First time working with lighting, need help.

[DeathCurse]

I'm about to start a video but i will need to film 80% of it out in the woods at night time. what kind of lights would i need? im on a pretty tight budget.
i would like to do it with out a generator. is there any battery powered stage lights? im new when it comes to lighting.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Battery-powered lights are fine for one or two specialty or emergency shots, but for the bulk of shooting over several hours, they are not reliable or long-lasting enough. You need to light your night shots somehow with a steady power supply like from a generator (preferably silent crystal-sync) or some available household power supply.

Or shoot day-for-night.

As for what types of lights, it depends on the look you want and the nature of the scene, what the light sources would be, etc. One lower-cost way of lighting woods for me has been to string Chinese lanterns high up through the trees and use blue-dipped photofloods or (now) daylight compact fluorescents for a soft blue moonlight look.

The thing to remember about the woods at night is that you only see what you light, the far background falls off quickly, so you might as well find a nice grove of trees near a convenient parking lot and power supply rather than trek deep into the woods.

A light haze / smoke will add some depth and exposure to the background, and some separation.

 

[DeathCurse]

Thank you for taking to time to reply.

as i said, when it comes to lighting, i know nothing about them. i've done alot of movies/videos but shot all in the daylight hours.

but the movie im working on now is forcing me to be pretty far back into the woods. chase scenes, stalking, people camping out, ect ... (it's a horror film)
how long do you think a battery-powered light would last? also how many would i need? i'll be doing some far away shots and alot of close-ups.

if you have any links to a good battery-powered light please send it to me.

Thanks alot!

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Honestly, give up on the notion of lighting whole sequences with battery-powered lights, other than characters holding flashlights. It's a layer of stress you don't need as you find yourself with fading batteries, losing light output & exposure or getting flickering, and you've still got several shots or hours to go, not to mention, it's nice to not have to switch off all of your lighting between takes and work in darkness. You are not being realistic. One or two specialty shots, yes, you can get away with batteries, but not for general shooting over many hours. Even with a lot of really heavy car batteries and inverters, you'll only be able to power a few Kinoflos or whatnot, switching them off all the time to conserve power. And you certainly won't be able to light a decent stretch of woods for a moonlight effect, so what's the point? It doesn't make sense to just light a face and let the background go black unless it's face only being lit by a flashlight or campfire, surrounded by darkness.

You need electricity on any shoot that goes on for a full working day, not just for lights, but for work lights, to charge camera batteries, run monitors, etc.

If you can't figure out a way to get electrical power to your night location, you need to change your location, or change your script. Or rethink the whole approach, only have characters lit by whatever practical source they are next to, a flashlight, car headlamp, or torch, and let the woods go black. Or eliminate all practical sources, set the scene in moonlight only, and shoot day-for-night.

Or get a small putt-putt generator, use lights, and loop the whole scene and shoot MOS.

If you aren't going to listen to me, then at least look into LED fixtures like LitePanels that use less power -- they can run off of batteries for short periods.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Again, I want to repeat that at night, you can be in a small grove of trees ten yards from a housing complex and it may look like you are miles in the wilderness. The actual distance into the woods doesn't matter, all that matters is what it looks like at night based on what you can light.

Often at night, what you need is space in front of thick woods for the camera, especially for dolly moves, and space behind the woods for lights. So a strip of unkept trees and bushes just 50' deep -- that can be lit for the right mood -- can look like the actors are in the deep forest at night. I've done many "nighttime chase through woods" scenes just a hundred yards from an office building or tract home or parking structure.

You may also find that the sort of high-powered hi-tech lights that can run off of batteries are rather expensive to buy or rent, versus getting a generator and some cheaper lights.