Lighting
Profoto Daylight Air
This is a high-powered, daylight balance light that allows for a multitude of lenses and attachments like soft boxes, barn doors, and drop in gels. And it’s compact and easy to travel with, which we love. But you’ll definitely need to pull the bulbs out before flying with this light.
Sold separately is a remote that allows you to control the intensity of the HMI… it’s awesome and a worthy investment!
This baby is really strong overall, great for lighting anything from interviews to large rooms.
Profoto ProTungsten Air
This light is great for many of the same reasons that the Profoto Daylight Air is great, the main difference being that this one has a tungsten filter.
The ProTungsten uses the same housing as the Daylight Air, and the two of them share all the same attachments. You can also use the same remote to control this light as well as your HMIs simultaneously… very handy!
We generally use this guy when balancing for daylight is not a priority, but we need a high-powered light.
Lowel Pro-Light
This light rules! We use it for everything from weddings, to interviews, to live events.
It’s a super affordable 250-watt light, at only about $100… and it’s nice and easy to travel with as well.
You’ll want to be careful with this light though as it can run very hot and will usually need some time to cool down. Other than that, we totally recommend this light as it is such an affordable and useful tool for independent filmmakers.
Kino Flo Celeb 200 (LED)
This LED light is perfectly sized, with enough intensity to light an interview, a small scene or even just to add some fill to a room.
And what’s more? You can dial in the exact Kelvin temperature and intensity so your lighting is perfect every time!
It’s also not bad for traveling, we probably use this light about 90% of the time and travel with it often.
Westcott 6 in 1 52″ Reflector
This reflector kit is a major necessity for shooting outdoors, as you’ll often find that you need something light and compact that will give you a lot of options for modifying light.
You can bounce the light, cut it, diffuse, flag… all within one very portable package!
The only downside is that they’re not great for strong winds, as they can become more of a sail.
See them in action in this tutorial.
Westcott 4×4′ or 8×8′ Scrim Jim
Very handy dandy… we take our Scrim Jim with us on any shoot where we know we’re going to be in unpredictable lighting situations… because this thing can do just about anything!
It comes with a variety of diffusion screens, a flag, and some reflectors, all of which can be built or broken down in just minutes. The frame allows it to be locked onto one or two c-stands as well, so you can go hands free.
Watch us use our Scrim Jim outside in this tutorial.
Westcott Fast Flags
These fast flags are super great for travel. Standard production flags, nets, diffusions, etc. can be impractical and difficult to travel with, but these offer a travel friendly solution in that their metal frames can be broken down and folded into a travel-friendly case.
Often we’ll use these for indoor interviews!
