My first lighting kit is shipping to me… tips?

[Bob Cole]

[Sam Mallery] “If anyone has advice I’d love to hear it. “

Best way to learn the kit is to hire the best lighting person (be he/she a DP, grip, gaffer, whatever) in your area to set up your kit, show you around its features, and help you figure out a list of the little things you need to add. In fact, you could reasonably ask this person to bring a few accessories to your session. If you’re planning to shoot interviews, make sure you line up a suitable person to sit in for your practice session.

I’ve seen an audio guy make the transition to a camera guy before. It can happen, but it isn’t automatic.

Good luck!

Bob C

[Mark Suszko]

Reagarding the soft bank, the rule of thumb for setup I learned was that you position it around twice whatever the diagonal measurement of the front of the soft bank is. Just a rule of thumb for intial setup, you’d expect to adjust from that point for specific needs, obviously. I actually go a little further than 2x the diagonal myself for first setup in actual practice, myself. More like 2.5x the diagonal for larger banks. Depends to an extent how hot you need to flood the talent, or if you want something more even and subtle.

Other tips: absolutely right about handling bulbs with gloves. I have seen bad things happen when you don’t do this. Also don’t move or bump the lights right after you turn them off, the filaments are delicate as they are just starting to cool. You want to be a little careful adjusting them while hot.

[Sam Mallery]

Thanks guys. The kit just arrived. I’m going to take my time reading through the manuals and stuff before I plug anything in.

Mark… what you’re saying is to position the softboxes two times the length of their diagonal size away from the talent? So if my softbox is twenty inches wide, I should place it forty inches from my subject, and adjust from there?

Bob… that’s a good idea, providing the lighting person is the type who likes to share information, and is a good teacher. The trouble is that I really bought the best kit I could afford, and I won’t be able to hire anyone anytime soon. I’m not an audio guy who wants to transition to other fields, I just want a complete set of equipment to make my own productions.

Thanks for your words.

[Dennis Size]

It’s too bad you can’t afford to hire a “teacher”; you’ve purchased an excellent lighting kit and it’d be a shame not to use it effectively.
You should contact area TV studios, especially with location ENG news crews who are “running and gunning” lighting all the time. If you can convince someone to allow you to “tag along” you’ll learn a wealth of tricks and techniques — especially in handling your great gear. (Most lighting cameramen and shooters will be jealous when you tell them what you own!)
Perhaps you can convice a local commercial shooter to provide some “lessons” in return for allowing him to use your gear “free” of rental.
You could also buy a book or two — but that’s that same as listening to me or anyone else bullshit about gear in this forum. You’re never going to learn how to swim if you only read about water.
If you do want some books, check out https://www.focalpress.com.
LIGHTING FOR DIGITAL VIDEO & TELEVISION by John Jackman, LOCATION LIGHTING FOR TELEVISION by Alan Bermingham, or LIGHTING FOR TV & FILM by Gerald Millerson (way above your level, but the “bible” for lighting)
are some good choices.

DS

[Alan Lloyd]

Get color and diffusion gels, blackwrap, and spring clothespins – all of these are your friends.

[Bob Cole]

I still think you should seek out hands-on instruction. If you can’t afford to pay for it, Dennis made an excellent suggestion to barter for use of the kit with an established expert.

Okay, here’s my Debbie Downer routine:

If you have to learn on your own, focus on safety. It’s a great kit, but you and others can get severely burned, blinded, etc. by exploding bulbs, light stands falling over, etc. Use all precaution, gloves, sandbags, safety harnesses, safety screens, etc., and assume something will go wrong because it certainly will if you do this long enough.

Consider delamping before putting this kit on an airplane, especially with open face fixtures (and when you relamp, obviously don’t touch the lamps with your hands).

bob

[Rick Wise]

Dennis, great advice. I’d add Blain Brown’s book on Lighting to your list, but it too is for more advanced shooters. (I use Blain’s book in my grad school lighting class, in spite of a significant number of text errors which I hope will be corrected in the next printing.) Your “reading about water” analogy is just terrific. Nothing beats doing it.

I suspect “I can’t afford” is a false position. If one can afford such an expensive kit, one can afford at least a day’s time of a good gaffer. In the SF Bay Area, one of the highest paid in the US, Gaffers go out for up to $650/ 10 hours, but I know you could find a very good one willing to guide and advise for $450-$500. This would be a very low-stress job for him or her. Or, you could make an arrangement to go to his place for, say, 3 mornings. The suggestion of access to your gear for free in exchange for “lessons” is surely another possibility. There are so many different ways someone with some get-up-and-go can get good help learning to light.

In short, the poster needs to get his feet and mind in gear, and start lighting.

Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Michael Palmer]

Along with all the great books on lighting that have been advised Bob brings up a great point,
SAFETY FIRST
Yes you can get hurt even placing the bulb into the lamp, this should be done with safety glasses on and you must clean the bulb with an alcohol wipe to remove any grease from your hand before you try using it, or it may explode.

A book on basic ohms law is also in order when use professional lighting gear. You must know basic electrical priciples . I wouldn’t advise more than 2 of these units to a single 20 amp circuit. You may get away with all three on one 20 amp circuit but then there is always someone else who will find that same circuit and suddenly it trips right when you are shooting. If you do run all 3 units from one circuit make sure to use an extension cord rated for 20 amps (#12/3) and not any of those Home Depot orange cords.

Also start coiling these extension cords the same direction (Clockwize in 2′ circumference coils) as this will make it easier to consistently lay them nice and flat so people won’t be tripping on them, never coil them around your elbow or use those construction coiling knots your framer friends use. Chances are you will need to find dedicated circuits from rooms up to 150′ away and you will be responsible for this. Always run these cords to the side of the hall and tape them down when crossing any paths.

These lights get frikken hot and they WILL set off fire sprnklers and they can start fires when set to close to ceilings or walls.

And you will want some sand bags to secure them to the ground when someone does trip over the cord.

I’m sure you will learn a lot from these units and it will inspire you to purchase even more lights.

Good Luck
Michael Palmer

[Bob Cole]

[Michael Palmer] “These lights get frikken hot and they WILL set off fire sprnklers and they can start fires when set to close to ceilings or walls. “

I work with a producer who must have had a memorable experience with that. If one of my lights is within five feet of a sprinkler I have to gaffer tape a styrofoam cup around the sprinkler head.

Just one more darn thing to remember to REMOVE when I leave….

Bob C

[Mark Suszko]

Seen it, he’s right. Another good book is Ross Lowel’s, Matters of Light and Depth you can get it on the Lowel website. If you can find the “Power of Lighting” stuff, it’s gold; well-illustrated and easy to follow.

On the free side, visit the digital juice DJTV web site and look for the lighting tutorials by Perry, several pages back from the front of the video gallery.

https://www.digitaljuice.com/djtv/default.asp?page=13&sortby=&kwid=0&show=all_videos

He does a lot of setups similar to what I learned to do, making one light do the work of 2 or more, and making something out of nothing using just lighting and framing and junk hanging around. All the digial juice tutorial vids are very nicely done. Watch them all and learn a lot.