Instead of going to costly rental companies, there are other ways of obtaining film equipment in a cheaper way. People constantly overlook hardware stores, garage sales and photographic stores. Below is a list of items you might need for your productions, as well as suggestions for finding them cheaper. Please feel free to e-mail us and we'll gladly add your suggestions to the equipment list.

LIGHTS - The place to find cheap reliable film lights is at any hardware store. You can get them in dual 1000 or 500 watts, these work lights are available with a tripod for less then 50 dollars US. Most of them have a wire mesh and safety glass in front of them. If you decide to buy the lights make sure the mesh can come off of them without damaging the safety glass. Don't remove the glass, itis there to protect your eyes from potential UV rays and won't reduce the light intensity. The major drawback with these lights is that they have no barn doors. You may want to add barn doors if you're good in metal shop. You can also use black ounce board avaiable in many art suply stores to cut and shape the light. Make sure to keep the boards at least a foot or two from the light to avoid potential fire. Try mounting the board on other tripods or C-Stands. I find these lights great as general fill/flood lights. Another drawback is that their height is fixed. other sorces for worklights is Walmart or home depot. Salad Bowl Lights - The reason they're called salad bowl lights is because of the shape of their fixture. They are available at most professional photographic stores and may be bought with a decent tripod for approximately $100 dollars. Although these lights are also 500 watts, and more expensive their bulbs are of a different type and color tempature. Where the work lights are tungston they have a burn color of about 4500k a very yellow color fine if you are useing all tungston but will not mix well with day light. The Salad bowl lights while also tungstion burn higher at about 5500k still yellow but not as bad. Day light is about 6000 to 8000k. The salad bowl lights are also good because they will allow you to mount gels, diffussion, etc to the front.

SILVER REFLECTORS - The cheapest possible way to make a useful silver reflector is with cardboard and aluminum foil. You can find these materials at your local supermarket. Pick up a large cardboard box and stick the aluminum foil to it. Use the shiney side of the aluminum foil as a hard light reflector and the dull side for a diffused reflector. Another cheap form of reflector is a sun shade. Sun shades are those things people put behind their windshields to help their car stay cool in the sun. Remember anything shiney and silver makes a good reflector. You cam also get a bounce board atr a art suply shop mount one side with silver foil and use the other as a white bounce.

WHITE REFLECTORS -You should bounce your lights at the white surface and use the reflected light as a fill light. You can also use it as the key, but it depends on what you shoot and what effect you're after. If your light is powerful enough you can shine it through the bed sheet and get a great diffused look to your film.