No-Budget Lighting

[John_Harrison]

What are your favorite cheap lighting solutions? And by cheap, I don't mean used-mole-richardson-on-ebay Cheap... I mean light-you-can-buy-at-your-local-hardware-store cheap. Obviously I understand that something you picked up for $30 won't give you anything near the control (or output!) of $1,000 Fresnel, and I don't expect it to... but I'm curious to hear if people have had any experiences with affordable lights that worked better than expected. Or if anyone has any recommendations for a young broke filmmaker who wants to start experimenting with lighting. 

[fuzzynormal]

No budget lighting?  Don't use lights.  Search for locations that give it to you naturally. Work with that. It's a challenge that's more rewarding than you might think. 

[Matt Kieley]

I you're broke, young and just barely learning, do what everyone does: buy those cheap hardware store clamp lights with the reflective dome, diffusion gels, and a bulb. Ikea LED bulbs have a pretty good CRI. And the sun. Maybe a white poster board from a Dollar Store for bounce. You can also get light sockets and China balls from filmtools. You can also get 4 socket light heads and cinese LED panels for under $30 on ebay, though I'm not sure how good those are. They could end up being an unreliable waste of money.

http://www.filmtools.com/ligdep/lighting-equipment/light-fixtures-kits/chinlan/12chinpaplan.html

http://www.filmtools.com/chinlansocas-7860.html

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/31919-REG/Lowel_D2_72_Frost_Gel_for_DP.html

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30257485/

http://www.homedepot.com/p/75-Watt-Incandescent-Clamp-Light-HD-200PDQ/205139241

[Jonesy Jones]

Both Alex Buono and Shane Hurlbut have demonstrated how to get top notch lighting for $30 from the hardware store. Shane actually regularly uses his homemade lights on features because he can inexpensively mount a bunch of them at various places on set and just flip them on anytime he needs to. He just mounts like 10 sockets to a 1x3 board and wires them all to a switch. He just uses incandescents. You can also just use a long vanity light. A $10 shower curtain from Bed, Bath & Beyond will do an excellent job as a diffuser. Clamp lights are great. I think Film Riot has an episode that has most of this in there.

[Policar]

53 minutes ago, Jonesy Jones said:

Both Alex Buono and Shane Hurlbut have demonstrated how to get top notch lighting for $30 from the hardware store. Shane actually regularly uses his homemade lights on features because he can inexpensively mount a bunch of them at various places on set and just flip them on anytime he needs to. He just mounts like 10 sockets to a 1x3 board and wires them all to a switch. He just uses incandescents. You can also just use a long vanity light. A $10 shower curtain from Bed, Bath & Beyond will do an excellent job as a diffuser. Clamp lights are great. I think Film Riot has an episode that has most of this in there.

You can't light everything with a batten strip but they are used on everything even the most expensive productions. Big Chinese lanterns, too.

The "style" is less light now. You can get by with a few LEDs and LED strips and bounce and neg and diff most of the time. It really depends on the style you want, though, more than anything. Hard light will be a challenge with cheap units but it also isn't trendy, anyway.

[Justin Bacle]

FOr the short I just finished shooting, we didn't have access to a power outlet (the city we shot in wouldn't let us), So I took a couple of car batteries, and put a panel of 8 (6 for the second) 12V 10W LEDs (5$ each from banggood) we had great spots and were able to light a night scene perfectly  I'll post pictures soon. If you have a spare car battery, I reccomend this dead cheap solution