Edith blazek Posted May 8, 2022 Share Posted May 8, 2022 Hi, before we start, my main lighting inspirations consist the Hannibal tv series, Euphoria, and the works of David Fincher and Rina Yang for having an ambient based exposure with top or backlight, and movies such as Mandy, Suspiria (1973), Only God Forgives, and the works of Vittorio Storaro and Benoit Debie for having bold splashes and tints of color. Basically I'm trying to compile a set of gear for achieving stylized lighting of a set and my method was to mostly lean on practicals or supplemented practicals with a top light for ambience with a hard backlight. Keep in mind I have only so much power to work with as I'm putting all of this in my car with a small generator so basically I'm limited on space and power and those are my major cost factors for me as I need the space for other things as if I had all the space and power in the world I would probably just use a bunch of arrimax 18ks, Wendy lights, softsuns or God knows how many digital sputniks but I don't have that so I have to make sure with what I can do. For the film lights I would make sure that the company provided photometrics actually line up with the claims made as for equivalency and my source for verification was Arris photometric calculator as I could input distance and approximate beam angle to see what the actual equivalents are. The lights I have chosen for my kit are there to fill in roles for other equivalent lights but at lower wattages and with hopefully good light quality and not just output. And keep in mind these lights would be in near constant rotation in terms of what role they would be playing on set. Also, another factor would be how well I can rent them or resell them for which is why I'm looking at the lights here. 1x hive wasp plasma par 1000 (equivalent to an Arri m18 and considering that light is reputed to be brighter than some 2.5ks it lives up to that but it's nowhere near a 10k tungsten like once claimed at trade shows and on some sites by hive) 1x prolycht orion 675 w/ fresnel (it does seem to line up to the claim of being roughly equivalent to a 5k tungsten if just below it and it lines up with an Arri m8 so I'm satisfied). These would be used with the lightbridge crls c100 kit 2x litepanels Gemini 1x1 hard (these didn't make equivalent claims but according to their company provided photometrics and beam angle they seem to line up with a 400w hmi like a joker with the frosted fresnel lens) Practical/other film lights 1x astera titan 8 light kit 1x astera helios 8 light kit 2x astera nyx 8 bulb kit with impact octacool fixtures 2x litegear literibbon cine five 5m And the full set of rosco Storaro gels. If there are improvements I can make on this let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Parnell Posted May 8, 2022 Share Posted May 8, 2022 What grip lighting gear will you have? Achieving the looks of your reference material, especially on the budget you have, you will find your grip gear is going to be way more important than the lamps you have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edith blazek Posted May 8, 2022 Author Share Posted May 8, 2022 1 hour ago, Matthew Parnell said: What grip lighting gear will you have? Achieving the looks of your reference material, especially on the budget you have, you will find your grip gear is going to be way more important than the lamps you have. I was gonna base my grip roughly on what lights I get while making sure I could still use them if I do upgrade as on one hand I don't want to get crank stands when I only need combos for example but on the other hand I don't want to have to radically change my grip kit if I do upgrade my kit. And though I didn't mention it, I understand that negs are going to be my golden ticket and that my most used piece of lighting equipment will probably be a large black textile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albion Hockney Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 Hi Edith, your inspirations and approach are great but every project is different and the lights and gear needed do vary quiet a bit. If your interested in owning this size package w/ grip gear is your plan to work as a gaffer or rent it out? If not, I would suggest working with a lighting rental house if you need this big of a package. With grip gear and that many fixtures it sounds pretty much like a 1/2 ton or a 1 ton package which is a small truck or vans worth of gear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edith blazek Posted May 9, 2022 Author Share Posted May 9, 2022 1 hour ago, Albion Hockney said: Hi Edith, your inspirations and approach are great but every project is different and the lights and gear needed do vary quiet a bit. If your interested in owning this size package w/ grip gear is your plan to work as a gaffer or rent it out? If not, I would suggest working with a lighting rental house if you need this big of a package. With grip gear and that many fixtures it sounds pretty much like a 1/2 ton or a 1 ton package which is a small truck or vans worth of gear. Oh I was definitely going to rent it out, that's why I'm looking at stuff like the asteras. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albion Hockney Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 If you want to be a Gaffer/Truck owner I would buy industry standard fixtures like an M18 which people will request, though the 1000W plasma light which I have never heard of sounds interesting. Also at this size the vehicle and organization systems start to matter quiet a bit. You would ideally want a small cargo van fitted out with shelving and ideally a lift gate. Also Carts. If you can't afford that I'd scale back. I have seen some gaffers with ultra tiny packages work out of Mini Vans or Hatchbacks, but at that point you can really only fit enough gear for interviews or very small setups and with out a vehicle renting it out can be challenging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edith blazek Posted May 12, 2022 Author Share Posted May 12, 2022 On 5/8/2022 at 2:56 AM, Edith blazek said: Hi, before we start, my main lighting inspirations consist the Hannibal tv series, Euphoria, and the works of David Fincher and Rina Yang for having an ambient based exposure with top or backlight, and movies such as Mandy, Suspiria (1973), Only God Forgives, and the works of Vittorio Storaro and Benoit Debie for having bold splashes and tints of color. Basically I'm trying to compile a set of gear for achieving stylized lighting of a set and my method was to mostly lean on practicals or supplemented practicals with a top light for ambience with a hard backlight. Keep in mind I have only so much power to work with as I'm putting all of this in my car with a small generator so basically I'm limited on space and power and those are my major cost factors for me as I need the space for other things as if I had all the space and power in the world I would probably just use a bunch of arrimax 18ks, Wendy lights, softsuns or God knows how many digital sputniks but I don't have that so I have to make sure with what I can do. For the film lights I would make sure that the company provided photometrics actually line up with the claims made as for equivalency and my source for verification was Arris photometric calculator as I could input distance and approximate beam angle to see what the actual equivalents are. The lights I have chosen for my kit are there to fill in roles for other equivalent lights but at lower wattages and with hopefully good light quality and not just output. And keep in mind these lights would be in near constant rotation in terms of what role they would be playing on set. Also, another factor would be how well I can rent them or resell them for which is why I'm looking at the lights here. 1x hive wasp plasma par 1000 (equivalent to an Arri m18 and considering that light is reputed to be brighter than some 2.5ks it lives up to that but it's nowhere near a 10k tungsten like once claimed at trade shows and on some sites by hive) 1x prolycht orion 675 w/ fresnel (it does seem to line up to the claim of being roughly equivalent to a 5k tungsten if just below it and it lines up with an Arri m8 so I'm satisfied). These would be used with the lightbridge crls c100 kit 2x litepanels Gemini 1x1 hard (these didn't make equivalent claims but according to their company provided photometrics and beam angle they seem to line up with a 400w hmi like a joker with the frosted fresnel lens) Practical/other film lights 1x astera titan 8 light kit 1x astera helios 8 light kit 2x astera nyx 8 bulb kit with impact octacool fixtures 2x litegear literibbon cine five 5m And the full set of rosco Storaro gels. If there are improvements I can make on this let me know. As an update to this Im not doing the wasp par and instead went for another Prolycht 675 so here is the updated list so imagine it like 2 Arri m8s or 5k tungsten fresnels 2x prolycht orion 675 w/ fresnel (it does seem to line up to the claim of being roughly equivalent to a 5k tungsten if just below it and it lines up with an Arri m8 so I'm satisfied) and lantern. These would be used with the lightbridge crls c100 kit 2x litepanels Gemini 1x1 hard (these didn't make equivalent claims but according to their company provided photometrics and beam angle they seem to line up with a 400w hmi like a joker with the frosted fresnel lens) Practical/other film lights 1x astera titan 8 light kit 1x astera helios 8 light kit 2x astera nyx 8 bulb kit with impact octacool fixtures 2x litegear literibbon cine five 5m the full set of rosco Storaro gels. A 12x20 black textile If there are improvements I can make on this let me know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albion Hockney Posted May 12, 2022 Share Posted May 12, 2022 (edited) no other frames, but one 12x20 solid? bold. Edited May 12, 2022 by Albion Hockney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edith blazek Posted May 12, 2022 Author Share Posted May 12, 2022 5 minutes ago, Albion Hockney said: no other frames, but one 12x20 solid? bold. Yeah my plan was to just assemble a frame from speedrail to the size I need, I'm just not sure which type of diffusion or bounce to go with, I have my eyes on unbleached muslin though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adrian Sierkowski Posted June 11, 2022 Premium Member Share Posted June 11, 2022 I would get a few Aperture 1200Ds. I would also get LiteMats; either Spectrum, or the updated ones. I would drop the Geminis, the Spectrum LiteMats are in my opinion much better. Especially the 4 or the 2L I love John over @ Hive but the Plasma 1K never really took off. I do like their WASP RGB LEDs, and I THINK (keyword there) they are designed to interface with film lighting gear a little bit better then Bowens Mount stuff. But, The Polly-Cat (which is what I‘m calling that light from now on!) has better name recognition. If you wanna splurge splurge, get Vortex8s in place of the Spectrum. They are FAR more robust. Titan is a good call. NYX is a good Call. Lite-Ribbon on it’s own is kinda “eh” but if you built it out into a kit that you can use for car rigging then that would be a killer addition and great add on to have on any show. Kino used to make car kits, as did lite-gear. I don’t know if they still do, but If so, get that. I kind of personally dislike the CLRS kit— it doesn’t really fit into the style of shoots I have been on recently. That said, I think it is a good item to have around because it is specialty and rentable to other productions to certainly keep a hand on that. I also think you should look into wireless DMX (CMRX) for all of this via either Blackout or Lumier, just because it seems that that is a type of control we are moving towards and on smaller shows, with your own, already paired lights, it can be a major time savor. I don’t know what kind of rental houses there are in Maryland, but there are a few in Philadelphia and New Jersey which may have many of those units in stock. It might be well worth while to ask if you can go in and see them and see if they would be interested in a consignment of your gear with them when you aren’t using it. This would mean a lot more if you happen to go with the name-brand stuff which seems to be out on ever show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edith blazek Posted July 23, 2022 Author Share Posted July 23, 2022 On 6/10/2022 at 8:51 PM, Adrian Sierkowski said: I would get a few Aperture 1200Ds. I would also get LiteMats; either Spectrum, or the updated ones. I would drop the Geminis, the Spectrum LiteMats are in my opinion much better. Especially the 4 or the 2L I love John over @ Hive but the Plasma 1K never really took off. I do like their WASP RGB LEDs, and I THINK (keyword there) they are designed to interface with film lighting gear a little bit better then Bowens Mount stuff. But, The Polly-Cat (which is what I‘m calling that light from now on!) has better name recognition. If you wanna splurge splurge, get Vortex8s in place of the Spectrum. They are FAR more robust. Titan is a good call. NYX is a good Call. Lite-Ribbon on it’s own is kinda “eh” but if you built it out into a kit that you can use for car rigging then that would be a killer addition and great add on to have on any show. Kino used to make car kits, as did lite-gear. I don’t know if they still do, but If so, get that. I kind of personally dislike the CLRS kit— it doesn’t really fit into the style of shoots I have been on recently. That said, I think it is a good item to have around because it is specialty and rentable to other productions to certainly keep a hand on that. I also think you should look into wireless DMX (CMRX) for all of this via either Blackout or Lumier, just because it seems that that is a type of control we are moving towards and on smaller shows, with your own, already paired lights, it can be a major time savor. I don’t know what kind of rental houses there are in Maryland, but there are a few in Philadelphia and New Jersey which may have many of those units in stock. It might be well worth while to ask if you can go in and see them and see if they would be interested in a consignment of your gear with them when you aren’t using it. This would mean a lot more if you happen to go with the name-brand stuff which seems to be out on ever show. Alright, if I was to get the astera titan and NYX's, how many kits should I get of each? I honestly have left them out now since it would get me into the 10s of thousands of dollars to have enough replace all of the lights on location say in an office, at least if the cinematographer for the dropout is to be believed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edith blazek Posted July 23, 2022 Author Share Posted July 23, 2022 On 5/12/2022 at 3:10 AM, Edith blazek said: As an update to this Im not doing the wasp par and instead went for another Prolycht 675 so here is the updated list so imagine it like 2 Arri m8s or 5k tungsten fresnels 2x prolycht orion 675 w/ fresnel (it does seem to line up to the claim of being roughly equivalent to a 5k tungsten if just below it and it lines up with an Arri m8 so I'm satisfied) and lantern. These would be used with the lightbridge crls c100 kit 2x litepanels Gemini 1x1 hard (these didn't make equivalent claims but according to their company provided photometrics and beam angle they seem to line up with a 400w hmi like a joker with the frosted fresnel lens) Practical/other film lights 1x astera titan 8 light kit 1x astera helios 8 light kit 2x astera nyx 8 bulb kit with impact octacool fixtures 2x litegear literibbon cine five 5m the full set of rosco Storaro gels. A 12x20 black textile If there are improvements I can make on this let me know Alright, here's an update, I dropped the Geminis and asteras for more 675s and added digital sputnik apollo 1s (they're basically the ds1s but more refined) as the battery powered light for when I need that and added the c-go reflector kit so here is the kit, let me know what I can do differently (keep in mind the stuff here would be rented out as in my area no one has a lot of the stuff here) 4x Prolycht Orion 675 fs (close to being equivalent to a 5k fresnel tungsten, which it's marketed as) 4x digital sputnik apollo 1 (brighter than a 300w tungsten but less bright than a 650w fresnel, marketed as being equivalent to a 500w tungsten) Lightbridge crls c drive+ kit Full set of rosco storage gels 20x20 negative fill Also, can you fold fabrics like unbleached muslin to use it on smaller frames? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edith blazek Posted July 23, 2022 Author Share Posted July 23, 2022 13 hours ago, Edith blazek said: Alright, here's an update, I dropped the Geminis and asteras for more 675s and added digital sputnik apollo 1s (they're basically the ds1s but more refined) as the battery powered light for when I need that and added the c-go reflector kit so here is the kit, let me know what I can do differently (keep in mind the stuff here would be rented out as in my area no one has a lot of the stuff here) 4x Prolycht Orion 675 fs (close to being equivalent to a 5k fresnel tungsten, which it's marketed as) 4x digital sputnik apollo 1 (brighter than a 300w tungsten but less bright than a 650w fresnel, marketed as being equivalent to a 500w tungsten) Lightbridge crls c drive+ kit Full set of rosco storage gels 20x20 negative fill Also, can you fold fabrics like unbleached muslin to use it on smaller frames? *Storaro gels Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edith blazek Posted July 31, 2022 Author Share Posted July 31, 2022 Update: I cut the orions down to 2 and have finally come up with flags and frames to have 1x Matthews 40x40 kit 1x Matthews scrim and flag kit 1x 8x8 unbleached muslin 1x 8x8 china silk 1x 8x8 matthbounce/black Let me know what changes I can make. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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