Case Study: Graded Films Trials the Rolalight Prototype

A Set That Had to Work in the Dark

Feature-film productions of this kind often move into temporary outdoor locations for a single overnight session. The site is dressed and used for the shoot, then packed up and cleared before daylight. Nothing about the location is permanent, and any support kit the crew brings in has to work with the space and the schedule.

For this shoot, the location itself made things more demanding. Hastings beach at night, with the streetlamps switched off, gave the production the atmosphere it needed on camera. The same conditions made the working areas around the set very dark. Catering, storage, technical vehicles, and site access all needed to be usable throughout the overnight production.

That called for a lighting setup the crew could bring in as part of the shoot kit, deploy at short notice, and position in the specific spots where crew safety and operational efficiency required illumination.

The Challenge: Portable Lighting for a Working Set

The lighting had to solve several problems at once. It needed to be bright and elevated enough to cover a large outdoor working area. It had to be compact enough to fit into a production van alongside the rest of the shoot kit. And it needed to be quick and simple to deploy once the crew were on the beach.

Conventional options did not fit the brief. Traditional tower lights and location lighting rigs were either too bulky for the vehicle space available or built around generators that were not permitted for this shoot. That left the production looking for something that combined portability, elevated output, and quiet outdoor operation.

Portability was therefore central to the requirement. The system needed to be small enough to travel with the rest of the crew’s equipment and manageable enough for a small team to set up and pack down as the production moved through the night.

Trialling the Rolalight Prototype

Rolatube’s prototype Rolalight system was supplied to Graded Films for a real-world outdoor trial on the shoot. Rolalight uses Rolatube’s unique and patented Bi-stable Reeled Composite (BRC) technology to combine a portable mast structure with an integrated LED lighting array. The BRC mast stores as a compact roll and forms a rigid tube when deployed, and the LEDs sit embedded within the composite rather than mounted as a separate fixture at height.

For this trial, the system included:

• An integrated LED lighting array within the composite mast
• A support stand and outdoor electrical connections
• A portable case sized to fit alongside other production kit in a van

The trial was designed to assess how a slim, integrated portable lighting solution performed in a demanding outdoor production setting, and to collect practical user feedback from a working film crew.

Lighting the Overnight Shoot

The Rolalight prototype was positioned around the crew working areas. The lighting supported catering, kit storage, the technical vehicle parking, and the site access routes throughout the overnight production. With the mast and lighting integrated into a single system, there was no separate lighting fixture to mount at height and no generator to run alongside it.

Compact packaging and quick deployment were valued during the shoot. The Rolalight case fitted alongside the rest of the production kit in the van, and the system could be brought out and set up as areas of the working set opened up. The slim form of the mast kept the footprint on the beach low, which suited the shifting layout of a working outdoor set.