Better Location Shooting

Chapter 9

Location Lights

Not that long ago the choice for location lighting kits was extremely limited. Many location cameramen ended up using a fairly standard kit of four redheads, which were 650 W open-faced lights with no front lens but only a movable rear parabolic reflector and so called because the light casing was a red color. These were normally accompanied by 2 kW lamps nicknamed ‘blondes’due to the distinctive yellow color of their casings. Again they were open faced with no lens and a rear moveable reflector. These lamp heads were not lightweight, small, and/or subtle but every cameraman and unit manager knew what they were and what the lights could do, and they stayed as an industry standard for a long time. Luckily things have ...