Wizard magic effects lighting

[Young-H. Lee]

Hi, I'm trying to film a scene where these wizards are making lightning and energy come out of their hands. I'l be using Softimage to add the special effects in post, but anyone can give me any advice on what I should use to do the on-set lighting? I'm also going to shoot them in the evevning outdoors, when there is less light (more flashiness)

Maybe some strobe lights? Also they need to be portable since I will be filming this outdoors without any power cables closeby.

thanks!

[Rob Lohman]

I think strobe lights would only be helpfull if you can set them to
a very low strobing frequency. But that might definitely help.
Depending on camera angles lightning would light up the
surrounging area quite much and some flickering would be
approriate.

When doing face close ups don't forget to strobe with some
lights as well. Depending on the distance and magnitude of
the wizards "rays" this could be quite strong to blinding I'd guess.

Sounds like you are thinking in the right direction. My opinion
on this is just a "feeling" of what would probably work.

[Young-H. Lee]

thanks rob. i recall back in 8th grade science class, one of my teachers had this bulb that would flash and then slowly dim...are those the same kind used by those old photjournalism cameras?

at any rate, i need to go to a lighting store or something

[Charles Papert]

Don't know how consistent or not you want the light pulsing to be...if reasonably consistently on, yet with some changes in intensity, perhaps sparklers (from the fireworks family) could do the trick?

[Peter Jefferson]

or u could film the face close up while ur acotrs hold a plasma ball.. u know those lightning is a glass dome thingies..