What Gear To Choose For Your Lighting Package

INTRODUCTION

Cinematography is all about controlling light: productions may lean into colour, go for a high contrast look, or light in a bright, high key style. To achieve these looks DPs will need to put together a list of lighting gear. 

In this video I’m going to show you how to create two different lighting packages: one catered to lower budget jobs by solo shooters, and another full package the likes of which would be used on an indie level movie, commercial or music video.

LAMPS

Like in my last video where I created a guide to writing a camera gear rental list, in this video I’ll create a lighting spreadsheet, breaking the gear into five categories: lamps, modifiers, textiles, stands and power. I’ll list the number of items required and leave a section for any notes which I may want to pass on to the gear rental house.

First up I like to start by adding the lamps you’ll need for the shoot, as the lighting fixtures that you choose will determine some of the other gear you’ll need down the line, like how to shape the lamps with modifiers, or how many stands are needed to put them up.

The type and amount of lights you select will be based on a number of factors, such as: whether you want colour, bi-colour, daylight or tungsten temperature light, how many crew members you’ll have to set these lamps up without burning too much time, the intensity of the output that you need to light the area, and your lighting budget.

If you’re unsure of some of these answers what’ll be useful is to do a recce of the location, where you can see the size of the space you will need to light, whether you can control the natural light by closing doors, or curtains, and where you’ll need to place or rig the lamps so that they’re not in the shot. 

After this recce it may be useful to create a lighting diagram to plan exactly what lights you’ll use and where they’ll go. There are a few free apps that you can use to do this, such as the Sidus Link or Nanlink App.    

If you want more info on choosing different lights, I’ve made a previous video that breaks this down. 

In the case of this imagined indie or medium budget feature I’ve gone for a fully LED lighting package, due to the lower power needed to run them and the ability to easily dim and change their colour temperature or RGB colour.

I’ve gone with different types of lamps which may be useful in different situations. I’ve added some higher output COB lights, an XT26 ElectroStorm a 1.2K and a 600, which can be used to create a controllable sunlight effect by placing them outside windows, or bounced or diffused to create a moon source at night.

A few lower power COBs, 300x and 60x lamps, can be diffused and used as fill, bounced into ceilings to lift ambience, or accentuate and spot different parts of the frame.

I’ve also added different intensity mat, tile or panel lights which are slim enough to be rigged as soft, overhead sources, or provide a soft fill. They are also RGB, meaning any coloured tint can be dialed into them, and they come with effects presets, such as a police car light, or fire, which may be useful.

Then we’ve got some tubes in both 4ft and 1ft sizes. These lightweight fixtures can be rigged overhead, used as practicals in fluorescent tube housings, or operated handheld for a quick source on the move. 

And finally we’ve got an LED bulb kit. These can replace the bulbs in practical fixtures, like lamps. Having a film bulb is useful as it eliminates any potential flickering, and allows you to precisely dim or change the colour temperature of the pracs.

There are other levels above this package where you start adding super high output HMIs, like 18ks, and large truck generators and distribution to power them, but for many indie features an LED package similar to this may suffice. 

For our solo operator lighting kit, I’ve also gone with LEDs, this time only enough to do a classic three point lighting setup such as for an interview - with a 300X key light, a F22c panel light for fill and a 60x which can be used to backlight.

These three lamps can be carried around and set up by an individual with fairly limited setup time, and provide enough punch to illuminate an interview subject in most situations. However, you may not have enough lights to focus much on the background of the shot and may need to rely either on natural ambience or real life practical sources for that.

MODIFIERS

Now that we have our lamps, we’ll want to add a few items that can soften the intensity of these lights so that the quality of the illumination isn’t too harsh, doesn’t produce reflective highlights on the skin, or have very sharp, deep shadows. Softening light will help to make it feel a little more natural, like it’s not being artificially overlit, and will render skin tones and subjects a bit more flatteringly.

To our movie gear list I’ve added two big softboxes and two smaller domes. These can be attached to the Bowens mount at the front of COB fixtures. They effectively angle the beam in a more direct path and, if a silk or textile is added to the front, it’ll diffuse the light, making it softer.

I’ve also made a note to include eggcrates or grids with each softbox. These help shape the light into one direction and decrease the amount that it spills across the set.

For our solo operator package I’ve included one mini dome for the 300x, which will give a nice softness to the key light. This dome is quick to set up and is also small enough that it can be used inside small interior spaces.  

Another softening device I’ve added is a lantern. Placing these on a COB source and firing them directly upwards will create a soft moonlight fill effect during night scenes. 

We’ve also got some frames with different strength diffusion gels added to them, which can be placed in front of any light to soften it.

Another way of softening light is by bouncing it. Here I’ve included some polyboards, also called beadboards. Light can be shone directly at this board and angled so that it bounces off it. Bouncing light softens its intensity. This can be done with either lamps or, with natural sunlight.

Apart from softening, we can also use modifiers to intensify or shape the light. For example, I’ve included a fresnel lens which is compatible with the 600 and 1.2K lamp. When this big lens is attached to the front Bowens mount it magnifies the output of the lamp and allows you to either spot the light, intensifying the beam onto a smaller area, or flood it, which spreads the beam over a wider space.

TEXTILES

Textiles are materials which are tightened over a frame and can be used to control light by either blocking it, diffusing it, decreasing its strength or bouncing it. 

Frames usually come in one of three standardised sizes: 8x8, 12x12, or 20x20. For the purposes of this list I’ve mainly gone with 12x12 size textiles, as they’re big enough to cover most situations, and not so big that they’ll need extra rigging tools and time to set up.

The first textiles I’ve added are nets. These are made of a finely woven black material, which decreases the strength of the light passing through it without affecting its quality.

I’ll often use these textiles to target hot spots where I’d like to decrease exposure. For example, if a window is too bright and is blowing out, placing a net behind it will decrease how bright it is, without the net being visible on camera.

They usually come in two varieties: double nets, which cut a full stop of light, and single nets which take away a half stop.

The next textile on the list are silks. Like nets, when light passes through these translucent fabrics it decreases its strength, however, it also diffuses the quality of the light, making it softer. Silks are usually either placed overhead above actors during exterior shots to decrease the harshness of the sun, or can be placed in front of a large light source to diffuse and soften the quality of the light.

Next we have muslin which comes in bleached or unbleached varieties. They are thicker than silks, so decrease the amount of light significantly more when it's shined through. However, their secondary purpose is as a surface to bounce light off of, adding light and softening its intensity. Unbleached muslin gives light a warmer colour temperature, while bleached muslin is more neutral.

Finally we’ve got blackout, which is used to either block light from coming inside a location, or placed to decrease reflections and create more shadows.

Instead of large 12x12 frames which takes a team to assemble, our solo lighting kit has included a lightweight scrim kit, with a silk, reflector and blackout which can be attached with velcro, and serves as a smaller, quicker solution for setting up textiles.

I’ve also added a flag, which can either be set up next to our interview subject to create more shadow on one side of the face, or placed in front of a source to block light and prevent it from hitting a specific area.      

STANDS

Now that we know what lamps and textiles we’ll need to use, we need to add a bunch of stands and rigging accessories which will be used to set this gear in place. 

In some countries this may fall under the grips department, while in other places rigging lights to stands will be done by lighting.

I’d break down the kinds of stands most commonly used into four types. The easiest are lightweight stands, which I’ve used on our solo operator list to rig our small 60x light.

Next we have the popular c-stands. These are heavier and come with a gobo arm which can swivel to boom out the lights, or place them in unusual positions. They can take most light or medium weight lamps and come in either regular size or in a baby c-stand variety.

Then, we have the heavier combo stands. These come in either double or triple rise varieties - which refers to how high they can be lifted. These can take more weight than c-stands, so are often used for supporting either textiles frames or heavier lamps.

Finally we have wind up stands, which are heavy duty and difficult to move around, but provide a very solid base and can take an excessively heavy weight - such as massive 18K HMI lamps or 20x20 frames. They can also be raised higher than combo stands which is useful if lamps need to be placed in an elevated position. 

A number of other rigging accessories have been included, such as: a boom arm to extend lights out from a stand, metal frame kits for textiles and various clamps which can secure lamps to a variety of surfaces or objects.     

POWER

Since our solo operator doesn’t have very strong lights and they are LED, they can be plugged straight into the wall or an extension cable. 

Although the lamps in the feature package can also be powered via house power, I’ve included a 6.5Kva generator which provides an additional line of power so that house circuits aren’t overloaded, or, alternatively will provide power to exteriors or locations which don’t have electricity.

On top of this I’ve put in a set of batteries which may be attached to run lamps if they need to be handheld by an electrician, powered in a remote location, or run without a cabled power connection.