Best Low-Budget tricks!

[Mark Suszko]

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[Mark Suszko]

I make an instant cukaloris on set by taking a sheet of black foil and stabbing it a bunch of times randomly with a pen, to make randomly-sized holes. Some of them I’ll make even more ragged by tearing with my fingers. Then I throw that on an omni or tota with a Lowel gel holder, after the gel (if you put the foil on first it melsts the gel or use stand-offs like sections of coil spring clipped onto the frame). I found that if I make two of these at 45 degree angles, gel one blue and leave the other clear, I get a very convincing partly cloudy blue sky effect where they interact on the wall. Usually I just go with one of these and either gel it or not as required.

You can make a kind of China Ball with an empty plastic gallon milk jug and a candelabra lamp base with a compact fluro bulb. The handle is handy for holding it up or tying it to something.