Spotted in the wild!

[Phil Rhodes]

Well, not quite in the wild, but Freya and I found one at a trade show.

 

 

There was another one nearby!

[Stuart Brereton]

Probably part of a breeding program.

[Gregg MacPherson]

If you and Freya had even a neutral attitude on what's possible, you might find some old C-stands about to be thrown into a skip, or rusting away in some chaps garage. Changing that attitude will be much harder than finding some old C-stands.

[Robin R Probyn]

Look Im sorry.. but just this one photo means nothing.. it could very easily be a fake .. or a D stand making out to be a C..

 

I have to agree with Gregg here... you are only interested in the shiny stands.. without any thoughts for the those old and stained ones left discarded in garden sheds the length and breadth of our great Island..

 

Rise up old C stands.. take your rightful place in lighting trucks through out the land.. never have so few stands,worked on so few sets.. with such scant disregard..

 

Rise up I say.. with Pinewood,Elstree,and Ealing reflected in your lustrous chrome plate..

Edited February 24, 2016 by Robin R Probyn

[Satsuki Murashige]

Lol, well ok then. I'll bet the poor fellow manning the booth was very confused by you two!

[Phil Rhodes]

I hate to puncture such an otherwise enjoyable air of joviality, but it is sadly the case that I have never seen a used stand for sale in the UK - not once, not ever. And one wouldn't necessarily expect to - it's not like they go bad. I'm lucky to have access to a couple of Mole junior rolling stands that date back to the 1960s and they look and work almost identically to the ones currently to be seen in Mole's catalogue.

If I were to buy C-stands, I'd have very little option but to get the Chinese ones. Sadly, something tells me they probably won't still be going at the start of year 50.

P

[Robin R Probyn]

I dont think many people buy there own C stands.. maybe one for a Kino or a mic stand.. they are really heavy (yes I know thats the point).. and rarely used on anything other than shoots that have a fair amount of lights and so a call for them.. they are all rental,s and last for ever.. not really the sort of item thats going to be sold second hand individually ..

[Adrian Sierkowski]

What about sneaking back some short C-stands next time you're in country in checked baggage.

[Satsuki Murashige]

There's really no one selling them at the trade show?

[Robin R Probyn]

It was just for Americans I believe .. often happens in the UK..

[Freya Black]

If you and Freya had even a neutral attitude on what's possible, you might find some old C-stands about to be thrown into a skip, or rusting away in some chaps garage. Changing that attitude will be much harder than finding some old C-stands.

 

You think too small Gregg. I'm working hard to focus my energies on manifesting a brand new shiny C-stand like the one in the photo. I'm tired of pulling old red accessories out of skips and making them usable in the local machine shop. It's time some new stands came my way!

 

Because.... I'm worth it! :)

[Freya Black]

Well, not quite in the wild, but Freya and I found one at a trade show.

 

There was another one nearby!

 

Rocking a great look here.

Another photo in which I look completely insane.

It's the harsh glare of the chrome of the c-stand.

[Phil Rhodes]

 

 

I dont think many people buy there own C stands

 

Well, not ideally, no. But at the cheaper end of things, if I want to have any available, I'm just going to have to go and buy them.

 

And Freya, how can you say that - you look positively ravishing!

[JD Hartman]

Remind everyone here....you haven't asked the American consulate in London for asylum because? Or just legally emigrate to Canada (was told that's easy for a Brit) and then come to the USA, the land of plenty (of C-stands)?

[Phil Rhodes]

 

 

Canada (was told that's easy for a Brit

 

It's not.

 

The only place we get easy emigration to is the rest of the european union, and since they all speak our language and we don't speak every single one of theirs, that tends to be a very one-way street.

[John Holland]

Was this at the BVE show at Excel ?

[Phil Rhodes]

It was.

[Gregg MacPherson]

.... it's not like they go bad.....

All joking aside, they do/can. The crome plated ones can go rusty (surface rust). Rust through crome is hard to fix in a way that's presentable. The galvanized ones can also go rusty, but it's a bit easier to fix, then paint. The steel tube on the gobo arm can have the same problem.

 

Some mechanical maintenance or parts replacement can be needed for the feet, spring gizmo. Rental firms may do theirs, private owners probably don't (guessing)

 

If they are too rough looking or the owner doesn't want to fix them they will move downstream.

 

NZ is maybe a bit like the UK, you very rarely see used C-stands for sale. We have a good local online market called Trademe. A year ago a chap selling some (wait for it) Mole Richardson fresnels mentioned he had some other old gear. He had four old Mathews C-stands with arms with patches of surface rust through the galvanised, caused by coca cola splashes (he said) that had not been cleaned. wanted NZD600 (300pound, USD400). Then about three months ago four C-stands with arms sold on Trademe for NZD400.

 

Another fun anecdote. About three years ago a stack of C-stands shipped from Auckland to a shoot in "the islands" and got splashed with sea water, all went surface rusty. Unrentable.

 

Another (drum roll) MR fresnel anecdote. Very rarely seen for sale here. A few days ago, four 650s with barn doors, scrims and stands sold for NZD250 on trademe. Needing a careful check for the wiring, switches and needing new leads.

 

EDIT: removed some wierd code fragment near the quote...?

Edited February 24, 2016 by Gregg MacPherson

[JD Hartman]

 

It's not.

 

The only place we get easy emigration to is the rest of the european union, and since they all speak our language and we don't speak every single one of theirs, that tends to be a very one-way street.

 

Guess all the Brits I've worked with were F.O.S. They're green card holders now and some of them had their parents emigrate to Canada.

 

Point being for all of your whining, what are you doing about it?

Edited February 25, 2016 by JD Hartman

[Phil Rhodes]

What would you expect me to do about it?

 

A lot of people fall into a rather unfortunate trap inasmuch as the UK was, of course, a colonial power. Ancestry visas tend therefore to also be a fairly one-way proposition, with very few UK residents having family in ex-colonial parts of the world, whereas the opposite is very common. Add to this the issue that English is by far the world's most popular second language and it becomes clear that the free movement of people around the european union is almost entirely unhelpful. In essence we're more or less imprisoned here, which is fine if you want to work serving food, beer or coffee, but offers very few other opportunities.

 

What particularly alarms me is the way this is likely to play out for current youth: my generation may be the last one to have any realistic chance of doing something interesting for a living. People who are leaving education now, in the UK, can expect to see the country slowly spiral further and further down the drain; they really have very, very limited prospects. By the time current 18-year-olds retire, I would expect this country to offer more or less the same standard of living as the soviet union, circa 1975. But I digress.

 

Anyway, the immigration rules for Canada are the same for UK citizens are they are for everyone else. There are extremely restrictive rules about exactly what sort of work an applicant is qualified to do and none of them have anything to do with film or television (would you really expect otherwise). Unless you happen to have married a Canadian, again, there is no way - which honestly is completely fair. I've never had a problem with this sort of thing and I wish the UK would implement something similar. It's not wrong, it's just inconvenient.

 

P

[Michael LaVoie]

 

Rise up old C stands.. take your rightful place in lighting trucks through out the land.. never have so few stands,worked on so few sets.. with such scant disregard..

 

 

Agreed! I've bought plenty of used C-stands. Granted, I always replace the gobo head and grip arm with bright shiny new ones but that's beside the point. Haha. The stand itself is usually in pretty good shape. Even then, if the legs suck, just get a new turtle stand for it.

 

Once I found three 40" triple riser Matthews C-stands. Bought them from a stills photographer. I've never seen the like since. But man they were awesome. I think he had them custom made. The gobo grip heads and arms were actually working too.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Michael LaVoie

[Brian Drysdale]

These people in Manchester seems to have been using them enough for a review.

 

[JD Hartman]

He says "heavy duty" one too many times. Looks just like the cheap POS that is sold under the Amvona label.

[Gregg MacPherson]

I wonder how well the cast fittings for the feet (turtle stand) will last. Old Matthews are welded at that joint, sort of indestructable.

[Phil Rhodes]

My combos (chinese, too) don't look like there's anything atrociously wrong with them. The clamping mechanism on the baby pin is a bit primitive, but otherwise I've no complaints. They are nearly new, though.

 

 

 

P