I’ve built my career on a relentless search for tools that solve creative problems. It's how we pioneered the DSLR revolution—not just for the sake of new tech, but because it unlocked a more intimate way to tell stories. That same feeling, that discovery of a tool that fundamentally changes your approach, is happening right now in the world of lighting.
I first got my hands on a set of Pipe Lights—a groundbreaking inflatable LED system—while shooting the film Música. I had a few loaner units, a 4x8 and a 4x4, and they quickly became essential. This sparked a completely new philosophy of creating soft light that has already transformed how I work on set, saving immense time, labor, and money while delivering a stunning quality of light. Let me walk you through how.
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THE OLD WAY: THE CHALLENGE OF TRADITIONAL SOFT LIGHT
Before we look forward, let's be honest about the traditional challenge of creating a large, beautiful soft source. For decades, the playbook was the same: start with a powerful, hot, and heavy fixture like an HMI or a bank of ARRI SkyPanels. Then, you build a massive softbox around it—rigging 1-inch square stock, stretching diffusion like Ultrabounce, adding skirts for control. It’s a process that requires significant time, money, and labor from a skilled grip and electric crew.
I’ve been there countless times. For example, on the film Holidate, we had to rig six huge 4x8 foam core softboxes in the house set, each containing three S60 SkyPanels, just to get a consistent ambient light that allowed for dynamic camera movement.
Meanwhile, on A Casa Tutti Bene, we built a massive 5x20 softbox over a dining table with 19 actors underneath. It worked, and the light was beautiful, but it was a massive undertaking in rigging and resources. I kept thinking, "There has to be a better, more efficient way."
While this article covers my latest on-set experiences with this gear, my original in-depth review provides the foundational guide. It's where you'll find a look at the full range of sizes, the technical specifications, and analysis of the light quality.
A NEW PHILOSOPHY: PIPE LIGHTING’S SOLUTION
This is where the revolution begins. The company Pipe Lighting has developed an inflatable LED system that completely flips the old model on its head. Instead of starting with a hard source and fighting to make it soft, these fixtures are engineered to be an incredibly soft source right out of the box.
What do I mean by an inflatable light? Imagine a durable diffusion material, much like Magic Cloth, that you inflate with a small air pump in seconds. Inside this inflatable shell is a bed of high-quality LEDs. This design eliminates hotspots and creates a single, beautiful, wrap-around source of light from the moment you turn it on.
One of its most brilliant innovations is the white grid cloth egg crate. Unlike traditional black egg crates that absorb a huge amount of light to control spill, the white grid reflects light, becoming part of the source. You maintain control without sacrificing the soft quality or a significant amount of output.
PIPE LIGHTING IN ACTION: BIG BUDGET RESULTS
The practical benefits of this new philosophy have already transformed how I work on my feature films. Let’s take a look at three of my most recent projects.
MÚSICA: SPEED AND FLEXIBILITY IN TIGHT LOCATIONS
On every film set, time is the one resource you can never get back. On Música, we had a scene in Hoboken's historic subway station with a tight three-hour window to shoot a complex sequence with Rudy Mancuso and his puppet busking. The location was full of existing overhead pipes, making a traditional lighting setup impossible.
This is where the Pipe Light's design became a lifesaver. My team was able to effortlessly carry in the 4x8 unit, inflate it in seconds, and simply use grip clips to attach it directly to the existing subway pipes. We had a massive, beautiful soft source rigged and ready in minutes—a process that would have taken hours with traditional gear.
A KEY INNOVATION: THE WHITE EGG CRATE
What truly sets these lights apart is what I previously alluded to. It’s a simple but brilliant innovation: the white grid cloth egg crate. We’ve all used black egg crates to control spill, but they work by absorbing light, which drastically cuts your output and can reduce the softness of the source.
Pipe Lighting's white egg crate, remember, reflects light. It still controls the direction and spill, but the white fabric becomes part of the illuminated source. As a result, you maintain that beautiful, soft quality without the significant light loss of a black grid.
For the subway scene in Música, we used the white egg crate on our 4x8 top source, giving us a perfectly controlled soft light that still had enough punch for the scene.
LIGHTING COMPLEX 360° SHOTS WITH EASE
Later on in Música, we had another challenge: a scene in a Brazilian restaurant where the three women in Rudy’s life confront him. My plan was to use two dollies—one wide, one tight—circling the table 360 degrees to capture the shifting reactions.
The problem? The practical location had a very low drop ceiling, making a traditional overhead softbox impossible to rig.
Once again, the Pipe Light provided the solution. We took the same 4x8 unit and simply grip-clipped it to the T-bars of the drop ceiling. It was lightweight enough to be supported by the ceiling itself.
This gave me a huge, soft, and beautiful top light that allowed the cameras to move freely in a full circle. Every actress looked gorgeous, and the light was perfectly controlled with the white grid cloth. It’s a shot that would have been a massive rigging nightmare with any other fixture.
THE PERFECT COUPLE: SOLVING A LOW CEILING DILEMMA
The true test of this technology came on the set of The Perfect Couple. We were shooting in a massive, newly built mansion in Cape Cod that had, inexplicably, something like seven-foot-six-inch ceilings. Lighting in that environment, especially with tall actors like Nicole Kidman (6'1") and Liev Schreiber (6'4"), was a constant challenge. Their heads were practically dancing on the top of the frame line.
Traditional lighting was out of the question. We simply had no space. This was a scenario where the Pipe Lights were absolutely essential. We used smaller 1x8 and 1x4 units rigged just over the tops of windows. This allowed us to extend the beautiful, soft ambient light from outside deep into the rooms, creating a naturalistic look while keeping the fixtures completely hidden above the frame.
Their lightweight nature and minimal power draw (we could plug them into a wall outlet) meant we could react instantly to blocking changes from our director, Susanne Bier, without calling for a massive re-rig. The usability and quality of light were stunningly beautiful and fit perfectly with the "beautiful reality" aesthetic we were aiming for.
WAY OF THE WARRIOR KID: CRAFTING SUN-DRENCHED INTERIORS
The versatility of these lights extends to high-key, action-oriented aesthetics as well. On the film Way of the Warrior Kid, starring Chris Pratt and Linda Cardellini, the Pipe Lights became my number one tool on set. They made it incredibly easy to bring in that beautiful "San Diego style" of light for our sun-drenched interiors.
I would often push hard sunlight through a window and then immediately supplement it with a 1x8 or 1x4 Pipe Light just over the top of the window frame. This seamlessly extended the ambient bounce light from outside deeper into the room. Using the white egg crate, we could control the source perfectly to fill in shadows, creating a gorgeous ambience that blended with the hard sun.
THE BOTTOM LINE: BETTER QUALITY LIGHT, LESS LABOR
Ultimately, what innovations like Pipe Lighting provide is freedom. Just as the DSLR revolution put the focus back on perspective and intimacy by freeing the camera, this new wave of efficient, high-quality soft sources frees us from the constraints of heavy rigging, massive power draws, and restrictive locations. It allows us to spend less time on the brute force of lighting and more time on the nuance—the subtle shifts in mood, the perfect wrap of light on a face, the story unfolding in the shadows.
This philosophy of sculpting with nuance and understanding the very essence of light is something I am incredibly passionate about. For filmmakers who want to go deeper and truly master not just a single tool, but the principles behind what makes any light source feel cinematic, I break it all down in our Cinematic Light Quality Masterclass. It’s where we explore the DNA of light itself, giving you the knowledge to shape any source, new or old, with confidence and purpose.
It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a visual storyteller. The tools are getting better, lighter, and more accessible, but the principles of powerful storytelling through light remain the same. Let's keep innovating, keep learning, and never stop pushing the boundaries of what our light can do.
More Lessons on Cinematic Light Quality:
- Cinematic Light Quality: Silver Bounce
- Cinematic Light Quality: Batten Lights
- Light Quality Lab: DMG Maxi & Depron Dome for Soft Light
- Cinematic Lighting with Shane Hurlbut, ASC: Xenon Light
- Honeycrate Reflectors: Cinematic Light Quality
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