Cheap Lights for Video and Photography and how to produce better results with them.

To see this lighting in use – check out this video I made for the Heinz Commercial contest


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Lighting is the second most important thing to making your independent movies better. The most important thing is sound; more episodes will follow on this. If you want people to take your work seriously or even just look at it, you usually need to have more than just available light when shooting indoors.

Lighting systems for film and video are very expensive. By using lights that are available at a home improvement store, you can get similar results to the expensive kits with just a little bit of work. One note of caution about using these lights or for that matter any lights; be careful! These things will get extremely hot and should not be touched with out leather gloves on. Follow all the safety warnings on the lights about their handling. These lights are halogen lights and when aimed directly at a subject produce very harsh shadows.

One technique is to bounce the harsh direct light off a wall or ceiling. This will spread the source of illumination. The larger the light source the nicer the light will look.

The other technique is to use something to diffuse the light source. It’s basically the difference of a bare light bulb and using a lamp shade. The light from a light bulb without a shade is very harsh and direct, the lamp shade will soften the light and also spread out the size of illumination. So how can this be done with these large halogen work lights. I’m a photographer so I have some tools from portraiture. I sometimes use a white portraiture umbrella. The light will shine through the white material of the umbrella creating an effect similar to a soft-box. Attaching the umbrella to the stand can be done with a clamp. Another diffuser to try is a chinese lantern. I keep mine flat and clamp it to another stand in front of the light. The least expensive option is to use parchment paper. This is the same stuff used for baking, and is therefore designed to handle the type of extreme temperature these lights put off. Pull off a piece of this paper and use a clothes pin to attach it to the light. Make a curved shape to allow for a larger surface. Again think lampshade.

I’ve been using these lights for a couple of years now and have produced several movies with them. Most recently a commercial submitted for the Heinz Ketchup contest.
Sure most people in the movie and lighting industry might look down on this, but now you have saved some money for something really important, like a 3 chip camera.