Lighting for comedic bowling alley scene

[Brin Hill]

As you can see from the picture below, I'm lighting a bowling alley that has a wide range of color temperatures and minimal lighting from above. My goal is to give the environment a brighter feel because the genre of the film is comedy and there is no need for contrast or motivated shadows in this scene. There is an entire bowling showdown where I would have to light for roughly 30 people in the back ground and foreground. On my very tight budget, I have:

 

2 - 300 watt fluorescent soft boxes

$100 for rentals

 

Im thinking of getting an Arri kit with a 650 and 1K and a 4bank or kino-flo to hang overtop of the actors.

 

Any suggestions?

 

THANKS!

 

P.S. We are shooting on DSLR's and I planned on shooting at 800 ISO or less.

Edited March 24, 2011 by Brin Hill

[Ronald Gerald Smith]

As you can see from the picture below, I'm lighting a bowling alley that has a wide range of color temperatures and minimal lighting from above. My goal is to give the environment a brighter feel because the genre of the film is comedy and there is no need for contrast or motivated shadows in this scene. There is an entire bowling showdown where I would have to light for roughly 30 people in the back ground and foreground. On my very tight budget, I have:

 

2 - 300 watt fluorescent soft boxes

$100 for rentals

 

Im thinking of getting an Arri kit with a 650 and 1K and a 4bank or kino-flo to hang overtop of the actors.

 

Any suggestions?

 

THANKS!

 

P.S. We are shooting on DSLR's and I planned on shooting at 800 ISO or less.

 

You have the right idea.

 

Here's what I would get.

 

1x 4ft 4 bank kinos for overhead lights from the top. $40

1x 650w $13

 

Use the flo soft boxes to fill in shadows.

 

Use 650 as some kind of rim light or accent light or you can use it to fill in shadows during some scenes. Maybe you can give some kind of purple rim (light motivated from the purple accent lights up on the second floor). Or some orange rim light .

 

Spend the rest of money on gels to match the kino flos and the soft boxes to the existing lights in the bowling alley. Use plus green gels plus any cto or straw gels as needed. Keep in mind that adding plus green to your movie lights and removing in post, the hue of the accent lights will change as well so maybe some kind of color test beforehand would be good. Just so you can get exactly what you want and no surprises later.

Edited March 25, 2011 by Ronald Gerald Smith

[Ronald Gerald Smith]

Also, you can just rim light the group with purple and maybe place the overhead on the area closer to the bowling lanes. Balance lights as necessary.

 

You're not going to be able to light an extremely wide shot because one kino flo wont be able to reach the whole room but you will be able to manage around 10-15 ft width-wise.

 

For rigging you can probably get away with using speedrail goalposts and mounting your kino and rimlights on that.

[Brin Hill]

Ronald,

 

Thanks for your input. Thats exactly what I was thinking. I now have 2 more 300 watt soft boxes making that a total of 4 soft boxes. I plan on lighting 3/4 of the entire area so I'm thinking of maybe getting 2 x 4banks and extend them from the 2nd floor using boom poles attached to C-stands to act as natural fluorescent lights which should cover the area that I need lit.

 

Also, I'm not going to show the second floor only because thats where the lights will be held. Ideally I would mount the 4banks to the ceiling and mask them as on-location lighting but thats way out of budget. I would love to show people cheering up on that 2nd floor to take advantage of the location, so maybe I will cheat a series of cut away shots but in reference to the purple rim lighting - it may not be necessary however I will experiment with it.

 

Thanks for you suggestions.

[Ronald Gerald Smith]

Ronald,

 

Thanks for your input. Thats exactly what I was thinking. I now have 2 more 300 watt soft boxes making that a total of 4 soft boxes. I plan on lighting 3/4 of the entire area so I'm thinking of maybe getting 2 x 4banks and extend them from the 2nd floor using boom poles attached to C-stands to act as natural fluorescent lights which should cover the area that I need lit.

 

Also, I'm not going to show the second floor only because thats where the lights will be held. Ideally I would mount the 4banks to the ceiling and mask them as on-location lighting but thats way out of budget. I would love to show people cheering up on that 2nd floor to take advantage of the location, so maybe I will cheat a series of cut away shots but in reference to the purple rim lighting - it may not be necessary however I will experiment with it.

 

Thanks for you suggestions.

 

Yeah the purple was is just an idea if you want to bring some more colors into your image (and it's motivated by existing lights as well) - that might not be what you are going for though.

 

It's a nice location. Have fun!

[Brin Hill]

Yeah are color palette has warmer colors so maybe ill try throwing some yellows or light oranges in there. That picture does not really do it justice but I'm also turning off all of the christmas lights due to flicker issues.

 

Thanks for you help.