Cheap DIY Lightkit for Filmmaking : BFX : Weekend Extra

Did you make the greatest movie ever made...except without any lighting? Well, Steve Nelson has the cure for your darkness disease, build your own light kit for $25.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• cheap
• diy
• LightKit
• filmmaking
• FilmLighting
• FilmSet
• Filmproduction
• NextNewNetworks
• IndyMogul

[StevenAtkins]

What are your thoughts on rigging up fade/dimmer switches to this set up (like the supernatural way Michael Myers "appears" in a shadow in the Halloween films)?

[indymogul]

Go for it! I heard those dimmers can be potentially dangerous, but that could be an urban myth! Just be careful with lighting, it seems innocent, but electricity can be dangerous. But yea, that would be really cool, I'm sure!

[RisingSunOutdoors]

I picked up some 12" reflector (250watt max) clamp lights at Walmart about 10bucks and the

6" reflector (150watt max) for arund 7 bucks.

Lowe's has a 101/2" Clamp Light 250 Watt fo around 13bucks a 81/2" for around 7.50 bucks and a a 5 1/2 for 6.50

I recommned 3 rated at 250 watt max. and 1-2 rated for 150 watt max.

[alphonsedoinel]

I only said it because I've come close to melting plenty of stuff before. Gels work far better anyways. You can control your colour temperature with them. They clip onto these lights perfect too using a clothespin.

[agentspymonkey]

What kind of bulbs are those?

[DarthChocula]

Haha, it's like if Biff had a nerd for a son instead of Griff.

Good job.

[SuperTomServo]

@indymogul steve loves potato salad

[NickleJ]

metro pcs now has a 4g network

[Raphaeluberzor]

I posted something that might interest you buddy :)

[Raphaeluberzor]

Indeed, but if you use tungsten bulbs as fills, use L201 or equivalent to match up the K° of the noon sun with your artifical light.

[Raphaeluberzor]

Here are few tips to keep K°s even when dimming.

There's a gel called Neutral Density wich is a "grey" gel that darkens your light. By this way, you don't change the K° and your light is dimmed.

Use CTB range of gels, to cold the K° to match your key light.

You can warm the key light by using CTO instead of cooling down fills.

To match odd sources like tungsten and camfire.

(1000000/2000k campfire) minus (1000000/3200k) = 500-313= 187 mired that indicates the matching CT to apply to lighting.

[Raphaeluberzor]

Indeed dimmers can be dangerous.

It's mainly because they are made to retain electricity. It's about somekind of resistance with a variator that let pass more or less electricity.

But there's an effect that could be usefull for theatre that might get problematic in film making.

When you dim down a light, it tends to get warmer. A tungsten light bulbs looses hundreds of kelvins on the dimming. HMI aren't because the dimmer are somekind of flaps (dunno the word in english)