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- Hey, how's it going?

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Todd with Shutterstock here,[br]and let's talk about Roger Deakins.

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Roger Deakins is without a doubt[br]one of the greatest cinematographers of all time.

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And obviously, I've always been[br]a really big fan of him,

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not only because everything he shoots[br]is just pure cinematic magic,

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but I've always thought it was really cool[br]how willing he is to share his secrets

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and how he achieved certain lighting setups.

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The man even has his own website[br]with a forum that you can go on there

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and just ask him how he did certain things.[br]And lo and behold, he will actually tell you.

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One thing that always comes up[br]is that he loves to use ring lights.

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And specifically, he likes to use ring lights[br]with tungsten household regular light bulbs.

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And in this video, I'm going to show you[br]how to make one of these,

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a Roger-Deakins-inspired ring light.

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♪ (mellow electronic music) ♪

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All right, so we are on our way[br]to pick up some supplies

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to build our very own Roger Deakins ring light.

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I guess Roger Deakins[br]didn't really invent the ring light.

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A lot of people use ring lights.

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- I've seen it in tutorials on YouTube[br]and fashion vlogging stuff,

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where it's just people sitting at desks[br]and you can see the light in their eyes.

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I've never used one,[br]and I don't care for that kind of light,

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how you can see the literal circle[br]in their eyes and it kind of gives it

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a weird robotic feel.

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- The thing that he does differently[br]is how he uses the ring light.

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What he tends to always do for warmer scenes[br]is he takes one of these ring lights

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and he puts tungsten bulbs in them[br]and just dims them down to, like, 20%.

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That basically just creates[br]a really, really warm, pleasing light.

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It just seems like it's more[br]about the quality of the light,

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almost like the science of it[br]or something.

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♪ (off-key vocalizing) ♪[br](laughs)

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I've just always been super intrigued[br]by how it clearly does something different

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than any other type of light.

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So to make one of these ring lights,[br]here are the supplies that you're going to need.

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First, you're going to need[br]a whole bunch of light bulbs.

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Here, we're just using[br]some 60 watt tungsten household light bulbs.

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And the light that we're making[br]is going to have 25 different sockets,

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so we're gonna need at least 25 light bulbs.

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You're going to need 25 lamp holders[br]or lamp sockets.

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They should cost something[br]like 2 bucks apiece.

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You're gonna need a 4 foot by 4 foot[br]piece of plywood.

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And you're gonna need something[br]like 30 to 35 feet of lamp cord.

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You're gonna need some sort of power source,[br]so here I used a power tool cord replacement kit.

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But you could just cut one end[br]off an old extension cord,

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and that's going to be the part that[br]will actually plug into the wall.

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And you're gonna just need some screws.[br]I use some 3/4-inch screws.

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And that's what I'm gonna use[br]to screw the sockets into the piece of wood.

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And definitely make sure[br]that you have a car that can fit

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a 4x4 piece of wood,[br]because we didn't think that far ahead,

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and things got a little bit dicey.[br]- See you in a few hours, buddy.

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- If you get in a wreck,[br]I will crumple

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like an accordion.[br]- You'll die.

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♪ (mellow music) ♪

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- First, to start, I just laid out[br]all of my sockets and just kind of made sure

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that they were going to fit[br]on the piece of wood.

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You want to make sure[br]that you're not gonna have

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too many large gaps[br]between each of the sockets,

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because if you do,[br]then you might get some nasty,

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multi-shadow kind of problems.[br]Now you need to make your circle of plywood.

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To do this, you need to measure halfway[br]from side to side going both directions.

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And that's going to tell you[br]where the exact center

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of your piece of plywood is.

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From there, just screw a screw[br]into the very middle of your piece of plywood

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and just tie some string to it.[br]And then on one end of the string,

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just tie or tape a sharpie[br]and mark a circle going around the piece of plywood

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all the way to the edges.[br]Once you have your first circle drawn,

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now you can draw the inner circle.

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So what I did to do that[br]was I just twisted my sharpie a few times

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to where I knew there would be enough room[br]for my lamp sockets.

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And I drew another circle[br]inside of the bigger one.

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And once you have your two circles drawn,[br]you can go ahead and grab a jigsaw

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and just cut along the red lines[br]or the lines of your sharpie.

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And don't worry too horribly much[br]about getting it perfect.

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Just try to get as much[br]of a perfect circle as you can.

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And once you have your circle of wood,[br]you can go ahead and place all of your lamp sockets

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back onto the piece of wood[br]and get it all laid out the way that you like it.

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And then what I did was[br]I just went around with the sharpie

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and lifted up each socket individually[br]and put a little dot right underneath

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each and every socket,[br]so that I would know

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where to drill my holes later on.[br]Then you'll just go around the entire circle

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and drill a nice 1-inch-ish kind of hole,[br]where each dot was.

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And this is where we're gonna be able[br]to run our electricity through

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and keep everything nice and organized.

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After you have all of your holes drilled,[br]you can go ahead and start with the first lamp socket.

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So now you're gonna take your power source cord[br]and you're going to strip a little bit of it down.

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And you're gonna start by hooking up[br]the black wire to the brass terminal.

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So the black wire is always going[br]to be the hot wire.

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And that is always going to need[br]to be wired up to the brass terminal.

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And then you're going to take the white wire,[br]and you're gonna hook that up to the silver terminal.

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(bell dings)[br]Hot wire always goes to the brass terminal,

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and the neutral wire always goes[br]to the silver terminal.

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So now we're going to use the lamp cord[br]to wire up all the rest of the lamp holders

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all the way around the rest of the circle.[br]So first, you'll take your lamp cord

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and split the wires apart.[br]So the way that you're going to be able

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to tell them apart is that the hot wire,[br]or black wire in most cases,

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is going to be the one[br]with the writing on the side of it.

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You'll notice some little inscribed lettering,[br]and it's also the smooth one of the two.

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So there's a smooth wire,[br]and then you'll notice

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on the neutral wire,[br]there is a little bit of a bumpy edge to it.

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And that's going to be your neutral wire.[br]So always remember the bumpy one is the neutral wire,

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and the smooth one most of the time[br]with the writing on the side

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is going to be your black wire[br]or your hot wire.

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So again, you're going to strip down[br]a little bit of each wire.

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You're going to kind of twist it up[br]as tight as you can,

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and then make just a little hook[br]going in the direction of the screw

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so that when you hook it around[br]and you screw it down,

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it actually tightens onto itself.[br]And you're going to do that for both sides.

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♪ (mellow electronic music) ♪

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And then you're going to go ahead[br]and stick the lamp cord

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back through the hole[br]up through the next hole

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so that you can go ahead[br]and wire the next lamp socket

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and just go ahead[br]and screw that down.

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And every time I wired one[br]of these lamp holders up,

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I went ahead and just put a couple strips[br]of electrical tape underneath

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just so that I could have one layer

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of something in between all[br]of the electricity and the wood.

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So now you're going to just repeat that process.

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For me, it was 25 times.

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Stripping the lamp cord[br]and then putting the smooth wire

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into the brass terminal[br]and then the bumpy wire into the silver terminal

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and then doing it again on the other side[br]and then putting on some electrical tape

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and running the wire back down[br]through the hole and up through the next one

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and then screwing the lamp socket down.[br]And you do this enough times

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to where you get into kind of a rhythm with it.[br]And it starts to feel just kind of therapeutic almost.

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You'll either get really chill[br]and throw on some music,

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or you'll lose your mind,[br]one of the two.

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♪ (off-key vocalizing) ♪

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♪ (upbeat electronic music) ♪

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So once you have all of your lamp sockets wired up,[br]you can put an optional cross beam

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down the middle so that you have[br]kind of a handle where you can carry it.

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And I happen to have[br]an extra baby pin wall plate adapter

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laying around, so I went ahead[br]and screwed that into my cross beam

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so that I could use this light[br]with a C stand.

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I also went around the edges[br]and added some command strips around the edges

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so that I could stick[br]some fabric around the sides

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to act as a skirt for the light[br]and control it a little bit better

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when it was being used[br]in a top light scenario.

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Now, a light like this is really versatile,[br]because you can use it

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as a really beautiful top light[br]for a tabletop-type scenario.

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You can fly these above your scene[br]and get a really, really nice look.

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But these lights also make[br]a really, really nice key light

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to supplement for a tungsten practical.

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All you have to do[br]is just put this ring light behind it

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and dim it down to match the color temperature[br]of that tungsten fixture,

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and you have a really beautiful,[br]wrappy, kind of soft diffused light.

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And if nothing else, you can just use[br]one of these lights to provide

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a really beautiful, warm ambience[br]to the entire scene.

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If you just want to kind of give everything[br]a little bit more of a warm glow,

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using a light like this would just provide[br]a nice, warm ambience to everything in your scene.

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Anyways, a light like this[br]is just a thing that I've always wanted

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to try to build for myself.

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I know now that I have one,[br]I'm gonna use it a whole lot.

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And I'm actually gonna take[br]the circle that I cut out

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in the middle of the other[br]one and make a smaller version

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so that I can have two different sizes.[br]So try some stuff yourself,

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experiment a little bit,[br]see what sort of cool looks

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you can come up with[br]with your ring light.

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And as always,[br]I hope you found this video helpful.

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Be sure to subscribe,[br]hit the Like button, all that stuff.

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Anyways, I'll see you guys next time.[br]Thanks for watching.

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♪ (upbeat electronic music) ♪