David Schuurman

Hey folks, I have a shot coming up where I need to start with the camera upside down and then rotate it back to normal. Is there any methods for doing this that I can accomplish cheaply? I thought about putting two piece of angle bracket on either side of a lazy suzan and mounting to a tripod. will this work or possibly be too shaky? Would love some insight. Thanks!

Seems straightforward at first, that's what a lampshade is for. lol. However, It will be work on an actors head (so not much space) and it needs to be dimmable either wirelessly or on a cable. I was thinking any number of small LED panels could illumnate everything but to dim them live would be tough. Is there anything you folks can suggest that would work? I thought maybe some strip lighting wrapped around the head to make the light more even. Is there any solutions to wirelessly control lights like that? Thanks!

I don't think it'd be wise. I have the teradek CLIP which I use to walk around with for lighting, or art department uses. I wouldn't focus off it because its pretty spotty at full quality. It'll jump around on ya. That being said Im not sure how much better the cube is so take my experience with a grain of salt.

That actually sounds like it'd hold up pretty well in higher winds, especially if bagged. You could maybe add c-stands on each corner to grip the floppy and pony the solid to.

Something that you shouldn't overlook if you want to get something similar to that soft flare within the frame of your screengrabs is haze. You haze up your scene and your lights in the scene will look awesome. Below is an example where we hazed the crap out of a scene and ended up with a look similar to what your screengrabs show. http://imgur.com/a/FyxeR We used 2 arrisun 5's and pointed them towards talent/camera.

I'm not really an expert but I would probably just use a silver bounce or one or two mirror boards to fill in the silhouette a bit and call it a day.

Hey All! Thanks so much for the awesome insights! I just want to chime back in here and let you all know how the shoot went and what I ended up going with. Didn't end up getting the balloon lights unfortunately. Would've been amazing but budget didn't allow (would've been about $1500 for what I discussed with the guy at the balloon place). So the night before the shoot the director and I went to the street we were shooting on and scouted it for the first time at night (would've loved to scout at night earlier but timing didn't allow for that). I'm glad we did because the old-timey lampposts that are in the street were all retro fitted with white light at about 5000k! So what we did was cut out pieces of half CTO to wrap the lamps with, and then on each lamppost was an electrical outlet, so we attached a 250w/300w/650w to each (hidden behind the lamppost fixture) depending on how far away from our scene it was (further light meant brighter light because it needed to cover a larger area ). Each light was pointed up at the building beside it to look like the lamppost had a higher intensity. We also added a kino tube or two over some store signs overhanging the street to play as practicals. I put a 12x12 with light grid on the sidewalk at a 45 degree angle to the band, and put two 5k lights through it. and I backlit with a 2k mole LED with opal in front to soften it a bit, which was supposed to be up in a lift in an alleyway but the lift died as we were moving it across the street so I had to have it on a skyhigh stand. After shooting a quick wide shot that looked nice we decided the action looked too sparse so the entire final scene is going to live in frenetic closeups....which doesn't really show off the effort we put into lighting the whole dang street lol but it did look pretty cool still. Anyway. Figured I'd write it out in case anyone cared or is going through something similar. Like I said, this was the biggest project I've DP'd and the largest scene I've lit so I was flying by the seat of my pants and I think I succeeded . So thank you all!

Budget is $35k. music video. No street pics yet. but 2story old country main street type.

Hi David, thanks for the reply! The surrounding buildings are 2 stories high, and a performance going on on the roof of the 2nd story. A balloon sounds great to me because as you say it's shining both out and down, but would having a balloon 3 stories up be ineffective for bringing up ambient level of both the rooftop and the street below? A condor also sounds nice. You're saying it would hang above the street/rooftop scene in the same way the balloon would? or it would have ot go up the street a bit and provide more side light instead? The goal here is to light it once and then more or less be able to shoot everywhere in the scene.

Hi folks, I was just talking with a friend about a shoot I may help him with and it got me thinking how I'd light it. It's a single "main street" type street in a small town, a block, maybe two. I've never lit anything that size so I was wondering if anyone had any bts stills they could share of something similar they've done, or how you'd approach lighting a street scene. I had thought about a large balloon light, but not sure how much light I could get out of one, or how high I could put it, because part of whats happening involves being on the roof of one of the buildings. I thought perhaps doing two large 20x20 frames on alternating rooftops pointing down into the street/rooftop area with some big lights through it (5k's? 10k's? I don't know how much would be needed) But wasn't sure if that would be too directional. The idea is that it get's lit once and then shoot everything needed with only minor adjustments with smaller lights to augment. Anyway, would love to hear what advice you folks here have for something like that.

Very interesting Guy, thanks for sharing the BTS stills. In my case, I could take the tip of coving the diffusion off each of the overhead fixtures even which could help put some light in the students eyes.

Thanks for the reply David! The intended look is to seem like a typical daytime class in full swing. Bright, colourful, soft. There were only windows on one wall and we never showed them, so we drew the blinds to avoid one row of students being much brighter than the last row.

Hi folks, I just shot a project where we had a class full of kids studying and interacting within a classroom environment. We used the existing lighting within the room (panels of overhead flourescent tubes like every school i've ever been in) and blocked off the windows to cut the daylight temerature, we had a small budget,and a short timeframe. I was talking to a pal about it who was on set but not the director on that project and he said he would have wanted it lit and shut off the overhead lights even within that budget. I said that probably the only thing I would've done is replace all the bulbs in the overhead fixtures with a brighter, colour balanced bulb, with maybe a thin diffusion on each one, and then had two kino's to add a faint bit of eyelight and backlight on the maybe 3 or 4 closeups we had, but that I would probably even do without the kino's and just leave the overhead lights as the main light and use a small reflector/icelight type eyelight on the closeups. He seemed dissatisfied by that, and I've since talked to him twice about the same project and each time he talks about how it "should've been lit" (even though it looked great anyway, and everything that wasn't fully ideal could've been brought out in the grade). My question is, how would you light a classroom scene if you have only a single school day (8-2:45 minus lunch and recess breaks) to shoot in the classroom?

Well, I think the most effective way is to use a mirror. But that'll be a very hard light. how close can it be to your subject? I would use a reflector disk on the white setting probably. or set up as large a white reflector as possible. I've used pieces of paper, I've used white bristol board, I've used 4x8 styrofoam sheets, I've used white bedsheets...really anything you have access to.

Hey folks, I was wondering if you guys could provide some insight into how this was lit, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOyYXlQ7770 judging from what I see in her eyes here and there, it's mainly a 4x4 diffused frame, and judging from the hot spot in the reflection it's something thinner like Opal maybe? My guess is there's a 4x4 frame within 6 feet of the model slightly camera right, and a foot or two above her.then maybe a bit of reflector low down at waist level to pump a bit under the chin. Doesn't look like there's any back lighting. I'm loving the beautiful skin smoothness, and soft contouring of the face, Any tips on how to achieve this? Thanks people! D.

Whats this canon raw about? Never heard of it....(we're talking for video right?) I know (and sometimes use) ML raw no problem but canon raw...not so much.

I fixed them both last night. there was quite a bit to do, lots of loose screws, some adequate strain relief actually but the cables were fraying and in two spots the insulation had split open just at the joint. I cut all the cables, reconnected everything, added more strain relief, tightened everything down and put it all back together.

my rule of thumb with my 5d and monitor is that I never have the camera on while the monitor is plugged in and off. so monitor goes on, then camera, then camera goes off, then monitor. if I lose signal due to a cable tug of some kind then I will immediately turn off camera, open battery door, drop battery out then in again, then turn camera on again usually while keeping the monitor on. I am pretty used to this and it takes me 10 seconds at most to get back to working order.

well I just want to keep debris and dust from getting in, these aren't well made...each plus has a huge gap of space around where the cable goes in, I wanted to fix that.

You're right, I took them apart tonight and fixed all the worn, torn, and fraying bits and tightened everything down, lots of strain relief. Last thing I need to do is seal the plug ends and switch in/out's. I have an indoor/outdoor latex sealant from homedepot for use around the house, would that be adviseable to use or should I use a product that is specifically for sealing cables? I don't konw what makes it good or bad so I'd love someone to chime in with some insight!

oh man I have two 150w as-arri lights and they are so shoddy....although I've used them for 2 years with no problems, until last month...I had them backlighting a couple little things on a set and one ofthem was giving me a bit of a mild shock when I would touch it, so I unplugged it. the cables are all pulling out which is probably the issue, I should give them a repair, but I haven't needed them since then so they're just sitting around.

If you're on a budget, and depending on what type of lighting you do the Lowel DP is a really great light with a tremendous amount of value. I have an arri 1k and 3 lowel DP 1k's, I've used the arri once in 4 months. the lowels I use constantly. Why? Because they're light, they pack up neatly (I have the dp4 kit minus one). and I almost always use them behind either 2x2 or 4x4 diffusion, so it really makes no difference. they're light, they don't need a heavy light stand or c stand to put them up high like my arri does. Best part is they're $200 vs $700, so you can buy 3 for the price of 1 arri. I would certainly get lowels as my first lights, not as much control sure, but I feel like I could do a lot more with 3 lowel dp's than one arri.

Hey all, I have a shoot coming up which takes place on a beach at night and the director wants the short throw look of a ring type light running around in the water with our subjects so that they're softly lit but the background fades into blackness fairly quickly. He suggested a ringlight but I don't want to use a cheap LED ring light with a green or magenta tinge to it so I've sourced a Kinoflo ringlight which is pretty expensive to rent, and fairly large for the front of the camera. I am starting to think that a Wescott Icelight would be a good lightweight option as they seem to have a high CRI and would have a similar look to a ringlight on camera, they are also battery powered in a compact format which means we can mount it and forget it throughout much of the shoot, using it only when we need it. They're significantly cheaper to rent, and the producer is being super tight with the budget. My questions are: -would an icelight and a kino ringlight be similar in terms of look? (we are not looking for circles in eyes at all) -will an icelight work okay as a dim eyelight on closeups in other scenes which are also lit with tungsten lights? (concerned about CRI and temperature I suppose) -have you ever used one (or two) mounted either side of the lens ? Thank you very much for your insights!