Does the World Really Need Another C-Stand?

Peter C. said:
My Impact c stands came in today. These are the rocky mountain leg variety. Got one black and the other chrome.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/853472-REG/Impact_ls_cs40mk_40_C_Stand_with_Sliding.html
Few of my observations:
Overall I'm happy. Only thing I didn't like, one of the legs on the black one has a little play in it. Nothing structurally wrong and it will still works.
Opening/closing the legs more tricky due to the rocky mtn leg.
They won't fit in my trunk I'll have to fold down the back seats. I can see the benefit of turtle based legs.
In comparison to the Matthews they're not as solid again nothing you would notice unless you've used a Matthews before.

One question I noticed that they're not easy to set down or store. If you try to lean them up against the wall they'll fall over.
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Yep. Most grips will only work with C-stands off of a C-stand cart or off the ground before they are built.
Most grips just build them as soon as they come off the truck and are moved onto set.

One of my favorite things is asking a producer on small shoots or an inexperienced PA to assemble a C-stand,
it's amazing value for your entertainment dollar. C-stands are like a puzzle if if nobody has shown you the proper
way to assemble and break one down. Same with my 4x6 foldup Westcott green screen. I've told various crew members
that I will give them a $20 dollar bill if they can get it folded back into a circle and into the circular bag that it came in without
bending or mutlilating it. Have not paid out once yet, but I have had some AMAZING belly laughs, esepcially at producers who
are watching me and the crew break everything down and put it away and they ask, "Is there anything I can do to help?".

There is only one way to do it and if you don't know how, it's impossible. Nobody showed me, I figured it out after the first gig
I bought it for.
 
Almost all of my C-stands are turtle base, so that they can pack-up for transport. You can fit four 40" TB C-stands and arms in a Pelican 1750 gun case(Five if you wanna push it). We affectionately call it "The Widow Maker".

I usually don't let producers pack, but I will let them carry.

Some of the fold-up/collapsible reflector type stuff can do some damage if someone lets it "pop"(open/unfold uncontrollably), especially when it's new and is still very springy. Even the tiny little collapsible landing pad I have for my drone is like a little bomb going off when ever you open it. I usually just throw it towards where I'm gonna use it and let it open by itself. I probably have the same, or similar, fold-up green screen that has a "tail" and it's damn near impossible to fold-up if you don't do it often. And I don't think I've ever used it on a shoot. The last time I took it out was to make sure it wasn't damaged, because the cover had a hole in it. Took a while to re-pack...
 
Yeah, I do it more for amusement. I rarely let a lot of people pack my personal gear because I have hundreds of little pieces on set on a given shoot. I usually just tell my PAs and grip/gaffers to make piles of the lights, pieces, accessories, cables around the cases in the ground and then I pack them up because I need
to check off my mental check list to make sure that all of the pieces made it back to the case. The new Intellytech dual Light Cannon kit I bought from the marketplace last week from RED Epic Guy is a good example. That kit probably has 40-50 pieces in it and someone who just
set it up for the first time is never going to know all of the parts and pieces and where they go in the case and if they are there when we pack up and load out.

It's different when it's rental gear, then I expect crew to be able to unpack, keep track of and pack back up cases. But it seems as if I own a lot of gear with a lot of litte parts and pieces, it's kind of annoying. I find the new generation of lights
like my Falcon Eyes RT-18, this new little Intellytech kit have waaaay too many parts and pieces, they can be hard to keep track of on sets. With the live streaming, we are doing a lot of 4-5 camera shoots, it takes me quite a while to just pack
away five cameras, making sure that I pack up all of the AC adapter pieces, lens caps, BNC Cables, etc.

I always joke that about 60% of my job as DP is just making sure that I bring to set and bring home all of the hundreds of items we use. Nice to have good ACs who handle all of that
but in my space, I only get ACs about 3-4 times per year. The rest it's mostly on me.

My green screen is a Westcott, it folds up to about the size of a Hula Hoop so it's loose and floppy, not tight and wound like a drum where it could do damage.
 
I used to catch hell from one of my buddies, because in the lid of each gear case was a laminated 8.5"x11" card with the contents of the case and a picture of it packed to show where everything went. Some of my guys that worked with me all the time knew how the cases were supposed to be packed and some people would just put the gear next to the cases and I'd pack them.

The occasional times that I do end up on shoots where I'm just operating, I always feel like an a$$hole just walking away when it's over. I was just operating on a shoot last year and at the end of the night I looked at my AC and asked what I needed to do and he said, "Go home". And one of my buddies did a day on a reality show last fall and said it was kind of the same way. Right before they'd start to shoot a scene, the AC would hand him the camera and when they were done they were standing there to take it back. It's just so different when you've spent most of your career doing everything yourself or just a few of you doing everything, you feel like you're being lazy.

Yeah, the fold-up green screen is very floppy.
 
Run&Gun said:
I used to catch hell from one of my buddies, because in the lid of each gear case was a laminated 8.5"x11" card with the contents of the case and a picture of it packed to show where everything went. Some of my guys that worked with me all the time knew how the cases were supposed to be packed and some people would just put the gear next to the cases and I'd pack them.

The occasional times that I do end up on shoots where I'm just operating, I always feel like an a$$hole just walking away when it's over. I was just operating on a shoot last year and at the end of the night I looked at my AC and asked what I needed to do and he said, "Go home". And one of my buddies did a day on a reality show last fall and said it was kind of the same way. Right before they'd start to shoot a scene, the AC would hand him the camera and when they were done they were standing there to take it back. It's just so different when you've spent most of your career doing everything yourself or just a few of you doing everything, you feel like you're being lazy.

Yeah, the fold-up green screen is very floppy.
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I like that idea with a laminated index cards. In my Sachtler Dr. Case, I have a bunch of those canvas smaller bags for parts. I put a heavy duty hang tag with my business card in it hanging off of each bag and I used my P-Touch to make labels that
list the contents of each bag. I have to say though that inevitably, things have become sloppy and I no longer have all of the exact items in the exact bags, it's just difficult because stuff gets mixed up when I am customizing what to bring on a given
shoot as I don't need my cine baseplate bag with rods for every shoot, but I might need one part or piece out of that bag for a particular shoot or build.

The index cards on the interior or hang tags sound like the ticket though for light cases that contain dozens of parts. Same with my newly acquired Godox VL300, there are a lot of individual parts in that case. If you wanted to go full anal retentive
how about a laminated card with all components itemized and listed with counts, descriptions, and an image of the interior of the bag or case perfectly packed? A lot of these cases only pack one way to fit everything in perfectly, the way it came from the factory.
Those Jason cases for cameras are extremely space inefficient but I really dig how there is a custom shaped compartment for everything that goes with the camera. A lot of cameras rentals come in the Jasons now and they are convenient for packing.

I have one of those Kata wheeled semi rigid cases, about the same size as the silver Arri Softbank wheeled case that we all know and love. I've been toying with the idea of taking my VL300 out of it's case and when I acquire two more VL150s, making that wheeled case my modern Arri kit that
contains the VL300 and the two VL 150s and all of the accessories. More efficient to wheel in one case with three light kits in it, than to carry in three separate cases but I don't think it will fit into the trunk of my little car very well with my Storm case for my
two Aputure Lightstorm panels and my roller duffle that carries my kit stands. I miss having a truck sometimes, it was nice to just throw a ton of gear into the truck bed.
 
puredrifting said:
If you wanted to go full anal retentive
how about a laminated card with all components itemized and listed with counts... and an image of the interior of the bag or case perfectly packed? A lot of these cases only pack one way to fit everything in perfectly...
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That’s exactly what mine are.

They are your standard sized piece of printer/copier paper(8.5x11) in landscape orientation with the case name top center(ex: Light Case #1), then on the left side the items listed in a column(ex: 1x Source Four, 2x ARRI 650’s, 1x ARRI 300, etc.) and then on the right a roughly 3/4 overhead view of the contents in their place in the case as they should be right before you shut the lid.
 
Run&Gun said:
That’s exactly what mine are.

They are your standard sized piece of printer/copier paper(8.5x11) in landscape orientation with the case name top center(ex: Light Case #1), then on the left side the items listed in a column(ex: 1x Source Four, 2x ARRI 650’s, 1x ARRI 300, etc.) and then on the right a roughly 3/4 overhead view of the contents in their place in the case as they should be right before you shut the lid.
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Love it. I need to get off of my lazy ass and make that happen with my gear. Do you list all accessories also like scrim bags, barndoors, little pieces that go with each piece of gear in the case?
 
No to obvious things like barn doors, but yes to things like Chimeras, Speedrings, A/C cords, spare lamps and I'll put something like "Misc.: C-47's, Assorted Gels, Black Wrap, etc". But really, you can get as granular as you want.

I can't find a copy of them on my computer right now, but if I do I'll post a sample.
 
I always did the laminated photo as well, but taped it to the inside of the lid for removable foamed lids such as Pelicans. Other cases had laminated sheets with card stock for rigidity stored in the case. I cut my own foam to precisely fit the gear so it would be very easy to see if an item was missing at a glance. I then labeled each spot in the case so it was completely clear what went in each space. Labels were on the bottom in each space so if the item wasn't there you knew what was missing, but when everything was loaded up there wasn't a clutter of labels visible. The laminated photos also had labels indicating what each item was in the case.

As insanely anal-retentive as this all sounds, it really didn't take me that long to do and it saved me immense amounts of time on set. My ACs also noted that it made them more comfortable because they knew I wouldn't be hovering over them to make sure everything was packed properly. Plus I tried as much as possible to pack everything in the cases configured how I would most commonly use them, so it made for a faster setup & breakdown. While packing this way could take up a little more space, if one is efficient and properly packing gear anyway then it shouldn't really make much of a difference. In addition to all the L&G and other stuff, I had an Aaton S-16 kit that was something like 13 cases, and if I had squeezed I maybe could have eliminated one. If I needed to travel light as a doc kit rather than feature style, the same kit was just four cases.

BTW, flexfill & greenscreen backdrops are easy once you know the trick. Grab opposite side, one hand facing forward one facing back, and start twisting.

How do you drive a DP insane? Lock them in a room with a c-stand.
 
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