Been There. Lit That.

Dan Drasin

Dan has been a documentary filmmaker since the early 1960s in New York when he apprenticed to cinema-verite' pioneers D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles and RIchard Leacock. FIlms Dan has made or photographed have earned well over a dozen international awards. He is now based in the San Francisco Bay Area; semi-retired but still freelancing, and producing and shooting his own independent docs.

www.dandrasin.com

Lighting with Lowel's L-light

Equipment Used:

Soft key light: 500W Lowel V-light diffused through a white Tota-Brella
Fill light: Lowel L-Light with 50W halogen outdoor flood and diffusion clipped to barn doors
Top light: Lowel L-Light with 50W halogen outdoor flood, dimmed
Background light: Lowel L-Light with 50W halogen outdoor flood. Barndoors closed to form a slit lens to project the outdoor flood's "nubbled" front surface as patterns on the wall.

I'm an independent documentary producer and cinematographer who likes to move fast and travel light. My small field lighting kit fits into a carry-on wheelie. It's built around a Lowel V-light (500W) with a white Tota-Brella for diffusion, and three Lowel L-lights using either 100W Edison-base MR16 reflector lamps or (most often) 50-watt encapsulated-halogen outdoor reflector floods. The latter are extremely compact, efficient and rugged. The entire kit pulls less than 800 watts, max. When shooting in 240V regions I'll run two 120V L-lights in series, and use 240V bulbs for the rest of the kit.

One of the neat things about an outdoor flood is the thick glass front with a nubbly surface that evens out the beam with minimal light loss. This texture also lets me project patterns on backgrounds without a traditional gobo or cookie: I simply narrow a pair of the L-light's barndoors into a slit (forming a slit-lens), and then rotate the barndoor set to project a variety of patterns, from abstract washes to neat venetian-blind effects.

I've used Lowel lighting gear since the original Lowel-Light appeared in the 1960s. It's always hit the sweet spot for me in terms of flexibility, portability, durability and cost.