Compact Lighting Packages - Kino Parabeam and Lite Panels! | Gear Guide
Gear Guide: Lightweight, portable and affordable interview gear, episode two!
If you've been following along, in September we had to come up with some quick, easy, portable and cheap-to-rent lighting solutions for our tricky and often spur-of-the-moment TIFF coverage. Naturally, the fine folks at William F. Whites International came to our rescue. They set us up with a handy Kino Flo Parabeam 200 - which is an awesome source of bright light that's easy to transport and set-up - AND a pair of Lite Panel MiniPlus Daylight Spots - which are like, handy squared, because they run on batteries for Pete's sake. We were all set!
The neat thing is that the kind of shooting we were doing, namely running around talking to famous directors in rooms we'd never seen before and certainly had no time to pre-light, is a really good analogue for the kind of run-and-gun low-budget documentary filmmaking that a lot of really creative people are doing.
We wanted a lighting kit that we could throw in a knapsack and take on the subway, that wouldn't break the bank to rent and that would actually make people look good, and what we picked up from Whites definitely fit the bill. If you're making a doc about, well, pretty much anything that involves shooting talking-head interviews, have a look at the kit Mike put together - it's a great solution to prepare in advance of whatever atypical production circumstances you'll be facing!
Gear Guide is an ongoing series made in conjunction with William F. White International. From lights to cranes to generators to camera rigs, we'll show you what it is and how it works. For more Gear Guidance, click here.