Twenty two years ago, in 1989, I became tasked with the responsibility of being Director of Photography on the film "Tinpis Run", Papua New Guinea's first road movie.
The making of a road movie, in Papua New Guinea very quickly, confronted me with an immense logistical problem, of lighting such a movie in which the film actors would be moving through hundreds of kilometers of Papua New Guinean roads, and where they would live and interact together with rural people in Papua New Guinea, much of which had no electricity.
Making a small budget movie made me rule out the use of electrical generators, for a myriad of reasons, including sound recording considerations and the fact that I wanted the technical crew to move very fast through the hundreds of kilometers where we had to travel with a permanent cast and crew of 30 people over 9 weeks of filming.
I wanted the "Tinpis Run" cast and crew to work together with our villagers, not become "technical invaders".
How could I make this happen? How could I help the Director I was serving, Pengau Nengo, to place his actors together with the extras of thousands, in markets and other public places and still never bother him with my lighting troubles?
I turned to the sun as the main source of my lighting and used other portable energy sources of electricity to light the "Tinpis Run".
This post is about one idea that I missed in the time I was designing the lighting for the film together with my mentor: Gilberto Azevedo, a cinematographer from Brazil.
It was when I presented my logistical problems to Gilberto that he said: "You've got the sun. Use it".
It is about providing lighting in dark homes in rural PNG using the sun in creative ways and there are many solutions that aspiring inventors can come up with.
It was with great pleasure to come across this new lighting invention that is featured in this post.
Across America, there are many great inventors solving the problems of energy for lighting and production.
But living in a world dominated by the human dependence on fossil fuel energy, these inventors are largely not recognised in America itself, but as they share their generosity with the world through the internet, affordable and free energy becomes available to the poor. In this case, the idea became popular in Brazil and now also in the Philippines.
Please spread the idea and let our people have lighting for their homes that they can afford.
In the region, this technology is already spreading in Manila as this YouTube video shows.
Another Version:
In this blog post, I touched on filmmakiing just to extend the use of the lighting idea for filming in dark houses. Sunlight is really beautiful for filmmaking - the best light in fact, when harnessed properly in various arrangements. Try building your own studios in the rural villages using this kind of lighting. You'll see the difference immediately.
Water bottle lights came to my attention when it was shared on a mailing list by Dr. Roderick Ewins who is a material culture researcher, mainly focused on Fijian material culture. He posted that:
"This is an interesting concept that would work well in Pacific villages - as the second URL shows, it is already in use, apparently fairly widely, in the Philippines."
There are also many designs using reflected sunlight, already in use in modern architecture. Below is an example of such innovations in using natural lighting inside offices and homes.
Installation demonstration of a solar tube:
The above technology works like a periscope so if you can't afford this technology and the special materials they use, you can build it yourself, maybe using cheap mirrors, that you can position inside plastic tubes or down pipes.
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| "Papa" Leo Konga always checking me out... |
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| In Madang - Sugar Village. |
I wanted the "Tinpis Run" cast and crew to work together with our villagers, not become "technical invaders".
How could I make this happen? How could I help the Director I was serving, Pengau Nengo, to place his actors together with the extras of thousands, in markets and other public places and still never bother him with my lighting troubles?
I turned to the sun as the main source of my lighting and used other portable energy sources of electricity to light the "Tinpis Run".
This post is about one idea that I missed in the time I was designing the lighting for the film together with my mentor: Gilberto Azevedo, a cinematographer from Brazil.
It was when I presented my logistical problems to Gilberto that he said: "You've got the sun. Use it".
It is about providing lighting in dark homes in rural PNG using the sun in creative ways and there are many solutions that aspiring inventors can come up with.
It was with great pleasure to come across this new lighting invention that is featured in this post.
Across America, there are many great inventors solving the problems of energy for lighting and production.
But living in a world dominated by the human dependence on fossil fuel energy, these inventors are largely not recognised in America itself, but as they share their generosity with the world through the internet, affordable and free energy becomes available to the poor. In this case, the idea became popular in Brazil and now also in the Philippines.
Please spread the idea and let our people have lighting for their homes that they can afford.
In the region, this technology is already spreading in Manila as this YouTube video shows.
Another Version:
In this blog post, I touched on filmmakiing just to extend the use of the lighting idea for filming in dark houses. Sunlight is really beautiful for filmmaking - the best light in fact, when harnessed properly in various arrangements. Try building your own studios in the rural villages using this kind of lighting. You'll see the difference immediately.
Water bottle lights came to my attention when it was shared on a mailing list by Dr. Roderick Ewins who is a material culture researcher, mainly focused on Fijian material culture. He posted that:
"This is an interesting concept that would work well in Pacific villages - as the second URL shows, it is already in use, apparently fairly widely, in the Philippines."
There are also many designs using reflected sunlight, already in use in modern architecture. Below is an example of such innovations in using natural lighting inside offices and homes.
Installation demonstration of a solar tube:
The above technology works like a periscope so if you can't afford this technology and the special materials they use, you can build it yourself, maybe using cheap mirrors, that you can position inside plastic tubes or down pipes.
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