Victor's DVD is excellent and gives detailed instructions for making the lights. They're cheap, effective and very portable.One small thing: Vic tells you that while intensity falls as the square of the distance from a point source (eg. spot), for a softlight the intensity is inversely proportional to distance. This is true only for distances not greater than the width of the source. Not frightfully important because you're not likely to be lighting by calculation.

Modern, Economical Lighting Solutions for Large Green Screen Areas.

Stan,

This article seemed like it may be useful to you as well as this one.

John

The BlueSky Media site has several interesting articles including one titled Home-made Fluorescents.

Mike

Take a look at my web links page under "Lighting." There may be at least a couple of links to articles dealing with this.

Jack

If the thought of building your own is kind of daunting iKan in the USA have reasonably priced units ready to go.
Certainly you can save a fair bit rolling your own and it isn't hard. My advice, buy the bits and then read the instructions. I don't know about anyone else but to me tasks always look trivial when I just look at what I have and what I have to make out of it, reading someone else's instructions puts me right off. Sure I get inspiration for what to start with and roughly how it should look in the end but the bits in between I find much easier if I figure it out for myself.

If you're nervous about doing anything with electricity get yourself a safety switch, also know as a core balance relay, running all your lighting gear off these things can be a life saver even with pro gear. The gear might be 100% safe but on a shoot wierd things can happen, water gets into fittings, people stick fingers in where they shouldn't etc. Remember you know how dangerous stuff is and how to treat it, others might not.

Bob.

get yourself a safety switch, also know as a core balance relay

Called GFI (Ground Fault Interruptor) here, widely available.

In my movie "Light it Right" I include a highly detailed (20 minute) step-by-step instructional on building what I call a "Nanolight" using foamcore, black gaffer tape, and those curly florescent bulbs (no ballast required), that you can buy in Home Depot - total cost for the light is under $75 bucks.

I've been using the prototype to light (professionally) and to demo with - for over a year now, without any problem. It's lightweight, inexpensive and easy to build. The light it produces is exquisite.

It's become my favorite location light. Based on the dozens of happy and satisfied letters I've received, the light is a huge sucess.

I have a detailed parts, tools and supplier list on my site at:
http://www.victormilt.com/id54.html

You can also check out the details of the movie itself at:
www.victormilt.com

I wish someone would make a few and sell them so people like me, who arent the greatest with their hands and coordination can enjoy the low cost and benefits of Vic's brilliance.

Amen pmasters. Victor, I have your "Light It Right" and refer to your various scenerios frequently for tips in a given situation. But, I'd probably buy a nanolight before trusting myself with power tools. Darryl

Victor,

I was interested in learning more about your video. However, if you go to this page on your site:

http://www.victormilt.com/id1.html

and then click on this link:

http://www.vasst.com/dvdproducts/Location_Lighting_for_Professionals.htm

it's dead.

Patrick et al,
being on the other side of the Pacific Ocean there's probably not much I can do to help you guys but I've made an attempt at it down here and well the problem is when you come to sell something to someone else all sorts of issues come up.
You can throw something together yourself using string and gaff tape or whatever but would you buy something built to those standards. And then what if something goes wrong, you'll turn around and sue the guy who sold it to you and you've got a pretty solid case, the thing obviously isn't built to professional standards.
The good news is the Chinese are building half decent fluro lights for film / video, there was a few of them at NAB last year and we've bought a 6 tube unit through eBay, build quality is quite good.
Hopefully these will start to show up in the USA but you'll have to look for them, at the profit margins these guys are working at don't expect to find them running full page ads.
Bob.

Bob, I see a 4 tube (1100w) fluro on Ebay. What make did you buy?

Wow, what a wealth of info here. Thanks guys this is some great stuff.
Gonna have a cup of coffee and start bookmarking and reading.

Fluro lights will be great for for my work as I'm usually just shooting one subject at a time at a close proximity. The softness of the lights and the ability to configure any design I need is gonna be great. A nice spring project for me.

When they're done and I start shooting, I'll definitley be putting up some behind the scenes stills as to how I'll be using them to light the girls. I've so many ideas.....can't wait.

Thanks again....

Stan

Here's the link to Light It Right on the VASST site -

http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=d36b1c4e-0bad-4e52-ae18-51b10f22fcfd

I have this dvd also, and it reveals the real poop on this stuff. Lots of real world situations where you need different types of lights for different things, then the very thorough tutorial on building the nanolight - which I think Vic now says is his "first call" light for most situations. I haven't built one, mainly because I just don't do the kind of work that calls for lights, but I wanted to get more familiar with lighting techniques.

Victor,

Anywhere I can see a picture of a Nanolight ? Sounds very interesting....

I'd better not lift an image out of Vic's DVD and the version I built (modified for materials available in Australia) is a little different (but not better).
When ready for work Vic's light is a box 20 x 30 x 9 inches, with a plastic honeycomb grill across the front with diffusion material behind the grill. Inside the box are 6 curly-fluoro 100w lamps, in fittings mounted on the back board and spaced for uniform illumination. The back of the box has points for mounting to light stands. The sides are hinged by gaffer tape and locked together with velcro. The only power-tool used was for cutting the holes to mount the light fittings, and that could be done with a hand drill and file if anyone feels safer doing that. Oh, the back-board is a double layer so all the wiring is contained between the two. Hot glue is used to fasten various bits together. The foam can be cut with a hand saw. Building with the materials specified doesn't require mechanical skill (any editor should find it a push-over). The only potential danger is in the electrics and the DVD gives very careful instructions and warnings. The DVD is well worth the money because it gives you a lot of practical information about lighting (the Viclight is an appendix). The light would be a lot more expensive as a commercial product.

The one we bought has 6 tubes, came from a-studio4you on eBay.com.au however I haven't seen him offering these for quite a while however he's in Melbourne so you might be able to ring him and ask.

Ah, OK, you're looking at the one from Studio Lighting Technology?
Looks much the same as the one we bought only 4 tubes and you get a diffuser, looks good to me. The 6 tube model we have only lets you switch the lights 2 at a time which is fine, it uses dual tube ballasts. At the end of the day what matter most is the tubes and they're using the right Osram ones so it'll be fine.

Bob.