Robert Ehrlich

I'd advise against Britek. Over the summer I shot a film using the lights and I since tried to forget about the shoot as much as possible. It took within the first week for our 2K to fail and over the course of one month in August, every light would cause a problem. I don't know what packages were bought exactly, if any. We had (all open-face): one 2K, one 1K, three 650s (I forget if two of them were focusable and one was strickly spot, but i know we had softboxes for two of them) and one 300 (focusable, but sent without barndoors). I don't know if it was any fault of our own, but the lights would constantly blow fuses(their own fuses) and bulbs. Towards the end of August, if a light would cut out, as they all would, you would have to hit the light to restore it. This remedy treatment, which may sound like abuse, came about as I had reached the last straw one day. I advised the producer within the first week to call Britek and tell them to refund the whole purchase. I'm not sure on all the details as to why he never did, or if he wasn't able to, but it was a severe mistake to get them in hopes of reducing the lighting budget. I too was looking(still am) for a decent lighting package that is afordable, but I learned the hard way (or half-hard, as it wasn't my money or choice) that in some cases, your paying for a reason. An Arri kit of 3 650 fresnels goes for $1,669(possibly the more then all those lights I used). Thats currently what I have my eye on, and I've had experience with the kit and know it to be reliable. (650s also seem to be the heart of most shoots I'm on.) The next kit would probably be of 1Ks and maybe a few inkies. Any recommendations to other packages are welcome. Does it make sense to not buy these lights in kits? I'm intersted to know. I hope by writing this, I can save some of you from my painful experience with them. And for those who are going to sample their material anyway, please let me know if my experience was just a fluke of junk lights failing under very warm August weather(the first week of shooting it was over 100 a week). -Rob Heres some material from that shoot-