- Hey guys, in today's video,
I'm gonna be sharing with you my top five favourite
practical lights that you can incorporate
into your lighting design.
(exuberant music)
Using practical lighting is one of the cheapest and easiest
ways to add a little bit of visual interest to your setups.
I love practical lighting,
and this is a technique that I incorporate
into my lighting design all of the time.
It can quickly take what would otherwise be a bland setup
and turn it into one that really pops.
Today, you're gonna learn what are practicals,
how do you use them,
as well as five of my favourite practical lights
that I use all the time.
A practical is any sort of light that you can practically
incorporate into your scene as part
of your production design or set dressing.
Sometimes you'll have those happy accidents where you'll
turn up on location and you'll find some amazing practicals
there ready to go.
But more often than not,
this is something that you want to plan for
and something that you add in as part of your design.
All right, so let's dive right in.
Number one, bare bulbs.
Let's face it, sometimes simple is best,
and a bare bulb can look awesome in the right setup.
You can hang them or you can put them in a fixture
or you can get a myriad of different accessories
and find different and exciting ways that you can use them.
A couple of suggestions when shopping for bulbs.
For film and video it's best to stick with old school
incandescent or tungsten halogen globes.
Edison globes are also fantastic if you want to add in
that cool vintage look.
All of these types of globes produce a lovely,
warm quality of light,
are very inexpensive, and they're dimmable,
which is really important.
If you don't want that warm tungsten look,
and you need something a little bit cooler,
or you want to have some fun with RGB colour,
then you might wanna look at LED globes.
Before you go shopping for LED globes, though,
you'll want to have an understanding of CRI.
Otherwise you might end up with a globe that looks
green and disgusting.
I'm going to be doing an entire video on this topic,
so now's a great time to hit subscribe
and hit that notification bell so you don't miss out.
One last thing to note,
when shopping for bulbs for video use,
it's best to stick away from the CFLs
or compact fluorescent globes.
I like to put my practical globes on a dimmer.
This way you can precisely set the level of output
that you want your globe to have,
and you won't blow out the background of your shot.
When shopping for bulbs, I like to buy them twice.
Once in bayonet mount, and once in Edison screw.
Then, no matter what socket you need a globe for,
you'll always have one ready to go.
Number two, household lamps.
The simplicity of this type of practical
often makes it the most useful and effective choice.
Almost every household has some sort of table top
or standing lamp, so it never feels out of place,
and your design options are virtually endless.
When choosing a lamp,
try and find ones that are either dimmer compatible
or have a dimmer built in.
If you find one that you really like,
and it doesn't work with a dimmer,
then at the very least pick up a couple of globes
in different wattages.
This way,
you'll have some kind of control of the brightness
of your lamp,
Himalayan salt lamps also make great practicals
for the right type of setup.
Number three, pendant lamps.
Pendant lamps are lighting fixtures that you can suspend
into your scene from above.
They're made up of cables that have an AC plug at one end
and a socket at the other.
These work exceptionally well with bare bulbs,
such as Edison globes or incandescents.
You can also add in lampshades
or find ones with cages attached.
Pendant lamps are fantastic and you can get really creative.
You can have these made up specially to your specifications
by an electrician,
or you can buy pre-made cables online.
So shop around and see what you can find.
Number four, China lanterns.
I use China lanterns in conjunction
with pendant light cables for a lovely soft light source.
They're so easy and so cheap.
You can pick them up for like a dollar,
and you can get them virtually everywhere.
To set it up,
you simply drop your bulb into the middle of the lantern,
expand it with the included wire,
and attach your cable.
If it's a little bit loose,
just secure it with a bit of gaff tape.
It's that simple.
If that hole in the bottom is giving you an issue
with light spill,
simply cut out a small piece of diffusion paper
and drop it into the bottom of the lantern
to cover that hole.
Even if you don't use these as a practical,
they make for a wonderful, soft, portable light source.
I like to put them on the end of a boom pole
or a light stand and boom them over a top of a shot
where it's hard to hide light fixtures.
They're great for scenes such as walking scenes
through narrow hallways.
Number five, fairy lights.
I've saved the best for last, guys.
Fairy lights are probably my all-time favourite practical.
Some might even say that I have a tendency to overuse them,
but who cares?
They're great, they're beautiful.
They're great for adding those little out of focus
highlights in the background of shots.
I like to use them in bedroom scenes
or scenes that are a little bit more festive,
where I need to add some highlights to break up
an otherwise dark background.
They're small, lightweight, inexpensive,
and incredibly versatile.
I've done an entire video on fairy lights,
so if you want to check that one out after this one,
link's down in the description.
I definitely recommend finding a good LED set
that is nice and bright and doesn't flicker.
Here in Australia I like to pick up my fairy lights
from Aldi.
They only go on sale in November,
so make sure to stock up because they sell out really quick.
I'm also a fan of those little battery powered fairy lights.
You can pick them up pretty much everywhere.
Just don't leave the batteries in them
as they have a tendency to spew their guts.
Well, there you have it guys.
Those are my top five favourite practical lighting sources.
They're all super cheap, super versatile, and super fun.
Make sure to hit that like button if you agree.
Thanks for watching, guys.
Make sure to hit subscribe if you wanna see more content
just like this,
and leave a comment down below and let me know
which of these five practicals will you be picking up
for your next shoot.
Thanks guys.
See you in the next video.
(exuberant music)