Hi everybody
To recap on an earlier post we have an album we want to promote by making music videos.
We've bought our camcorder on recommendations we got in this forum & have now got bogged down on how to light this venture.
We've watched videos & read about key, fill & back lights & lighting our chromakey backdrop but get the impression these were intended for your typical Youtube demonstration type video shoot.
Does lighting need to be different for our purposes ie: filming the band miming?
We intend to film in my dad's lounge 23'x12' & funds are now under £300.
If anyone's got any experience of this or opinions on what lights we could afford, we'd love to hear from you.

thanks

Sarah & Allison

Lights are more simple then you think.. Just go out and get some hologen work lights, you can get them at any home improvent store as well as walmarts etc.. Check out the video section Tim has a bardoor tutorial for them.. You can transparent gels or plasic to give a diffrent color and effect.. If you cant aford more then one set of lights you can use a peice of white poster board or a half piece of 4x8 styrofoam to bounce the light off of.. Antother trick is to use a shower curtain as the back ground then light behind it.. I like the fake glass brick pattern.. On the video you wont tell its fake... Theres so many things you can do with the lighting.. I hope that helps you out some.

__________________
Wil

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Hi Girls

I used to use worklights from the hardware store but I found that unless you bounce the light it's pretty hard.
My newer option is much the same thing but I now use CFL's which are cheaper and you can get them up to 45w (supposed to be an equivalent of a 225w incandescent light) They give a nice soft light and you can also get them in a "warm white" version for shooting indoors. Because they emit hardly any heat, you can use a cardboard reflector behind then with the fear of it melting!! My basic lights have 3 x 28w lamps in a reflector about 3' x 2' made from white poster board and then the inside is lined with the super-shiny paper that florists wrap flowers in!! They perform much better than 500w worklights and don't heat up the room or try to singe your hair like halogens!!

Most hardware stores have them as well as supermarkets and they will cost you about the same and use less power, give out no heat and the light is way softer and shadow free compared to halogens!!

Here's a pic to give you an idea on how to make them

Chris

Attached Images

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Thank you both for your very encouraging replies, we were both a bit depressesd about it all till this morning.
We'd read of people using these halogen worklights but when I mentioned it to my dad & he hit the roof ranting about what his electricity bill would be if we had 6 of these monsters frying his lounge.
Anyway this morning he's showed us these linear halogen reto fit bulbs which fit into a halogen worklight case & give similar light output but are only 24W.
We didn't know what they were but looking at your pic Softweigh they must be these CFLs.
I dont think our DIY skills are up to much so they look perfect for us.
Things are looking brighter!

Sarah & Allison

Don't confine yourselves to filming in just your dad's lounge or continuously in front of a green screen. It can get a bit boring after a while especially in a music video. Look for three or four locations near to where you live both indoor and outdoor, ask friends, college/work friends, community centre, park, shopping centre etc. Any where were you can get access to without too much hassle.

Nikosony, we take your point about getting outside with this.
We've had public humiliations before & that was doing something we were confident at ie: playing music.
The thought of doing something we know nothing about in public is too terryfying for the moment, but it definitely offers so many more possibilities.

Softweigh, we've jumped the gun on these CFL bulbs that fit in a worklight case. The advert was misleading, they are not powerful enough.
Could you give us some more info about your homebuilt lights?
Could we ask what fittings do we need for the bulbs?
How do you mount them all together & how do you get the height ?
Sorry, we know so little about all this!
(My dad wont consider the halogen worklights in his lounge!)

Thanks
Sarah & Allison

Hi Ladies

Not a problem at all. If you scout around the lighting section of your hardware store you will find tons of CFL lamps in both bayonet (normal household light fittings) and ES (more outdoor style fittings) I used the normal domestic sockets which the hardware store will have plenty of and just mount them directly onto a small piece of timber (you can buy the sockets already with a fitting with two screw holes. Just ask Dad to wire them up for you (I would use a minimum of 3 x 28w or ideally 3 x 45w ones) Once that's done you will have a rather crude board with 3 lamps on it. To add a reflector you can both just make a cardboard one and fix it to the board with a few thumb tacks.

I use normal cheap lighting stands to mount my lights but you can really use any sort of stand. A worklight stand, a tripod ..the lights are not heavy so you don't need a huge stand. Again just walk around the hardware store and you will find something or pick up a few cheap lights stands off eBay

If you need any more DIY ideas, take a look at my DIY page on my website for extra ideas. DIY Camera Rig Tutorials

Chris

A big thankyou Softweigh, my dad is going to build us some lights from your instructions.
It's good to get him involved.
If he's with us he can't be against us (in theory)!!

Sarah & Allison

I'm a bit surprised you're thinking about buying lighting (or making it) until you have the video thought out?

Typical video prduction lighting of the three point kind is designed to give you a key, that shows modelling of features, a fill - to soften some of the deep shadows created by the key, and back light to make the subject stand out from the background. Great for lighting an interview or talking head - but pop video?

If the idea is for them to mime to the track you want to push, what kind of music is it. I can't see Nirvana, Dire Straits or even Beyonce performing in your dad's lounge?

The usual way is to look at the track, and see what's it about? Is there a story? Is there reference to specifics that set location. Maybe a deserted factory, a poppy field, a church graveyard, an empty beach?? What do the lyrics and genre indicate. On the other hand it could be a live gig feel. All these things need very different lighting - none of which are three point interview style. Haze in the air, shafts of light - strong colours rather than white video light.

All these things are the reasons people who make music videos rarely have their own kit, employing a lighting designer who then selects kit that will do specific jobs.

Tell us what you're wanting to do, what kind of music it is and then we might be able to come up with an idea or two (and I bet it won't be a few worklights in your house. PS even if it was, 6 500W floods would cost less than 30p/hour to run. hardly worth getting your dad excited about!

Realistically, electricity is still quite cheap. Tomorrow's show I'm lighting will have about 80Kw worth of lighting, maybe a tad more, and it will still be manageable, although the meters spin quite fast!

Thankyou for your input, I'm sure you know what you're talking about.
But our big thing here is doing it all ourselves.
We did the the album on a shoestring budget with no outside help & we were amazed what we could achieve.This is what we want to do with the videos.

We have storylines but felt the basis of rock music video is footage of the band playing & thought we'd start with that as it seemed easier to master. And then as we get more accomplished, film story lines to incorporate.

We had dreams of fame & fortune knocked out of us years ago, this is about creative satisfaction & also economy I'm afraid.

Sarah & Allison