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I'm shooting a music video inside a restaurant with drop ceiling (location) and would like to create practical overhead lighting (like this) to give us more freedom with our framing. In the example above -- it looks like they popped out tiles where they needed light, laid out a large cut of diffusion across several tiles and placed individual fluorescent tubes (astera, quasar or kino?) on each rectangle. What do you think? Can anyone provide any helpful ideas on how to achieve lighting like this on a modest budget? The restaurant also has several 3-bank T12 fluorescent fixtures already installed. I'd like to replace these fixtures with T12 kino tubes but the location is pretty dated and I'm worried about flickering because of old ballasts. How can I tell if the ballast will produce a flicker? I looked around the fixture and didn't find any specs printed on the side.

OP is the question, although I also am wondering if these drop ceilings in the attached picture work with scissor clamps? I can't tell if the gap/space down the line is just cosmetic or functional, and these pictures are being sent to me.

Hello everyone, I need your help. I'm currently a film school student. I will direct a very short film/exercise (one day of prep one day of shooting) in 40 days. So the mood and the set design will be a weird mix between Kubrick films (2001, Clockwork..) and THX 1138, kinda. Anyway we have this 4 by 10 meters set at school, that has no ceiling. But I have one obligation for this exercice/short : only use a 16mm lens (on the Alexa). 10 meter long room, 16mm.. I'd better need something as a ceiling. I'd want something white I could use as a diffusion so that the ceiling would be a giant soft source. So I have two questions for you experienced people : What would you consider for the ceiling (doesn't have to be realistic at all) given a very limited budget. What kind of light could be use above that fake ceiling, to create a high-key look overall (the set will be mostly pure light with some black lines to give some perspective, the costumes black and white as well) (we have tungstenes up to 4K, hmis up to 2.5k I think and kinos) I'll also have some diffused light coming from the walls (I'll remove the windows of the set and place 216 frames instead) Thanks everyone !