LOW BUDGET LIGHTING
By Scott Spears

In my many hours of surfing movie making sites on the web, I've seen the 
question, "I'm poor and need to know how to light my movie" so many 
times that I've lost count. Being a director of photography who has shot a 
number of no/low/modest budgeted movies I thought it was about time I 
just wrote an article on how to light on the cheap.

So you've squandered almost all your money on a cool DV camera, decent 
microphone, tripod and some tasty food for your crew (don't skimp on 
food because a crew travels on its stomach), but now your actors are 
standing around in the dark because you don't have any lights. What do 
you do? First, you get in a time machine and go back a few days so you 
can start gathering your jiffy, on-a-tight-budget light kit.

I'm a big believer in get the right tools for the job, but sometimes you 
just can't afford the right tools. Here's where ingenuity comes into 
play. First, where do you find cheap, or if you prefer, inexpensive, 
lights?  Hardware stores, auto parts, store, Salvation Army stores, 
Goodwill, garage sales. camera shops that carry used stuff, local 
production houses and rental houses. You have to keep your eyes peeled 
and be open to possibilities.

WORKLIGHTS

A good key light for cheap is a 500 watt tungsten work light which can 
be found at hardware and car parts stores. They come with their own 
stands, but I do find the stands a little short.

There's some power here, but it's hard to control, so I recommend that 
you don't aim them directly at your actors. Bounce them off a wall or 
ceiling to create a nice soft light. If you want, you can put them 
outside windows and blast them through the openings. These lights can 
get hot, so be careful moving them around. I've found them as cheap as 
$10 and can run up to $30. (11/03 I saw an ad for Kragen Auto Parts in 
LA had them at $10.) They can be found with two heads that makes 1000 
watts of lights.

HOW ABOUT A SHOWER CURTAIN AS DIFFUSION

One thing you can do is get a frosted shower curtain and hang it from a 
stand and then place the shower curtain in front of one of these babies 
to create a wall of soft light. Again, don't get too close otherwise 
you might melt a hole in your pretty shower curtain. (I have to give credit 
for Bruce L.)

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CHINA LANTERNS

China Lanterns are great. I've seen them on the sets of movies costing 
many millions of dollars. They are paper material which can be expanded 
into a ball (and now different shapes like squares, rectangles and 
ovals). They come with a wire support for the bulb. You need to get a 
socket and cable and they are usually sold in the same place you find 
the lanterns. I put a regular 200 watt bulb inside and they make a great 
soft light for close-ups. If the lantern's big enough, I'll put two 200 
watt bulbs in and I can light a small room with them. Be careful with 
them because they're made of paper and can burst into flames. They run 
between $3 - $7 depending on size. You can find them at Target, Ikea 
and Pier One Imports, to name a few.

If you're handy, you can pick up a socket and some zip cord, otherwise 
known as household extension cord, and make your own cord for the china 
lantern.

SEALED BEAM HALOGEN

Then you have small sealed beam halogen lamps which cost around $4-$10. 
You put these in a socket and then clamp them onto a stand, then aim 
away. It makes a great kicker/backlight and are great for light special 
items in the background. They come in different beam patterns, from 
narrow to wide. I tend to go for the medium and narrow. The wide is, 
well, too wide of a beam.

SCOOPS

The old reliable metal scoop light which comes with a handy clamp is a 
great option. Pop a 200 watt bulb or a photo flood in it to light your 
set. Supposedly this is what Robert Rodriguez used to light "El Mariachi".

DEALS ON PRO LIGHTS

How about putting a light kit together of real, pro lights. That's how 
I did it when I started out. I'd find a deal on a 1K (1000watt) open 
face light for $30 and snatch it up. Camera stores that carry used 
gear are great for deals. A while back, I picked up two 1K fresnels 
(these are lights with a glass lens that focus the light) and a 2K 
fresnel (with a roller stand) for $50 a piece. The stand alone was 
worth $50. Now they didn't have barn doors (metal leaves that allow you 
to control the light which attaches to the light), so I had to scrounge 
some up. I found one set $10. So for $160 dollars I had 4000 watts of 
light.

Sources for used stuff are:
Local camera stores
Goodwill & Salvation Army - it's rare, but sometimes there are deals to 
be had
Ebay - get on-line and start searching under movie equipment and video 
equipment
Local production companies - sometimes they clear out older gear. Talk 
to friend who works local production and see what's up
Local Rental Houses - occasionally they sell off older gear
www.visualproducts.com - they sell used camera gear, but have lights
www.woodennickel.com - Hollywood rental house that sells used gear

There are plenty of other sites. Get on Google and see what you can find.

Mark the editor adds - substituting high wattage bulbs in the room's existing lighting fixtures can greatly improve overall lighting. 250  to 500 watt photo bulbs are available. Being that these light sources are natural and make sense in the shot, you don't have to worry about hiding them or framing the shot to avoid them. - Another good trick is to use reflectors. You can use either white foam core to provide soft lighting or an aluminum foil board to provide more of an intense light. I've used reflectors to bounce sunlight coming in from windows as well as using reflectors to bounce and diffuse light from work lights and spotlight bulbs. Large white foam core pieces about 4 feet x 4 feet are quite handy. I've created my own aluminum reflectors by covering both sides of  4x4 piece of rigid cardboard or thin plywood with aluminum foil. On one side, glue down shiny aluminum foil. On the other side, crush the foil first, then flatten it out a bit to create a crinkly surface. 

SUPPORT

So you've found some lights, but how the heck do you support them?  I 
recommend that all filmmakers get at least one decent light stand. You 
can clamp things to them, like the shower curtain mentioned previously, 
place lights on them or hang props off of them. Again these can be 
found used. I'd plan on spending $20-50 on a good one or even two.

If you have some extra money laying around (yeah, like indie filmmakers 
have any spare cash) get yourself a C-stand. This is the staple of any 
pro movie set. It's a collapsible, three legged stand which comes with 
a attachable arm that can be used for an infinite number of tasks, like 
light stand and holding up any number of items. Used, they run as cheap 
as $75 and up. Brand new they're $170.

Get yourself a mafer ($20-40)clamp. It's a device which clamps to about 
anything and has spud for lights. You can use it clamps lights to set 
walls, doors, tables or attached to a light stand so you can have two 
lights on one stand. Lowel makes a light weight clamp called a tota 
clamp($15) which does much of the same things, but is smaller and cheaper.

GELS AND DIFFUSION

At some point you'll want to add some color or soften your lights, so 
you'll need something to put in front of the lights. 

Things to remember, gels add color or correct color temperature and 
diffusion softens the light.

First, how do you attach these gels to your lights? C-47 media 
attachment clips, otherwise known as clothes pins. Get wooden C-47s, 
not plastic. The plastic ones will melt. The wooden C-47s can burn, 
but won't catch on fire. Gels are fairly heat resistant, but you can 
melt them if you get them to close to the light, so use caution when 
attaching them to lights.

Gels come in all kinds of flavors. Number one are color correction 
gels. These are used to make your movie lights match daylight. You'd 
slap a blue (CTB, color temperature blue) on your light so it matches 
the daylight streaming in through a window. (Without going heavy duty 
into color temperatures, just remember that daylight is blue and 
tungsten light is orange.) If you have a small window, you may place an 
orange gel on the window to get daylight to match your movie lights.

For other colors, sometimes called theatrical or party gels, you can 
find about any color under the sun available. Horror film directors are 
always asking for red. James Cameron must go through a ton of blue 
gels. Green can be used to make everybody sick. It's all a matter of 
taste. A single sheet (3x3) of gel can run around $6.

You may want to talk to local production houses and rental houses to see 
if they have scrap gel laying around they'd give you. I've snagged 
plenty of gels this way. In LA, when features wrap, they dump tons of gels.

If you can't snag some for free, camera stores and theatrical supply 
stores carry them. A cool thing is to buy small packets of gels. Bogen 
has put together small packets with different groupings of gels. They 
offer color correction (lots of blue and orange), diffusion and 
multi-color packets. They run around $20 a piece, which seems a lot for 
some colored plastic, but if you're careful, you can use these gels for 
a long time. I recommend the color correction pack and diffusion pack.

ODDS AND ENDS

Extension cords, or as they're called in Hollywood, stingers, are a must 
have item. Get lots of them. I'd have at least one 50 foot and a 
couple 25 foot stingers handy. I like the ones with multi-plugs on the 
end. Some come with a LED in the end so you know it's plugged in. Get 
black cords if possible because you can hide them easier in shots than 
the bright orange ones which seem to overrun hardware stores. I've had 
to run cords through shots and have found that if you carefully run them along baseboards or natural lines in the set, most of the time you can never seen them in the shot. Plan on spending about $40 for the above allotment.

Power strips are a great little item. Make sure they can handle 15 or 
more amps. $4-$8

Cube taps. There are handy little boxes you plug into an outlet which 
triples the amount of plugs. $4

3 Prong adapter - in older houses you run into 2 prong outlets. (2 for $2)

Screw in socket to plug adapter - these are handy little things to 
have. They screw into a light socket and turn it into a 2 prong , so 
have a 3 prong adapter handy, into a plug. I shouldn't admit to this, 
but a couple of time I've been shooting outside a building and had no 
place to plug in my lights. Well, the outside of the building had a 
light, so I unscrewed the light bulb and screwed in my adapter, thus 
making it into an outlet allowing me to "borrow" some power for my 
lights. ($3)

Spring clamps - get a couple decent sized ones. (2 for $10)

Gaf tape. Get some 2 inch black. It runs around $12-15 per roll, but 
is worth it. Duct tape is cheap, but leaves residue everywhere you 
stick and can pull paint off the walls. Gaf tape leave very little 
residue. I've built props out of gaf tape, like a bandanna for an actor 
and numbers for a door.

A cheapie circuit tester. Usually around $2. You can use these when 
you're location scouting to test if plugs that you think you want to use are 
working or not. Nothing is more a pain in the butt than setting up all 
your lights and finding out that the outlets you're using are 
non-functioning.

Hand dimmer: You can find these for household lamps and they will 
handle around 300 watts. You can run 500 watts, but not for long or you 
will burn it out. These are great for china lanterns. $10 You can 
build your own which will handle more wattage.

Gloves: Get a decent pair of leather gloves because these lights get 
very friggin' hot. You'll learn after frying your hands a couple of time 
that gloves are a must item. $6

Black Wrap/Cine Foil/just plain old aluminum foil - black wrap is heavy 
duty foil painted black and is great to attach to scoop lights and the 
500 watt work lights which will allow you to easily shape the light coming out. 
You can use regular aluminum foil, but the reflections off it can cause 
problems and it's not as durable as black wrap.

Plastic tub for all these goodies. ($6)

WRAP UP

This doesn't cover everything in lighting on the cheap by a long shot, 
but I hope it gives you some ideas that you can use on your sets. Just 
a little lighting can go a long way to making your movies look better. 
Get some lights and play around a little bit.



PRICE BREAKDOWN
500 watt work light $20
China Lantern (complete w/cord) $22
Halogen light (complete w/cord) $20
One light stand (used) $40
Gels (packet if no freebies) $20
Diffusion (packet if no freebies) $20
Stingers (extension cords) $40
Cube tap $4
Power strip $5
Gloves $6
Gaf tape $15
C-47 (bag) $6
Spring clamps (2) $12
Tota Clamp $12
Circuit tester $2
3 Prong adaptor (2) $2
Screw in plug adapter $3
Hand dimmer $10
Plastic tub for this stuff $6
TOTAL $265

(Wow, that added up to a big figure, but you can build it over time. 
Again, deals can be had. If you find a cheapie used stand for $20 and 
freebie gels, then you cut $60 off this total. Also, remember instead 
of asking for DVDs for Christmas or your birthday, ask for gift 
certificates at Lowes or Home Depot.)

Scott Spears is an Emmy Award winning Director of Photography with 14 
features under his belt. He's also written several feature screenplays, 
some of which have been made into movies. You can learn more about him 
at www.scottspears.net