Film Production Lighting and Grip Equipment Key Terms

Get what you need by using film production lighting equipment key terms

By Nikki Wheeler

Learning the correct film production lighting and grip equipment key terms will ensure that you get what you need to realize your vision of a production. Before knowing exactly what to call film grip equipment, you must have concrete visual ideas so you know what to ask for.

Knowing the key terms will help you get the film lighting equipment you want faster and more efficiently, but using the terms incorrectly will break up the lines of communication and can end in disaster. When using key professional lighting equipment terms, you should:

1. Have visual representations like a full color photo or a quick sketch of what exact lighting looks you want to achieve, so everyone involved understands what you expect of the video lighting equipment.

2. Include descriptions of what film lighting equipment you're talking about to avoid any misunderstanding between key players.

3. Understand that a lot of film production lighting equipment has several terms to describe it, and the terms used will vary among professionals.

Get the most essential lighting grip equipment

Lamps are the most important lighting equipment since they create the light. Lamps are what is commonly known as light bulbs consisting of a wire filament, a glass bulb and a metal base. They come in many different shapes, sizes and level of brightness. The most commonly used lamps in production lighting are incandescent which include A-bulbs that are common yellow-tinted lights found in most homes, halogen lamps, which provide a bright white light and reflectors (spotlights), which provide great directional light.
Try: Look through the glossary with pictures of different lamps provided by Brand Lighting. Lowel Light provides a huge selection of lamps for film lighting, including Fresnels and floodlights.

Choose the right movie lighting equipment fixtures

Movie lighting equipment fixtures are what lamps screw into and give them power to create light. The right fixtures are needed to create the overall lighting style desired for the film and to light the actors such as spotlights, which provide a moving pool of light, cycloramas, large curved lights that provide wide floods of light, Fresnels which give the production crew the ability to change beam size.
Try: Look at a comprehensive list of different lighting fixtures and sizes with clear pictures at Dr. Bob's Theatricity. Stage Spot offers a variety of lighting fixtures with detailed explanations including Ellipsoidal, Fresnel, Cyclorama and more.

Add special effects to movie production lighting

Gels and gobos are both placed into the lamp fixtures to create special effects with the light. Gels, also known as color gels or color filters are thin strips of plastic that color light to create mood and set scenes like using dark blues for nighttime scenes. Gobos are stencils or templates made from metal or glass that create patterns or textures like creating a leaf pattern on a sidewalk to resemble sun shining through a tree.
Try: Rosco’s E-Colour System of gel color filters includes a variety of filters and materials to correct color, create color effects, diffuse and reflect light. Find gels made by the leading manufacturers, like Lee and Apollo for sale by the sheet at discount prices from Stage Technology. Review multi-color, single-color and custom made gobo patterns made by Apollo.

Find the necessary film lighting supply for rigging

Rigging equipment is used by grips for film lighting. Grips are lighting technicians that facilitate the physical hanging and moving of the lighting fixtures using equipment like lamps for holding fixtures in place, trusses to hang overhead lights from, motors and grip equipment for mobile lights--all common fixtures used in film lighting. Some common equipment used by grips includes clamps to secure fixtures to pipes and poles, vice grips to secure fixtures to small pipes, and arms to extend lights from pipes at a distance.
Try: Peruse Olden Lighting’s glossary of common rigging terms used by grips. Find all the light rigging and grip equipment needed at American Grip.

When using film production lighting and grip equipment terms, remember that it's much more important to know what you want the lights to accomplish than technical terms.