Video lighting on the cheap
Take a peek at Technical Video Rental. They’ve got a decent post up about lighting, covering how to do it on the cheap with standard halogen worklamps. What worklamps lack in adjustability (both in terms of quantity and control of light) they more than make up for in terms of cost (or lack there of) and brightness.
Since you can’t vary the output of the lamp (a dimmer maybe? would that work on these types of lamps? fire?) you have to get creative to vary to quantity of light, as well as the intensity.
Move the laps close up, you’ll get bright light, with harsh (hard edged shadows) move it far back and the light will be even– but more soft (no hard edges between light and dark).
Key lights, fill lights, and background lights are all touched on in the post. To add to their info, try some inventive hanging of white cardboard (as a reflector), tracing paper (or translucent shower curtains, white bed sheets, etc) as diffusers for your fill light(s), and some creative placement of your key light can help retain contrast and shadows. Move it around a bunch before you shoot and see really look at your subject and how it’s effected BEFORE you shoot.
Your background light can be used to reflect light onto the subject, or even to help minimise the amout of Photoshop work to be done to the subject, post shoot.