Re: Suggestions to light up a rectangular-shaped Chinatown store

Well, you can make some nice but cheap light off the 0ne-k's by adding a home-made soft box to the front. I stole this trick from Bill Holshevnikov (sp?) a long time ago and it works great.

Take your 1K open faced light, lay it out on a concrete floor or something and turn it on just long enough to mark out the angles of the cone of light it emits. Note the angle and add a 3-5 degrees more to it. Trace those angles onto four pieces of white foam core board, so that when cut out, you get four identical trapezoids. The short ends should measure the same size as the square opening defined by your barn doors. Lengthwise, try to make them as long as your arm or the size of the board will allow. We're using standard sized foam core panels like you can get at any art store or craft store. Tape the pieces together with gaffer tape or metal aluminum gutter/duct tape, to make a truncated 4-sided pyramid. I only ever used white gaffer tape and never had an issue with heat. I attribute that to the next step:

The foam core pyramid is attached to the outside of the barn doors with either wooden clothes pins or metal "bulldog" binder clips, but it is VITAL that you keep an air gap around the edge of the barn doors and the instrument for cooling. The unit is finished off with a sheet of diffusion on the front, attached with push pins thru the foamcore or whatever's handy. I use Rosco tough-spun for this, but opal frost is nice too.

Our chief engineer said this thing was a fire trap when he saw it. To settle the bet, we turned it on and left it running for four hours. The foam core barely got warm. I attribute this to the air cooling but also to the idea that the cone of the box is a little bigger/wider than the cone of light the fixture normally emits, so the hottest part of the beam does not impinge directly on the barn doors or the foamcore. If you pointed a 1 K six inches from a sheet of foam core head-on, it would melt pretty fast I think. The walls of foam core on this fixture however are not so much being used as reflectors, but only to trap stray light that's not hitting the diffusion sheet on the far end, so you can point the diffuse end at targets and not spill uncontrolled light everywhere you don't want it.

In any case, these fixtures will give you much the same effect and control as a Chimera or Rifa, but on a micro scale budget. Maybe ten dollars or less except for the tough spun. You can get single sheets of real diffusion cheap from Markertek.com and other places online. Some organza or tulle fabric from the local sewing supply store can also work in a pinch but lacks the fireproof qualities of real toughspun, which is actually a spun glass cloth. When the shoot is over, you can throw the softbox away, or slit one tape joint and fold it flat to travel with or store away for another time. The first one I made lasted eight years before the gaffer tape dried up and I had to re-tape it.

What you're doing when you make a soft box is taking the harsh and tiny point source of the glowing lamp filament, and making it into a large, diffuse source. This makes a light that flatters people's faces and doesn't cast harsh shadows. Try using the fixture at a distance of around ten feet, and an angle of 45 degrees off the camera's lens axis as a starting point, then play with it, adjusting to taste. Extra sheets of diffusion will dampen it as will more distance from the subject, or using a lower-wattage bulb.

An even simpler thing to do is just bounce the 1K you have off a white reflector like the sheet of foam core or some kitchen foil, first crumpled then flattend out and glued to cardboard, and use the reflected light to light your talent, but this is harder to control with exactitude, gives off spill that must be flagged off, and requires more room which is tough in your cramped location.

Other diffuse lighting tools you might try involve the traditional paper and bamboo or wire-braced "ball" type lamp, you can find at import type stores like Pier-One; hang them on a stick and hold them nearby out of shot. Be very careful though, these paper lamps are not treated for the heat of our tungsten instruments and can poof into flame instantly if precautions are not taken. In fact, forget I even mentined them, they are that dangerous. Chimera makes a heat-proof version of the same light in a nomex diffusion cloth that's safer, called a "China Ball".

I think if you try one of the softboxes I just described, that's a good mix of safety and effectiveness on a very low budget. It can work with even home depot-type work lights, but is better with a real video light.