ChrisConnelly

the head on a newer-style Matthews arm is completely removable, it's just bolted to the arm with a 3/8x16 bolt with a 5/32 allen head. the bolt is threaded exactly the same as the lockdown t-handle and goes in the same hole as on a separate grip head

As far as the CDL thing goes, it's determined entirely by weight. If you're planning on operating a single vehicle in excess of 26,000 lbs or a trailer in excess of 5,000 lbs you need a class B, a trailer in excess of 10,000 lbs requires a class A. Air brakes are a whole separate endorsement on top of the CDL. One of the main things I would consider if building a grip truck would be to figure out how much gear I was planning on keeping on wheels (i.e. what type of taco carts/flag boxes/etc i was planning on putting in the truck) and how much would live on shelves (rags, lumber, frames, etc). If I remember correctly most of those car trailers are pretty low to the ground so I'm not sure if you'd be able to install jockey boxes or not, so I guess you'd have to consider storage space for sandbags and cable too. JD Hartman's idea of a winch is indeed a good one, I used to work with a grip van that used a similar system and it wasn't too shabby at all, made getting heavy stuff up the ramp way easier.

As far as the east coast places mentioned above, Ron Sal is no longer around and Mutual is just a dealer for Backstage. Hollywood Racks and Carts has some pretty awesome stuff

"Quaker clamp" is used fairly commonly here in Philly

A happy head is a newer style Matthews grip head. Here A cardellini is a versatile clamp with two angled jaws that can grip many objects such as pipe, lumber, etc. Here

Lanternlocks work very well, much stronger than the flimsy bails that come with Chinese lanterns in the package. The power cord could stand to be longer, but otherwise they are great.

Maybe your key did the best he could with the gear that was available, but a C-boom or menace arm would have been easier and wouldn't have resulted in a broken c-stand and a bunch of bent arms. Just curious, with the way it is bent like that, were you even able to fully lower the top riser of that stand when the rig was wrapped?

Just to note that a brand new HMI bulb will have to be corrected as well, as they burn too blue at the beginning of their "life", closer to 6000-6500K.

Thanks for responding, this is kind of how I interpreted what I was told.

I know one reason is that in the case of an electrical storm, if the generator is earth grounded, it acts as a magnet for lightning. Lightning near exposed electrical cables (i.e. feeder cables on a film set) travels through the cable and the damp ground, affecting a larger area. That's what I've been told by a couple of genny ops in my area anyway.

I remember reading an article in ICG awhile back that interviewed some of the DP's who shot the various CSI's and from what I can remember, their methods were almost exactly as described in the post above. Soft key, no fill, very hard and colored backlights/kickers, with a lot of color work done in post. I do recall that the producers consider the hard backlight the main ingredient of the "look" of CSI, and it is used 99% of the time, even if unmotivated in the scene.

A "set" of rags often consists of a solid, griff, single and double nets, and a silk. Grid and light grid is a type of diffusion, they give a nicer quality of diffusion than a silk.

If you're in the eastern half of PA, Location Lighting is the place to go. www.locationlighting.com

My apologies, I didn't realize there was any confusion. I kept typing OD when I meant ID. :lol: Speedrail is always referred to by it's inside diameter, and 1.25 and 1.5 are the only types I've ever come across for rigging in the film industry, at least on the east coast. In my experience steel has been more used for a truss or grid rigging, or as the vertical supports in a goal post/christmas tree type application as you mentioned.

Philly is indeed very pro-union, but there is a substantial nonunion work force in the local film industry here. A small two day shoot could easily be done here. As Mr. Mullen stated you'll probably have SAG actors, but you'd need to be doing something fairly large scale for more than two days to pique the interest of IA or the Teamsters. If you are still looking for a DP, etc. I would recommend checking out the Philadelphia Production Guide, you can see it online or get a copy of it at www.film.org.