As a film maker with projects ranging from commercials to documentary, investing in lighting is never high on my priority list. It’s a money pit, because every job needs a specific setup. I could easily buy over a 100k in lighting and I’d still need to call my rental house for a specific project.
That being said, during my documentary work, I find that I typically want a single big soft source for lighting interviews. It gives the most natural look. As if there’s a window next to the person we’re interviewing. There is an issue with creating that look though: large sources are normally created by shooting high output heads through big diffusion frames. It also means more crew on set. Both are not ideal if you need to fly around a lot for your documentary work with your sound guy doubling as your gaffer.
In comes the Litegear LiteTile Plus+, which I discovered at IBC 2017 in Amsterdam. Litegear is pretty well known for their LiteRibbon used in Hollywood productions like Rogue One and Passengers. With LiteTile, I’m able to create a large soft source in almost any situation and it’s foldable too! You can mount the fixture with velcro, attach it to a standard grip frame or even use two nails to hang it on a wall. Below is the video we shot at IBC with Litegear rep Sean Goossen (cool name Sean!). Hope to show you some real world results soon.
