Table Of ContentA Shot in the Dark
A Creative DIY Guide to
Digital Video Lighting on
(Almost) No Budget
By Jay Holben
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Heather Talbot
To Mom,
Your indefatigable support of my pursuit of my dreams
has always allowed me to find the light.
From bridges over the pool to backyard theater,
you’ve been wiping the proverbial cherry juice
off the cabinets all my life, and I am eternally thankful.
About the Author
Jay Holben has been involved in the lighting com-
munity for over 20 years. His entrée into the world was
an apprentice electrician for a civil/industrial contrac-
tor while working simultaneously in live theatre in
various positions, including master electrician and
lighting designer. Embarking on his Hollywood
career, he started on film sets as an electrician, rising
quickly through the ranks to gaffer, where he spent
s everal years honing his craft before advancing to the
role of director of photography. As a cinematographer,
Holben shot various projects, including commercials, music videos, docu-
mentaries, and feature films.
In 1996, Holben started as a contributing writer for American Cinematographer
magazine, eventually serving as a technical editor for the publication. He is
currently the technical editor for DV magazine and remains a contributing
writer for American Cinematographer and Videography magazines. He has also
contributed to the prestigious Hollywood Reporter and several books, includ-
ing the American Cinematographer Manual 9th Edition. Over the past decade,
Holben has taught dozens of workshops and lectures on the art and science of
lighting for motion pictures.
He is currently an independent producer/director living in Los Angeles.
Acknowledgments
ilmmaking is a collaborative process; it cannot be done in a vacuum. Nor
Fcan a project like this book be done without the aid of many people, all
of whom I wish to extend my most sincere gratitude.
My thanks to editor Megan Belanger, who came to me out of the blue and
asked me to write a technical book. She suckered me into this thing, and then
ran off to start a whole new life out of the publishing world. Geez… it’s
enough to give a guy a major complex… Was my writing that bad, Megan?
I wish you the best. Thanks for opening a new door for me (squeee!).
In the void Megan left, I had the privilege of working more closely with Stacy
Hiquet, my publisher, who patiently endured my anal-retentiveness and
f ostered me through this process with a deft hand.
With probably the worst job, my copy editor, Kezia Endsley, had to slog through
my ramblings and esoteric figure numbering and smooth out the rough edges.
Thanks, Kezia, for making everyone believe I have a much better grasp on the
English language than I really do…
A hearty thanks to my friend, co-worker and technical editor, Jayson Crothers.
His work not only double-checked my facts, but constantly challenged me to
refine my presentation, to consider more, and to be as comprehensive as
p ossible.
The man who first took a chance on a young writer, and became a good
friend, was Stephen Pizzello. Steve has endured my quirkiness for over a
decade and a half and I am incredibly proud to have been a technical editor
and frequent contributing author for American Cinematographer under his
tutelage for many years.
Alongside with Steve, I met David Williams as an editor at AC Magazine and
he has expanded my CV over the years with publications such as The Hollywood
Reporter and Videography and offered me the incredibly fun task of being the
technical editor for DV Magazine. Much of what I’ve written for DV and
taught in my lectures at the DV Expo became the basis for this book.
vi A Shot in the Dark: A Creative DIY Guide to Digital Video Lighting on (Almost) No Budget
To Alex Preda, Amanda Bolten, April Adamson, Dean West, Douglas Holben,
Heather “Sparrow” Carr, Ilaria Giansianti-Borden, Lauren Solomon, Lauren
Waisbren, Lisa Jay, Mark R. Gerson, Mason Rae, Michelle Berthelot-West,
Sarah Lindsay Hall, Shannon Setty, and Stirling Gardner, for lending their
faces to me to show light across a beautiful landscape. And to Chris Probst,
Claudiu Gilmeanu, and Shannon Lee, for their images: the few instances in
which I allowed another photographer’s work to sneak into this volume.
A heartfelt thanks to my good friend, Dr. Jeffrey Crane, who endured my
scientific inquiries and engaged in nerd-fest discussions on physics and theo-
retical color temperatures. Our longtime friendship has a place of honor in
my life, and this book is very much in the spirit of his G.I. Joe dolly solution
so many years ago.
To my good friend, Chris Probst. Over the years Chris has been my student,
teacher, mentor, employee, employer, pain-in-the-ass, savior, and—above
all—friend. His work continues to inspire me. Chris taught me to abhor com-
promise and to always push f urther. We came up through the trenches
together, pushing each other, learning from one another, and surviving the
Hollywood game together. A lot of the adventures that Chris and I had start-
ing our careers shaped the experiences that led to the projects in this book.
Thanks, Chris. Happy shooting.
To my friends and family, who have been supportive not just of this project,
but of my impossibly long trek through this business.
Finally, to my wife, Jennine. She has the hardest job coming home to a house
filled with equipment as I have—once again—turned our living room into
a location to shoot another component for this book (or dozens of other
p rojects over the years). She has endured my impossible vampiric working
hours, my endless parade of equipment i nvading our home, my irritable
moods when the project wasn’t going as I wanted or—heaven forbid—when
a piece of gear didn’t perform as I wanted it to and I launch into a tirade that
would make an ADHD 6-year-old blush. She tirelessly came to my rescue
when I was unable to be the one-man-band creating the step-by-step images
for this book. This simply could not have been done without her. Thank you.
Love you.
Contents
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Chapter 1
What You Need 1
Buying the Real Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Stocking the Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The C-Stand (Century Stand) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Color Correction Gels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Nail-On Plates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Stocking Your Toolbag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Cube Tap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Quick-Ons and Add-a-Taps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
The Pig-Nose and Edison Socket Adapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Ground Lifters or Two-to-Three Adapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Spring Clamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Circuit Testers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
General Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter 2
The Fundamentals 17
The Beginning: What Is Light? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Electromagnetic Spectrum: We’re Surrounded! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
vii
viii A Shot in the Dark: A Creative DIY Guide to Digital Video Lighting on (Almost) No Budget
Seeing the Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Reflection, Refraction, and Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
How Hot Is Blue? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Addition and Subtraction: The Arithmetic of Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Color Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
White Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Gels and Filters 101. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Chapter 3
Understanding Exposure 41
Exposure Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
My Cup Runneth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Aperture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Frame Rate and Shutter Angle/Shutter Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Sensor Sensitivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Seeing in Black and White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Attitude of the Latitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
How Can You Ever Have It All?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Not Everything Needs To Be “Proper” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Do You Need a Light Meter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
You May Already Own a Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Calibrated Monitors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Monitor Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Using Your Viewfinder to Judge Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Moving Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Chapter 4
Understanding Electricity 75
A Horror Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
The Basics of Electromotive Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Contents ix
Elements of Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Volts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Amps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Watts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Ohms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
AC/DC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Direct Current (DC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Alternating Current (AC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
The Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Seeing Circuits in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The Power Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
The Outlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
The Fixture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
It’s All About the Amps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Amps in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Chapter 5
Light Quality 101
Hard Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Open Face Fixtures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Fresnel Fixtures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Spotlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
PAR Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Soft Light. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
The Art of the Bounce. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Techniques for Bouncing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Making the Best of Cheap Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
