Video Safety Tips, Indispensible Grip Kit

Video Safety Tips, Indispensable Grip Kit


Brian Peterson: Hi, I’m Brian Peterson.
Charlie Fulton: And I’m Charlie Fulton.
Brian Peterson: And this is Tips and Techniques. And we’ve got to grab, literally, stuff today.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah.
Brian Peterson: Bag.
Charlie Fulton: There it is.
Brian Peterson: We’re going to grab it in a second. But also, Charlie is going to talk about some safety tips, sort of, of putting together a system?
Charlie Fulton: Yeah, a few cautionary words here.
Brian Peterson: Okay.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah, a couple of light ideas.
Brian Peterson: Let’s get the stuff off the table first. I’ve got to shoot later today, so I’ve got to make sure this all in the bag.
Charlie Fulton: Important. Very important.
Brian Peterson: There’s always that magic bag that you have, or you don’t have at the shoot, and it really depends on how you work, but a grip bag, gaffer bag, it goes by many different names. But essentially, is the bag stuff, if you didn’t have that one little piece, it could really mess you up.
So, we’re going to put together just this quick kit of things that over the last 15 years I found indispensable to have in almost every situation. All goes in one bag very neatly, usually isn’t very heavy, but, boy, does it make a difference on a shoot.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah.
Brian Peterson: So, let’s get right to it. This is the in-the-field grab bag. Charlie, are you going to read them off, and I’m going to show them?
Charlie Fulton: All right.
So, we’ve got a selection of quarters coarse thread bolts of various length.
Brian Peterson: So we’ve got quarter inch, we’ve got some screws, we’ve got some washers. We can even go a little bit further and have some clips. The quarter inch coarse thread are that, those kind that most cameras and some lighting equipment attach to.
So, sometimes you’ll find like a dove tail plate or something missing that quarter inch thread, and having a variety of links will give you just the link you need to get that separation between the top of your tripod and the camera. So, critical. In some cases, you can even jury rig a duct tape plate. So, very important. That’s going in.
Charlie Fulton: Various thread pitches is good, too, if you can.
AC prong adapter. We call them a cheater plug.
Brian Peterson: This is a cheater plug. Have at least three of these, because if you’re shooting in older houses, you’ll find you only have two plugs to work with.
Now, unfortunately, it also usually happens in those older ones, is that their overall amperage per each circuit is pretty low, too. So, when you’re using these and you have regular lights that you’re using, that are sucking power, make sure that you distribute the load fairly well.
But at least this will get you in the plug for that power.
Charlie Fulton: Yes.
Brian Peterson: Very, very important. I’ve got several ones here, but I’ll just throw one in.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah. Aluminum foil.
Brian Peterson: Yeah. Just standard aluminum foil is wonderful to use, just wrapped around the phone cord as a more reflective reflector. So, a great thing to have. But this is something…
Charlie Fulton: Black wrap.
Brian Peterson: Black wrap. It releases black aluminum foil. And what this does, boy, this does just about everything. You can use it for smooths around the lights; you can use it for flags on top of cameras; you can use it to seal lighting and windows. This is very malleable. In fact, this one piece I’ve had for years.
I’m also very cheap, so I tend to reuse things, and it’s thick enough to reuse. You can poke holes in it, make a cookie out of it. It is really, really neat stuff. It’s not something you can pick up at a hardware store, you do have to go to a theatrical supply place to get a black wrap. This is called black wrap.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah.
Brian Peterson: Very, very useful.
Charlie Fulton: All right.
Brian Peterson: Next.
Charlie Fulton: The box of connectors.
Brian Peterson: Box of connectors?
Charlie Fulton: Yes.
Brian Peterson: You know, I just kind of added that in with my box of quarter threads, because I found this really works for almost everything. So, it will do deed.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah.
Brian Peterson: You don’t want to have too many of these things floating around because they’re heavy.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah. And if you get the big ones, they’re really load you down. Various clamps.
Brian Peterson: Oh, yeah. Clamps, clamps, can’t have enough clamps. This are the kind that you just get from the hardware store. You can even go down to little mini guys. Then the bickwick c47, or wooden clothes pins. This is something, I mean, I can’t tell you how many uses this thing is for. But everything, from barn door, clipping gels and diffusers on the barn doors, to, you’ve also got a little bit of a wrinkle here, Charlie.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah.
Brian Peterson: So, that works that way. Very, very helpful. Make sure you get the wooden ones rather than the plastic ones.
Charlie Fulton: Right. Very important.
Brian Peterson: Because they can melt if they’re close to a light source.
Charlie Fulton: Yes.
Brian Peterson: On top of the clamps, make sure you get a variety to just connect them up do dots. These come from a photo supply facility, art houses, again they all use a quarter inch thread, coarse thread, so having those coarse threads will help with that. They’re good for securing flags, even regular old C clamps.
I’ve used these mini C clamps many times. Just a variety in different situations. Mostly, it will fix a light that normally wouldn’t go.
Charlie Fulton: Absolutely. Yeah.
Brian Peterson: All right. Those are going in. What’s next?
Charlie Fulton: Let’s see. Extra AV cables. You know, various assortment. They’re handy. We’ve got XLR here.
Brian Peterson: Yeah. Always have at least one more than you think you’ll need. If you’re an audio guy, of course, you’ll probably have it with your audio stuff, not necessarily in this bag. But it’s always nice to have it. And if you kind of forget about it, one day you didn’t bring something, or you don’t have that extra in your audio kit, aah, I’ve got it in my grip kit.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah. And test those. Or you’ll regret it. Yeah, various pieces of cords, threads, fishing line even. Flashlights are good to have around.
Gaffer’s tape.
Brian Peterson: Oh yeah, couple flavors of gaffer’s tape.
Charlie Fulton: Good stuff.
Brian Peterson: You know the old standard which is the black tape. Again, it can be used in a variety different ways. It doesn’t leave the gummy stuff on what it’s on. So you can put it on walls gently, people’s clothes to secure the mikes, furniture. Good furniture. You do spend more, about $12 to $15 a role, but I also recommend people to look for this caution tape. It’s still gaffer tape, it secures lines on the floor, whether AC or audio or video lines.
One thing if you do use this. I use it like butter. I spread it on everything. But, when you pull cords up, a lot of people I’ve seen do this, but I’ve only seen do it once. They pull the cord and the tape at the same time.
Bad!
Pull the tape off first, put your foot on the cable and pull the tape off. Otherwise the tape wraps around cord, and you’ve got useless cords. Essentially.
So, don’t do that. Gaffer tape.
Charlie Fulton: If you’re on a budget, try a blue masking tape, that’s now out there. Works pretty good!
Brian Peterson: Yeah. And it’s cheaper, obviously.
Charlie Fulton: Yes. We already addressed the cables. I see you’ve got some gloves.
Brian Peterson: Got some gloves. Now, if you’re dealing with hot lights, obviously, getting gloves that are azbestus or a material that resists heat, it’s important, these aren’t that, but I found that I tend to use gloves when I’m rolling up dirty cable. I mean, cable is on the floor, and so often times, you usually need to, if you can’t wash your hands somewhere.
Charlie Fulton: Right.
Brian Peterson: And if you’re working closely with talent, that actually becomes important. So, using gloves is always a good idea.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah.
Brian Peterson: I’ve got gloves. Got more AC.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah. Various little clothes that look like a microfiber.
Brian Peterson: Yeah. Microfiber cloth, just wrap it up into rag. We’ve got a rag.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah, if you shop towels from your local store. They’re handy to have.
And, what you’ve got in the box there?
Brian Peterson: I’ve got us, this actually is a lens cleaning cloth, and lens cleaning stuff in here along with…
Charlie Fulton: Various cables and connectors.
Brian Peterson: A lot more connectors. This is a great little connector kit. You can do this much more organized, of course, like a fishing tackle box. But again, it’s too big. Just have something smaller in there. Lens, cloth, really important-
Charlie Fulton: Yeah.
Brian Peterson: Crasters in here as well. I’ll put it in here.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah. So, let’s see – pens, something to write with. Yeah, definitely.
Brian Peterson: I’ll just throw this in there. I better get pins to stick it in.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah. Bags – lunch bags, garbage bags, anything that will let you store stuff.
Brian Peterson: You know, garbage bags are great if you double bag them, and then stick them with like water, or sand, sandbags, they really work well.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah. And then, yeah, nylon ties.
Brian Peterson: This multipurpose screwdriver is great. It’s like any other of those multipurpose kinds, but has a lot of different connections on it.
And then lastly, you’re always short powered. So, make sure you bring along the parastrip.
Okay, that’s the grip kit. Let’s move on real briefly with what’s on the motherboard.
Charlie Fulton: All right, so we did an article in the August issue about building your computer. And we’ve been talked a lot about what to do if something goes wrong. If you’re computer can’t address something inside a… go into your bias setting. Usually hit Delete when you’re first booting the computer, and you’ll get an option, Load Fail Safe Mode. Try that.
And that will usually get you to the Windows. At least at a very bare, minimum, and then, if you want to do additional tweaks, you can do that later.
Brian Peterson: So, if you’re at all worried about putting your own system together, this is like that, fail safe, bare bones, gets you in the door where you can do some further tweaking. So…
Charlie Fulton: Absolutely.
Brian Peterson: That’s good, I didn’t know that, I wish I did.
Charlie Fulton: Yeah.
Brian Peterson: Many times.
Charlie Fulton: Handy tip.
Brian Peterson: All right.
That’s it for Tips and Techniques, we’ll see you next week.