First of all, I'm a director, not a cinematographer or a gaffer so there are more than a few things that I don't know about lighting!
We are trying to light a scene at night in front of an old wooden cottage. There will be a fire, lanterns on the porch and a band performing around the fire (its a music video).
The main problem I currently have is working out whether the generator we have booked will power all the lights.
It is a 30KVA generator with one 3 phase 20amp outlet and 2 single phase outlets. The idea was to run a 4k fresnel from the 20amp outlet and my understanding was that this would be all that circuit could handle. Is this correct? If we get some sort of 20amp distribution board, would we be able to run more than this? Ideally we would run a 4k and 2.5k HMI fresnels from this outlet and then a couple of 4 bank kinos and a custom made fire box from the other 2 single phase outlets with distribution boards. We are also in Australia if that makes any difference with regard to voltage etc.
Some people have said that we could get a 20kva generator and get a distribution board with 20amp, 15amp and 10amp plugs. Does this exist? Other people are suggesting that you can only run 20amp power, OR 15 and 10amp power via a distribution board from one 3 phase power outlet. This sounds like it is right from what I'm gathering.
The other thing is that this generator is an industrial generator. Is there a way to test whether we will be getting flicker from the HMIs before we get out there and get the camera up? Is there some sort of testing device that can check that the generator is outputting the correct cycles?
Can anyone also suggest some models of generators that would do this job and provide flicker free lighting?
Again, I apologise if any of this does not use the correct terminology or is unclear.
Any help would be hugely appreciated. We shoot in 4 days!!!