Yikes... that's a pretty huge space to light from scratch with no instruments and a low budget. It can be done though.
Personally, I'd go with HMIs for such a sizable space... but I'm a big fan of daylight lighting. You'll get much more output per watt (about five times as much compared to tungsten), and less heat.
Depending on where you are and what kind of rental facilities you have, you could probably get three (
possibly four) 800w Joker-Bugs with Chimeras for around 1K. I could rent those for that amount here, but your mileage may vary.
I'd put two in their Chimera soft boxes out in the room to wash the staircase, and I'd see if there was a place on the second floor to hide the third one (no softbox, open face with barn doors) to wash down the staircase and give you a backlight.
I know you don't want to rent... but this setup involves many
thousands of dollars worth of ligting instruments... but you should be able to rent them on your budget.
It's not
ideal, it will probably be a little flat and probably not the world's most
interesting lighting design, but it will get the job done. For such a big space I'd normally suggest larger instruments than the 800 Jokers, but that's about what I think you can get on your budget...
and they aren't too power hungry which might be a concern in your old house location... which might have some wattage limitations. The 800s are fairly punchy with good throw so you wouldn't have to put them
nearly as close as you would with flos or other lower-output instruments. Unfortunately neither flos nor LEDs will give you anywhere
near the 20' throw you need.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
