
Couple months ago they were filming an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm down the block from me, outdoors at night. That's a sitcom, not a Michael Bay movie, so I was shocked at the amount of heavy-duty outdoor lighting--and absurd amount of equipment trucks--they had to set up to shoot their scene. (To give you an idea, two local streets were completely lined with trucks and there were cranes involved.)
I wonder how long it's going to be before LED lighting manufacturers, with their nifty, lightweight products, finally start designing them with diffusers appropriate to filmmaking and photography so that shoot crews won't require multiple tractor-trailers just to light a single shot. LEDs just seem so much more portable.
Check out, for instance, the super-stowable FoxFury Nomad, a portable-area spotlight with a well-thought-out design that telescopes up to an eight-foot height. I love the portability and the tube form factor, and judging by the way the guy grabs the head at the end of the video, it doesn't get anywhere near as hot as an incandescent:
Though apparently designed for emergency services, this seems like it would come in handy for casting light in dark corners for installation jobs, painting high ceilings, using under a car lift for repair work, or even on those camping trips where you get to the site after dark and have to pitch your tent with a flashlight in your mouth. More details are available here.
Comments
LED based lighting has already started to take over. Litepanel and Manfrotto make LED lighting for professional applications.
uhhhh....they already are using LED light in film and photography.
Currently most LED emit light that's too cool to work with when shooting film. But developments in this field go really fast (e.g. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20018915-54.html ).
My guess is that the first LED use for film will appear somewhere in summer 2011.