lighting positions

Hello I was wondering if this is correct. I am going to do an interview using the xl1s and I need to purchase affordable lighting. I was thinking of this as a 3 point setup:

key light -> 500 watt quartz worklight
fill light -> 1000 watt quartz worklight (bouncing it off a wall)
backlight -> 500 watt quartz worklight
chinese paper lantern-> 2ft in front above my subject (200watt)

Does this sound ok? There will be no other light (all ceiling lights and house lamps will be turned off and there will be no sunlight shinning through windows) I want to start off with a dark room.

Any suggestions or pointers would be great!! Thank you
Lisa

When you say worklight, do you mean those yellow $30 lamps (including stands) from Home Depot?

A lot of us are using the halogen work lights you describe and the power ratings are about right. I added dimmers to mine to give me more control. Dimmers can cause interference that a mic could pick up so you have to check before making any permanent changes to your lights. I have a cheap mic that picks up noise from the dimmers I use but my good mics don't. My guess is the quality of the cables used in those mics makes a big difference.

To get a little more control when using those halogen work lights, try some "Cinefoil" aka black foil, black wrap.

If you google "Lee black foil" you'll find it for about $25 a roll. Then you can use it to create some barn doors and be able to cut the light just where you want it. Just wrap the cinefoil around the work light like a tube.

500W for a backlight sounds a bit much. I'd try find something smaller.

Using balanced XLR audio cables will eliminate interference from lighting equipment. Unbalanced audio casbles terminating with a mini-jack are more proned to audio hum.

By using a dimmer, to dim down a light, you are effecting the color temperature of the light (making it warmer, than tungsten balance which is 3200 Degrees Kelvin).

Work light lamps also generally operate at 3000 Degrees Kelvin.

To reduce the light level without changing the color temperature, it is best to use Neutral Density gel (available from good photographic stores) over the face of the lamp. ND.3 = 1 stop, ND.6 = 2 stops, ND.9 = 3 stops.