• There is a device known as an Obie light. Its purpose is rather simple. It sits on top of a camera and shines a small light onto the subject. The Obie light, also called an eye light, can quickly lighten dark eyes and faces without the need for another external light.
• Another useful device is a snoot. It is a tube-shaped object that you place in front of a light for projecting a sharp beam of light.
• In case you were wondering how you would go about repairing a gel... use clear polypropylene tape such as Permacel J-LAR. You use this tape to do a quick repair job on damaged gels.

So, those are the essentials that you will find in lighting kits. Some you will find only in the more expensive kits, but it is still useful to know what they are and how they work. Now you can open up that lighting kit and know exactly what everything in there is for and how to use it.

John Devcic is a freelance writer and videographer.

There's a lot of industry lore associated with the film and video tool that we producers call a C47 and everyone else knows as a clothespin. Yes, C47s are nothing more than your standard household clothespin one would use to attach a wet towel to a drying line. However, the tool is quite valuable for all sorts of uses in the production industry, and in the lighting arena in particular. C47s are used to attach diffusion or gels to the barn-doors or flags in front of very hot lights. One should never use a plastic clothespin, as they can melt, and one should never call them clothespins on a set, as you will automatically be labeled a newbie.

There are many stories that have circulated through Hollywood over the years as to how the name C47 came about. Some attribute it to the extensive military numerical labeling system. However, the most common, and probably the best story is as simple as trying to fool the bean counters. As the story goes, a gaffer, (the lighting person), needed to treat a bright light so he clipped a sheet of gel or diffusion to a hot barn door by using clothespins. When the production manager then needed to account for the purchase of these ubiquitous devices, instead of trying to explain why he was buying clothespins, he just called them C47, which, supposedly, was due to something like the line item number 47 in column C from a prop catalog. There are several variations on this story, but they all come down to the same thing: someone somewhere needed to account for the purchase of a bag of ordinary household items and so converted the name to C47 to disguise the fact that the purchase was merely a handful of clothespins. Regardless of its origin, wooden clothespins, sometimes also called "bullets" are an essential item in any gaffer's tool kit. ("Bullets" possibly coming from the fact that the gaffer would clip several pins end to end, and have a long bandoleer-like collection, similar to bullets, hanging from his belt clip.)

While we're on odd lighting jargon; ever wonder where the term "Best Boy" came from? When a director or crew chief needed to add muscle to his crew, he'd request extra help from the crew shop, and emphasize the need for "the best boy". This meant someone smart enough who had brains, not just brawn, to help set the lights, as well as understand their placement requirements. The Best Boy is now often the leader of the production's group of gaffers, or lighting crew, and even women are called Best Boy in Hollywood terms.