Neon Lighting Setup

[Dennis Size]

Put neon fixtures/signs in the background so your viewer sees the ‘apparent’ source of light, but actually light your actors with conventional instrumentation (tungsten, fluorescent, LED, etc) gelled with the correct color to match your apparent naturalistic source.
You could even use one of the many dozen RGB or RGBAW LED fixtures and tailor your lighting to precisely whatever color match you need to carry through the artistic conceit!
Have fun with it!
Dennis

[Todd Terry]

Dennis beat me to the punch but his advice is right on the money, as usual… I will second everything he said.

I would use real (or prop) neon lights as dressing and set elements, but I’d never use them as my practical light sources. I’d use conventional instruments for that. And Dennis’ idea of using RGB LED fixtures is a genius suggestion, you can dial in the color you need to approximate your neons. And as a plus, because you wouldn’t be worrying about super clean high CRI light, then even cheapo RGB fixtures would be fine… and since the lower-end ones are targeted to the DJ crowd (instead of the deeper-pockets cinematographic crowd), there are very inexpensive ones out there that should do the job nicely.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rick Wise]

Of course. Dennis and Todd are so right. Sorry to be so late to this game….. Let us know how it all worked out for you.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
MFA/BFA Lighting and Camera Instructor Academy of Art University
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Paolo Franciamore]

That is very useful and makes complete sense.

Will be doing a test this week so will definitely be trying this out.

Will post some screen grabs of the results.

Thanks again for the help.