Lightning lights, strobes?

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Looking for some advice on lightning effects. I would imagine I would be looking at strobes or a combination of them. I need something that will will be powerful enough in an outdoor night time set, not just through a window, I can do that with just about any light and a flicker generator/controller. What are my best options for a larger scale? Am I looking at photography strobes or something else?

Thanks!

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Lightning strikes (the actual film lights) would be my suggestion. Several for hire out there and the wattage is plenty .

 

[Larry Kelly]

I've experimented with a technique that I have found works very well and was used in a film just last week. What I did was draw full screen white panels as well as vertical bars of varying widths in Adobe Ill. then I imported them to my editing suite once they are on the timeline you can vary, fade in and out, move the bars across the screen etc. until you get just the right look. Once you are happy you just play it back using as many LCD projectors with video splitters as you want filling the sky and hitting objects in your shot. The beauty of this is it is exactly repeatable and you can design your lightning strikes just the way you want them. We found that two projectors was enough to cover our needs.

Edit to add link.
Here is a link to the very first proof of concept video I shot. Very poor quality and projector had a burned out panel so color was poor but you can see the results of the process. This is only one projector outside the house at about 20ft.
https://vimeo.com/64531949

 

[ericyoung]

I've experimented with a technique that I have found works very well and was used in a film just last week. What I did was draw full screen white panels as well as vertical bars of varying widths in Adobe Ill. then I imported them to my editing suite once they are on the timeline you can vary, fade in and out, move the bars across the screen etc. until you get just the right look. Once you are happy you just play it back using as many LCD projectors with video splitters as you want filling the sky and hitting objects in your shot. The beauty of this is it is exactly repeatable and you can design your lightning strikes just the way you want them. We found that two projectors was enough to cover our needs.

Edit to add link.
Here is a link to the very first proof of concept video I shot. Very poor quality and projector had a burned out panel so color was poor but you can see the results of the process. This is only one projector outside the house at about 20ft.
https://vimeo.com/64531949

Actually projectors driven by computer is actually a great idea for lighting strikes! Custom duration is then easy.

I've seen the same thing used for custom gobos or to project light/patterns onto weird shape sets.