Light that Yeti!

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!

How many times have we as a whole heard this saying. Way too many in my opinion but it does hold that sense of real movie making. Within this blog, I've already covered camera although I'm sure I will quite a few more times as new things develop. But lets take a second and talk about lights. I know it's not the most fascinating to most of you but you'd be surprised what you can get out of your money.

Lets talk packages; Kino Flos vs. Arri Kits. The easiest way to tell the difference between these lights is that a Kino Flo has those grim bulbs that probably remind you of your high school days or your bad cooking experience in the kitchen. Incase you didn't have one of these, here is a picture.

What a beauty, right? Not so much. However the one thing that I love about Kino Flos that give them a second glance in my book is that the bulbs come in different colors. So if you wanted to go for a Matrix look, you could do that, granted you would need a lot of Kinos. It will cost roughly $600 for a nice yellow glow package (which includes 4 bulbs) only lasting 5,000 hours. That is $0.12 an hour! You may think that is a smoking deal but 5,000 hours on a film set will go by quickly. Will you be prepared for that?

Another one of my favorites is the Arri Kit. Unlike the 1 ballasts deal with kinos, Arri comes with a lot more tools. An Arri Compact HMI 200W Fresenel Light includes compact 200W Head, 125/200W AC Ballast, Filter Frame and Barndor- 200 Total Watts. What did I just say? Let me break it down...small light, lots of power. It even comes with its own power box to help you out. Arri is a great company that provides well crafted lights. However it is only one light that you get. The picture below has different sizes for you to build your own kit with if need be. 

Are you sitting down? I hope so for when I tell you the price. The price for this simple kit is $3,056.95. Yes, you read that right. You could buy a new car for that price but being part of a production company you have to understand that price is something you have to work for and with.

Eco-Yeti

Being an eco-friendly business maybe a tough call for most owners; either they have already started their business and it's too difficult to switch or they are scared of the price of going green. Granted, Baby Yeti Productions is still a home production company but that doesn't mean I'm not looking out into the future.

 One thing that I would enjoy having within the work place once owning an office with employees is a garden that will supply the kitchens with the fresh ingredients that is needed. A great example of this in the workplace is at Google Headquarters. Having a large garden such as this requires people to harvest, train employees and also a chef to prepare the food. As Google has not released an exact price for what it cost, one can only imagine. However I do give them props for having such a great space and helping the environment. I would like to have a community garden with the employees at Baby Yeti so that it is everyone's garden rather than just mine. This video is of one of the main men leading the Growing Connection Gardens at Google.

 Another way that Baby Yeti wants to be eco-friendly is with the packaging in which we deliver to clients. We have recycled old DVD cases and also started using recycled paper as sleeves to house the films. When buying small quantities of the paper, it may seem to be more on the expensive side. However if we shop knowing we will need lots more in the future, the more the merrier and the price tends to be cheaper that way. Adobe was big on making sure it's packing for all their software was also going green.

 One thing I have personally noticed while being on movie sets myself is the amount of plastic bottles lying around everywhere. I would like to give every crewmember their own reusable water bottle with our logo on it so that they can bring it to work everyday. Something like this would be costly being about five dollars a pop. However, that would reduce the amount of trash and recycling that would be needed, the amount of water needed to be bought each production.

 There are some more great production tips that have been released by the Producer's Guild of America.