a universal lighting solution. If it's in the jungle (daytime I assume) you need HMIs which are pretty expensive to rent.

Leds output is way too small for anything outdoor at daytime.

[fde101]

LEDs can be very portable, light-weight, daylight-balanced (usually), and last for a long time. You need a larger quantity to build up usable brightness. Purchase price is high, but the need for replacements should be infrequent. They do run on VERY little power.

Tungsten-type lighting is cheap to purchase and can be quite bright, but runs hot, requires frequent bulb replacement, and eats up electricity rather quickly.

Florescent lighting is somewhere in between in just about every category.

[Yannick Hagman]

While Fluros and LEDs are low in consumption they will not serve you for anything further than headshots under bright daylight sky. Even then you have to shade the face with a butterflyframe.

The best would be to provide some stills of the setting.

[aldebiasi14]

thanks guys,

-as i am planing to shoot in raw (as i'm going to shoot guerrilla style, most of the lighting and color balance will be done in post.) i'm just looking to get a simple and balanced lighting. (getting the best raw color range to have freedom in post)

-the budget can vary, as fde101 said : "LEDs purchase price is high" but offer everything i need: low maintenance, portable, doesn't heat up and run on very little power. (I don't plan to run around the jungle with a generator!)

-Does anyone have experience with LED lighting and has suggestion on where to buy some/ cheque the price?

thanks again

[aldebiasi14]

hey Yannick,

where i'm planing to shoot the vegetation is so thick that most of the time i won't even be able to see the sky and be in the shade. Do you think LEDs could work in this circumstance. (to lightly brighten the scene if to dark and fill a bit the shadows on actors?)

[Yannick Hagman]

So only inside the jungle? How dark is it there?

You can't light in post.

LEDs are a mixture of directional and softlight. If you have a bigger surface of them they can act as softlight source. Brands are Kinoflo Kelvin Tile (color diable) and Litepanels (which comes in 3200k or 5600k) but prices are more "affordable". You'll need Akkus at least, which can easily be as heavy as a carbattery. They don't last very long..

Also have a look at dedolights. They are small 150w halogen lights (comparable with 600w thungsten) or 300w daylight (with daylight-filters on). They make a nice backlight for one head of a person.

Lastly I saw an accu which could fit your purpose at a distributor. I haven't looked into accus as I don't intend to do anything like your project. Will attach the link below.

I suggest checking LEDs in person. You need about 4 such panels to light a person! And about one for a face.

http://www.kinoflo.com/Lighting%20Fixtures%20(LED)/KelvinTile.html (http://www.kinoflo.com/Lighting%20Fixtures%20%28LED%29/KelvinTile.html)
http://www.dedolight.com/www/dedolight/default.php?la=0&pg=00000401030100&id=DLH4&section=0
http://www.litepanels.com/
http://www.elektrona.si/flash_feeders.htm

[aldebiasi14]

thanks for all these options, i'll look into it, right away:thumbsup:

[fde101]

Don't forget LEDz...

URL: http://www.led-z.com/

[Yannick Hagman]

Yeah, haven't seen them live but heard good things.

For dedolights, here is a nice presentation:
http://www.macvideo.tv/camera-technology/interviews/index.cfm?articleId=102138&pagType=samecat

[fde101]

LED-Z thread on REDUSER including a discount; not sure how the discount applies to non-red-owners, though...

Still they've discussed the fixtures in some detail on that thread...

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6879&highlight=ledz

LED-Zs can run on some camera batteries given the right adaptors, too...

[Granty]

I have a couple of blue 220w CF grow bulbs and cables, and a red 400w, not willing to say here what I used them for (on the grounds that I may incriminate myself). But you get a lot of light for your watt with these babies. I haven't used them for lighting video/film but was wondering if anyone has used them, and which spectrum is better for shooting indoors or outdoors.

[Yannick Hagman]

which spectrum is better for shooting indoors or outdoors.5600k outdoors or indoors if you have windows.
3200k indoors if you haven't any windows or you made them dark (with molton and gaffertape) or at night.

[Granty]

5600k outdoors or indoors if you have windows.
3200k indoors if you haven't any windows or you made them dark (with molton and gaffertape) or at night.

Thanks. So I take it that you have used these, and had good results? If so great, I can finally put these lights to a more constructive use.

[Yannick Hagman]

Not really these. But it's general knowledge. I have two dedolights and a chimera birdcage, all thungsten, but I have glass daylight filters for the dedos and a 175w daylight fluro for the birdcage (which doesn't impress me). With a red 400w you mean probably a thungsten fresnel? Your two fluros are daylight softlight sources. You can put a CTO sheet in front of it to make it thungsten and you can put a CTB sheet on your thungsten-fresnel to get the oposite color temperature (by losing 2 f-stops if I remember correctly). For the fluros it could make sense to get 3200 bulbs also.

[fde101]

If using RED cameras, daylight is preferable regardless, unless you need to mix with other predominantly tungsten sources.

Go with 5600k if you can.

[skpstein]

You might want to check out Roscoe's pitepads. Not great for lighting an entire scene, but small and easy for close ups. Daylight balanced.

http://www.rosco.com/us/video/litepad_ho.asp

[JonFairhurst]

If you have enough sensitivity (as does the Canon 5D mkII with good glass), apparently an LED fill can do the job for night shots. See the evidence here...

http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2008/09/20/something-very-interesting-is-comingboth-to-this-blog-and-to-our-industry/

Don't try to use it during the day though...

[Yannick Hagman]

Quote of the Day: "The LEDz's we returned, far too harsh to be usable with out setting up several layers of diffusion, and the multiple shadows they create make them totally unusable." Digitalfx

Jon, do you know what LED Vincent used and in which shot?

[Methane]

A problem I've had on my guerrilla shoots is that I don't have a way to power my lights. Portable generators are ridiculously loud. I thought about an inverter, so I could run a line from my car, but I don't think I could get enough juice.

Any ideas?

[Peter Majtan]

If You stick to LED and use dual-battery system, You can get enough juice from Your car... :D

[Yannick Hagman]

Yeah, a car. But, yes only with leds. You could power one 100w dedolight, but that's nothing for lighting.

[Stefan Christou]

I have a couple of blue 220w CF grow bulbs and cables, and a red 400w, not willing to say here what I used them for (on the grounds that I may incriminate myself). But you get a lot of light for your watt with these babies. I haven't used them for lighting video/film but was wondering if anyone has used them, and which spectrum is better for shooting indoors or outdoors.

You might find they put out a weired mix of red/infrared and blue/ultraviolet. Gells would help but will reduce overall light output.

[nejuicer]

A problem I've had on my guerrilla shoots is that I don't have a way to power my lights. Portable generators are ridiculously loud.

I run a rental house in Boston by the name of ScreenLight and Grip and we rent and sell small portable generators for film production. The conventional wisdom regarding portable generators reflected in Methane’s comment went out the window with the recent development of quiet inverter generators. It is now possible to get 7500W of clean stable power in a single 120V circuit from a portable generator that is as quiet, perhaps quieter, than a Crawford Movie Generator. And, when you add up the incremental savings in power to be gained by using PFC HMI ballasts, add to it the energy efficiency of light sources like LEDs and Kino Flos, and combine it with the increased light sensitivity of film stocks and digital imaging systems, you have what, I would argue, amounts to a paradigm shift in lighting with portable generators.

In the past, it was not possible to reliably operate more than a couple of 1200w HMIs on a portable generator. The primary factors limiting the use of HMIs on portable generators has been their inefficient use of power and the harmonic noise they throw back into the power stream. The adverse effects of the harmonic distortion generated by HMI ballasts (see power waveform below left), can take the form of overheating and failing production equipment, circuit breaker trips, overheating of the neutral wire, and instability of the generator voltage and frequency. Severe harmonic noise can also damage HD digital cinema production equipment, create ground loops, and create radio frequency (RF) interference.

www.screenlightandgrip.com/images/waveform_AVR-Inv_Pkg.jpg

If one knows how, it is possible to take advantage of recent technological advances in HMI ballast design and power generation, to create clean stable set power (like that in the power waveform above right) that is capable of reliably operating larger lights (HMIs up to 6kw or Quartz lights up to 5kw), or more smaller lights, off of portable gas generators than has ever been possible before.

For example, on a recent independent short shot on the Red, I used a modified Honda EU6500is Generator to power a lighting package that consisted of a 2.5kw, 1200, & 800 HMI Pars, a couple of Kino Flo ParaBeam 400s, a couple of ParaBeam 200s, and a Flat Head 80. Given the light sensitivity of the Red Camera, this was all the light we needed to light a large night exterior.

But, given the wide variety of generators manufactured, it is important to understand the benefits and drawbacks to each when it comes to their use in motion picture production. Especially, given that the increasing use of personal computers and microprocessor-controlled recording equipment in HD production has created an unprecedented demand for clean, reliable power on set at a time when the trend in lighting is toward light sources that can generate dirty power. For this reason, I have tried to compile a comprehensive survey of the prevalent lighting and portable power generation equipment. Test how well they work together and make the results available to the production community

I feel the need to make this material available because specific details of the inner workings of the latest portable power generation equipment is in short supply and harmonic noise has only recently become an issue. Why is harmonic distortion suddenly an issue in motion picture production? Because, the power generation and electrical distribution systems developed for motion picture production were never designed to deal with the abundance of non-linear loads like the electronic HMI and Fluorescent lighting ballasts so prevalent in production today. It’s a problem that has only recently begun because of the increasing use of these types of non-linear lighting loads. The problem is being further compounded by the increasing prevalence on set of sophisticated electronic production equipment like computers, hard drives and HD monitors which are themselves sources of harmonic distortion.

In the past, attention was given to generator features such as automatic voltage regulation and speed regulation. But, given the rise in production problems associated with harmonic noise, an increasingly more important feature today is the quality of the generated power waveform and how well it interacts with today's light sources. For that reason, I did a series of tests that have resulted in oscilloscope shots of the power waveforms of different light sources on different portable generators. I have attempted to interpreted the artifacts of harmonic distortion exhibited in these power waveforms, but where this is a relatively new issue, I welcome the input of other film/video production professionals.

To see the results of my tests, use the link below to our website where I have posted my analysis of the compatibility of the latest lighting and portable power generation technology

www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/emailnewsletter_generators.html

I welcome any and all feed back.

- Guy Holt, Gaffer, ScreenLight & Grip, Boston

[David Rasberry]

Thanks Guy, very informative post.