How do you do it? Air travel and C-stands?

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
Hi all:

Let's say you are travelling overseas. You need to bring a minimum of 10 C-stands for your shoot, you will be going to some very remote areas in small obscure countries. Are there such a thing as "travel C-stands" that are smaller and lighter than the regular steel/aluminum ones we all use?

Does Avenger/Manfrotto make detachable base, aluminum C-stands? Has anyone used them? Trying to figure out a way to fly with a small grip/lighting package, enough to shoot a two camera tv pilot. The lights, grip stuff, I am cool with, I am narrowing down my existing mountain of gear and consolidating. Sandbags are easy, just bring empty ones and fill on location. But C-stands are the essence of life and I cannot figure out the best, easiest solution.

In cities and most industrialized countries, easy, just rent them. But what about remote areas in Egypt, Bali, Tahiti, Africa, etc.?

Thanks for the advice,

Dan
 
Do your research and find the closest rental company. You never know. If not, I'd say just ship them. It's going to be expensive, but that's what its going to take. I don't know about avenger/manfrotto. I'd just go for the matthews C+ stands (the ones with the removable turtle bases). You may be able to cut down on the amount of c-stands by just using some lighter aluminum stands and putting the matthews grip heads and arms on them.
 
We use a large heavy-plastic tripod case for the grip stuff. I can usually get 3 c-stands in there. These are the c-stands that break apart by the way--feet come off and go in first, heads come off, and the main pole goes in. I can also get at least one mathews stand and a few stingers. Watch your weight limits.

Looks like this...sorta:
<http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=67240&is=REG&addedTroughType=search>

Jeff Patnaude
 
imgentertainment@mac said:
Fedex intertational is the only way to go.
Click to expand...
Well.... Maybe. I've travelled extensively in the Middle East and Africa and the one thing I have noticed is that you can send an receive almost anything, anywhere on earth using DHL. They were doing it before FedEx was a gleam in Fred Smith's eye. It took them a while to establish a presence here in the U.S., but here they are now.

http://www.dhl-usa.com/home/Home.asp

No, I have no financial connection with the company.
 
I've shipped literally tons of stuff all over the world including the remotest of locations in the High Arctic where access was only by Twin Otter. Figure out what you really want and send it there. No compromises required.
 
I hear ya guys but this sort of rules out the following scenario. We wake up in a small hotel in Thailand and decide to go to Phuket to shoot some scenes with talent. We have small rental cars that we can break down stuff and distribute it evenly. We really need something smaller and lighter than what we use here, perhaps sort of a "3/4 size" unit made of aluminum with the detachable base. If these extended 80% as high and far as regular C-stands, I think they would be very useful and would sell.

Sort of along the lines of smaller, lighter grip gear, just like smaller lights and smaller audio gear have become popular, especially for international travel. You can get small sandbags, you can use small lights with the new generation of HD/HDV camcorders and still get VERY professional results so why am I stuck with relatively huge and heavy C-Stands for travel? Yes, they are great, reliable, work well and are a known commodity. I have a couple of "Gary Colemans" with the 20" arms instead of the 40s but they are still steel and still have the big base and are still relatively heavy so those aren't the solution. Too much weight and too little vertical reach.

Hmm...maybe there is a market here? Maybe I will have some conversations with Matthews, Norms and American as they are all within 15 minutes of our office. Yeah, that's the ticket, a smaller, relatively light aluminum C-stand with a detachable base and perhaps a 30" arm? What do you guys think, would crews who travel small and light want these? I know I would.

Dan
 
Then I have to ask, what's wrong with regular, fold-up, aluminum, light stands, since portability is your driving parameter? Matthews, Avenger and a bunch of others make them. They would certainly be as stable as the slimed-down aluminum C-stands that you are suggesting. Here's one from Avenger. 12.3' open; 43.3" closed; 42" footprint, and 5.1 Lbs in dead load - that's only 51 Lbs for 10 stands. Am I missing something?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=204453&is=REG&addedTroughType=search
 
Avenger makes a mini-base C-stand. It's about 4 pounds lighter and has a smaller footprint. I think they're equally as long though. I've never used one personally...

What's I've done plenty of times is just use the grip arm and head portion of the c-stand on regular kit stands. As great as the leg design is on c-stands the heart of it is in in the arm and head. You can even get Matthew's mini-grip kit and have something even more portable.
 
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