Thread: Cheapest spotlight ever: Sharpie'd plastic bag "gel" over flashlight

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Lighting was my goal this year. Last year we had a big display and terrible lighting in a very dark neighborhood. This year, we added only a few props but my goal was to light every single one of them. What worked very effectively was inexpensive LED flashlights (such as some amazing ones with built-in tripods I got on Woot--ordered 3 sets of them at something like $5 each). White light doesn't look very good, so I put plastic bags over the lenses and used red (mostly) and blue Sharpie to take the place of real spotlights and gels. Very, very effective.

I apologize if this has been covered before. My time is super-limited and in this case I thought a duplicate posting would be better than nothing, on the off chance it hasn't been mentioned earlier.

That's a really good idea!

I've read about people just "coloring" the flashlight lens with their Sharpies, and assumed that it cleans off with alcohol maybe.

I did something different for my LED flash and clip lights. A few months ago I picked up some sample packs of photo gel strips and cut them to size. They came in a fan deck. Worked well for what I needed them for and I had a wide range of colors to choose from. Read the tip here on the forum. I had to pay for shipping but it was nominal and the strips were free.