I'm shooting a movie with lots and lots of dialogue and setting up the lighting on each person for each shot is a real pain in the ass. I've been thinking of rigging up a lighting set up, kind of like a cage, which surrounds the actor and directs bounce boards, black boards, lights, etc. at them to get the desired effect. If it's a cage structure, and the camera would be shooting through it, it would obviously be limited to close, medium, over the shoulder and maybe two shots. Anyway, does anyone know of anything like this already in existence? Something I could use for reference when building, because if this kind of thing does exist it would probably be rediculously expensive.

It depends on what you're shooting, but wouldn't it be easier to make a room backdrop from flats and rearrange them for each person?

Also, I hope you're shooting each setup at a time, and not repositioning the lights for each chronological shot.

The whole point of it is to save wasted time in rearranging. I was also thinking, though, if they were on some kind of flexible arms or something, they could be arranged on the stand/cage to adjust the lighting to different people's features. The big thing I'm trying to tackle is the moving of all the lights and boards, and resetting up each individual stand or positioning someone to hold it.

So wait, is it a system to allow you to create a light pattern, and just sort of apply it to any setup? Wouldn't the light be exactly the same in each angle then? Reverse shot and regular shot with the same light relative to the camera would be odd... or maybe I'm not understanding.

Okay, what I'm thinking is a kind of metal skelleton arch, that surrounds the subject you want to light. Connected to the arch would be adjustable arms which clamp onto whites, blacks, lights, filters, gobbos, whatever. So then you could shoot all your shots with one character, then move the structure over top of your other character, adjust the placement of your arms to give a little variety and then move on.

What I'm trying to defeat is the adjustment of all the seperate lighting components - the light stands, people holding whites and blacks, clipping on gobos and filters, etc. so that it's all in one. Really, this is only helpfull when you have lots and lots of dialogue and therefore lots of profile-like shots, but I'm feeling creative.

Okay, yeah, I can see where you're going now. My question is, wouldn't the skeleton need to be huge? I know this isn't always the case, but my lights and other bits of stuff can often end up pretty far away from the subjects. I'd need a skeleton that could expand up to about 20' square.

Well, I don't use many lights as most of the time I can only use what's available to me... But then again there's always the main lights, or room lights or whatever you want to call them that would probably cast a pretty bad looking shadow of the arch in the worst of places.

Maybe an arch isn't such a good idea. Then again, instead of looking for shortcuts, maybe I just need practice. As of now, each shot takes me a rediculous ammount of time to get the lighting just the way I want it, and Jesus can it ever be nerve wrecking.

Ok. I get what you are trying to do, and I'm currently working as a Grip on a Indie shoot, and was thinking that usually you want the lights pretty high, except for some fill lights. The cage sounds like a good idea, but not sure how practical it sounds. What type of shot is it? Are you going to be on a dolly, jib, sticks? What is the camera movement? A lot of dialogue...you sais, so this might be an issue if your cast is moving/pacing during scene(s). also it the cage may be useful in CU's of ECU's but for wides, it may end up having to be big, unless you use a 300. Ight'm hoping you wont build a Kino on the cage- it probably will be haevy. I guess just play around with it, and see what works. Maybe build a model out of PVC pipe , and make fake lights out of carbord. At least then you'll know not the weight, but at least the projected size of frame and if it is practical or will work. Good Luck, let us know what you end up doing and how it turned out.

the arch idea sounds interesting, but i think it would cause you even more trouble. Now, i may be understanding you wrong but it sounds like you're lighting one character at a time, in your dialogue sequences, so i'd say just light all your actors involved at the beginning, take a couple master shots, and move on. and really, no matter how many things you try, if you want professional looking lighting, it will always take time, usually lots of time, lighting's a pain in the butt, but it's worth it.

This would scare the hell out of me, if I was an actor and you stuck this thing around me.

Sounds intersting. Let us know the end result, and if it works, put up a picture.

It sounds like the same kind of concept as a lighting grid in a television studio. Yes?