Since getting a couple of the 500 LED lights from Amazon, I have used them for interviews, but finally had a chance to use then on a film shoot. Here’s a link to the LED lights on Amazon. Since getting these, some other lights have come out, even brighter lights. You can read about those here.
Andy Sensenig | Super Bowl Budweiser Commercial.
This project was for my friend Andy Sensenig. Andy is one of those faces you recognize from many movies, TV shows, and commercials. His latest role was the bar tender in the Super Bowl Budweiser commercial. Pictured above. He is a genius actor, and a brilliant filmmaker.
Here is a pic of the lights being hung from rafters in a kitchen. The lights are light enough that we did not worry about them falling on any talent. With help from gaffer, Matt Green, we used some clamps from Home Depot to hang a rod from a c-stand, and mounted the 500 LED lights on each end.
500 LED lights.
We did have to diffuse the lights, otherwise we got some mini blind effect on the wall and table. It did this because the LED lights are in rows. It was great working with these lights because they do not get hot. We had 5 actors sitting around a table for most of the day, and the lights were hanging right over them. The actor we very pleased and surprised by the lack of heat. The idea was to hang them above the table to give the effect of a typical kitchen table light over a table.
Quick Grip Clamps from Home Depot.
We did not use any other lights to light the actors at the table. We did use some other lights for the background, etc. We actually used some small Z96 LED lights placed behind the pictures under the cabinets (pictured below), giving the effect that there are some under counter lights under the cabinets.
HDV Z96 LED lights.
We shot with a Canon 7D and Canon 5D. We stayed around 100 ISO, and f2. When shooting a two-shot (2 actors in frame), we opened up a bit to about 400 ISO and f4.5. The use of a shooting with a DSLR and lighting with these LED’s gave us so much worrisome freedom to be creative, and get the desired look we needed. The pics below are ungraded still frames from our video footage.
Two 500 LED lights hung above without actors.
Two 500 LED lights hung above, with actors.
Two 500 LED lights hung above. Nice contrasty shadows on face.