I prefer your yoke style... the lolipop method wants to tip when you tilt the light forward... your yoke style feels more balanced.

I have a broncolor hazylight on a flamingo stand in my studio, and it's a hell of a light.... just a big yoke on a boom.

p.s.
I'm looking forward to seeing your "comming soon" hard lights!

The advantage of buying + owning lights is that you can play around with them and learn them well. Then you have a better idea of what the hell you're doing.

If you know what you're doing, then rental is much likely a cheaper route. You can talk to rental companies and get deals based on it being a no-budget production (they want to establish relationships with people in the film/video biz). You can also try film co-ops.

2- To throw yet another opinion into the mix... I would try to get one good controllable soft light. Soft light looks natural. Unless you need a specific effect (and it's good to have a hard light for that too), it's safe to light with soft light, especially if you are going for motivated lighting. For lighting faces, soft light is flattering as it doesn't create much shadow. Though if you need to control where the light goes (a DP + an umbrella will blast light everywhere), you'll need a softbox + eggcrate (or equivalent).
see efplighting.com for some illustrations; the same concepts apply
http://efplighting.com/?Lighting_int...The_Fill_Light

Pre-made, something like the lowel Rifa would work (and it'll need gels and it's very nice to have the egg crate). If you want a cheap DIY setup, check out Vic Milt's "nanolights" (you'd have to get the "Light It Right" DVD from vasst.com... which is kinda pricey but it's a top notch DVD; the DVD has info on building the nanolight).

3- If you want to shoot a movie fast (and hopefully it looks good), then you can light most shots without any lights or with a single Kinoflo. The Kinoflo has a small advantage in that it draws little power (so no blown fuses) and you can grip it to a ceiling. It also has good light output if you need daylight color temperature (since putting a CTB on a tungsten eats light output).
see http://www.dalelauner.com/words/NABkeynote.html
*It helped that David Mullen ASC lit that.
**Commercially, I think that Dale Launer's movie is stuck trying to get a good distributor (for a wide release I think).

I looked that softbox up because I wasn't familiar with it--now that's a YOKE... I guess you have to have some serious counterweight on your boom stand right?

yah... the broncolor opus A8 6400 Watt second stroab pack is heavy.... but the stand does fine without it too.... When that pack with the bi-tube head fires off at full power... you can hear the romax buzz in the walls.... and the back of the inside of your head hurts if your looking into it.... hehe

I actually have it set at the lowest setting.... and still f22 @ iso 100