Without Stands

I tend to find it very irritating to light scenes on film sets with light stands. They can take up valuable room on smaller sets, create road blocks, find their way into shots that they aren't suppose to be in, and are be a bear to move back and forth. I try to do the majority of my lighting on set with clamps, pigeon plates, and practicles(lights that can be seen in the shot itself).

Maffer the Cabinet

The biggest advantage to lighting this way is there is very little changing after the initial master set up is complete. It can take more time to set up, but in the end it saves time because you don't have to worry about moving a stand out of the shot,then try to set it up somewhere else with the same lighting continuity.

On the set of "The Brig" I was Gaffing for a scene in a club. It required many lights of many different colors. Many of the blocking points needed to have their own feel and this required very specific placement of the lights. I noticed on the tech scout that the ceiling had truss mounted above the majority of the dance floor. This made setting up the lighting very easy because I could simply maffer clamp all the lights onto the truss then run power to the strips and circuits that were for the house lighting grid. After my lights were in place I was then able to pick a few of the house circuit lights that I liked and use them as well.

Make Your Order

It would have been very difficult to do the sets ups without using claps to set up the lights. We had many large master shots, and with the lighting schemes it would have been difficult to avoid mixing the colors. With my set up I could avoid these problems and then if I needed some extra fill for close ups it was easy for me to bring in a LED On a stand close for the shot and tear down for the next one.

The Close Up

Signed,
-)_-.