Assembling a Music Video Kit

[wheelema]

Actually it's just a video kit that might be used for music videos. Dependent on getting rid of a 5th wheel trailer. This is more exercise then probability.

• Sony NEX-VG30 Camcorder w/Metabones Speedbooster & Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM zoom lens
• Flolight MicroBeam 512/5600K Spot (x2)
• Flolight MicroBeam 1024/5600K Flood
• Vinten VB-AP2M Vision Blue video tripod

Kit would give me a near-full-frame setup with a f/2.0 lens, adequate lighting, and decent tripod for approx. $6,500. More then likely overkill.

 

[Bobbsy]

Well, I don't know that particular camera but Sony pro and semi pro stuff is almost alway damn good.

The Vinten tripod should be very good indeed.

However, I wonder a bit about your lighting. Everything you're buying is a very soft light and it's all colour balanced for 5600 degrees--fine when you have enough light to simply blast any existing incandescent light or want to use it as fill light in a room with windows and daylight. It's less good for subtle "helping" normal household lighting and, all being soft, it'd be hard to get creative.

If it was me, I'd probably invest in more conventional lights like Ianiro "red heads" with a set of dichroic filters (used to be $30 each) to give you daylight balance when you need it. Make sure you get a set of barn doors for each light to control the beams. One softlight on top of 3 red heads could be useful...or you could skip this and get a folding reflector and stand and just bounce one of the red heads. Detail, but I'd also invest in a small set of diffusion material and a few sheets of colour gel that can be clipped over the lights...amazing what a difference a splash of red or blue on a back wall can make.

Finally, you might give some thought to some audio kit as you're doing music videos. A mic on top of a camera is rarely satisfactory. Exactly what you might need will depend on how you plan to work.

 

[wheelema]

Well, I don't know that particular camera but Sony pro and semi pro stuff is almost alway damn good.

The Vinten tripod should be very good indeed.

However, I wonder a bit about your lighting. Everything you're buying is a very soft light and it's all colour balanced for 5600 degrees--fine when you have enough light to simply blast any existing incandescent light or want to use it as fill light in a room with windows and daylight. It's less good for subtle "helping" normal household lighting and, all being soft, it'd be hard to get creative.

If it was me, I'd probably invest in more conventional lights like Ianiro "red heads" with a set of dichroic filters (used to be $30 each) to give you daylight balance when you need it. Make sure you get a set of barn doors for each light to control the beams. One softlight on top of 3 red heads could be useful...or you could skip this and get a folding reflector and stand and just bounce one of the red heads. Detail, but I'd also invest in a small set of diffusion material and a few sheets of colour gel that can be clipped over the lights...amazing what a difference a splash of red or blue on a back wall can make.

Finally, you might give some thought to some audio kit as you're doing music videos. A mic on top of a camera is rarely satisfactory. Exactly what you might need will depend on how you plan to work.

The intent of the f/2 lens is to lessen the demand on lighting but your suggestion is appreciated. I'm limited to a 15 amp circuit and tungsten fixtures will eat that damn quick, plus the fact that the LEDs will run off of 12VDC. I'll definitely have barn doors and gels. I'll probably have a couple of Lowel Pro-Light Focus Flood fixtures too... they're small, versatile, and don't suck too much current.

 

[Armistice]

What's the film studios version of a lava lamp?

Whatever it is, don't forget to get one...

 

[Bobbsy]

The film version of the lava lamp is...
...the lava lamp! Why tamper with perfection!

Good point about the 15 amp circuit. I've been in 240 volt countries too long to remember the misery of 15 amp/110 volt operation. Definitely not redheads for you (800 watts each).

However, depending on how into it you want to get I still suggest you consider more focusable lights than soft lights. Soft lights are easy just to whack onto a scene and get something--but if you want to get creative, you'll want a bit more control--slash of light here, splash of colour there.

I've had a look at B&H Photovideo's site and they have a fair number of 250-300 watt tungsten lights that offer a fair degree of focus. With your lens (and modern cameras are darn sensitive anyway) a 250 watt lamp or three would be plenty of light--and a lot more flexible than all soft lights.

Anyhow, I guess it depends how much you want to get involved in the lighting side of things. It's something I found I enjoyed but others just like to point and shoot and worry about the sound and performance rather than lighting!

Just for the record, here's the sort of thing you can do with 3 or 4 focusing lights that you couldn't with soft lights.



(From a video I did with/for a youth group I used to work with.)

 

[wheelema]

I definitely appreciate the subtleties of lighting, I just don't have the budget. The versatile Lowell fixtures accept up to 235W bulbs and should work well in tight spaces and accent lighting. And they're cheap. Kind of, sort of.

 

[Bobbsy]

It was the Lowell ones I spotted!

Of course, as with everything on HR, if you're willing to dip into the second hand market, you can achieve huge savings (and lighting is a fairly safe buy). All the stuff I used to have was bought used for a fraction of the new price.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

and lighting is a fairly safe buy

Really? That sounds kind of counter-intuitive to me. I'd think that lights (or at least the expensive, expensive bulbs in high-end lights) would be one of the most likely things to not be consistent used.

 

[wheelema]

Really? That sounds kind of counter-intuitive to me. I'd think that lights (or at least the expensive, expensive bulbs in high-end lights) would be one of the most likely things to not be consistent used.

Well when you get into HMI... which can be screwed up fairly easily, costs a small fortune, and (specially compared to LEDs) have a distressingly limited life then you're pretty much spot on the money.

 

[wheelema]

...you might give some thought to some audio kit as you're doing music videos. A mic on top of a camera is rarely satisfactory. Exactly what you might need will depend on how you plan to work.

I didn't respond to this subset of your observations but I do have a Sound Devices USBPre 2 that serves double duty as a stand-alone field mixer that would feed directly into the camcorder, or optionally into a laptop so that aspect is reasonably covered.

 

[Bobbsy]

Really? That sounds kind of counter-intuitive to me. I'd think that lights (or at least the expensive, expensive bulbs in high-end lights) would be one of the most likely things to not be consistent used.

Frankly the bulbs in TV lighting are just viewed as consumables--you have to change them every few hundred hours anyway so you just assume you're buying new ones.

As for the rest of the sort of light we've been talking about, it's just a bulb holder, a metal reflector and a case around it. They may have cosmetic flaws but, unlike audio electronics, it takes a LOT of abuse to stop them working. (I happen to know that the lights I sold before leaving the UK six years ago are still working, I'd had them for almost 20 years, and they were second hand and no spring chickens before that. I also know of one or two theatres still using lights from the 1940s!)

As has been said, this is referring to "normal" lights. Things like expensive HMIs or motorised moving lights are a very different kettle of fish.