Meet The Gaffer #4 - Intro to C-stands

[@life_Of_Bowie]

I just got my mind blown. Before watching this I thought I knew a lot about using a C-Stand and got schooled. This is fantastic. Best C Stand video I've seen since beggining my career 7 years ago. So excited to go through the series.

[@meetthegaffer]

Welcome, Matthew!

[@clurkroberts2650]

7 years?

[@meetthegaffer]

It just depends how you get into this line of work. If your mentors are not adept at using certain tools, you may not learn good habits from the get go. In larger markets you get mentored or browbeaten in doing things correctly, but that’s not a given in other places. One person’s “super obvious” is another person’s “I never knew!”:)

[@thebluetesla3391]

Thank you Luke for the fabulous intro.

[@TranscendMediaProduction]

“There ya go, works GREAT!” 😂 lol God I busted up laughing when you said that haha

[@meetthegaffer]

Glad you enjoyed that🤣

[@jasonchua817]

Just wanted to thank you for your incredible videos Luke! Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience!

[@meetthegaffer]

You are most welcome, Jason! Thank you for saying hello.

[@MARVScrew]

Thanks so much for making these Luke! Great insights and you're doing a great job with the explaining! No robot-like talking with missing information and no overflow of information and unnecessary blabla :) Keep it up and thanks again for your efforts!!

[@meetthegaffer]

MARVScrew, thank you for the kind words and for watching! Happy New Year too:-)

[@jeffcaroli4759]

Glad you said something about guys the pull the arms out and put them on the floor. It drives me crazy too.

[@PunkDuckVideo]

Awesome video, thank you. One of the best tips I was ever given by a Panalux grip here in the UK: "Righty tighty, lefty loosey". Stuck with me from day one and I always remember to set up my C stands properly :-)

[@meetthegaffer]

Good on you! Simple basics stick best:)

[@TinyDiodes]

Wow, I already learned something universal here. I am currently using Boom Arm Mic Stands and working my way up starting with what I have on hand, and I just noticed, they have all been constructed with the tightener on the left. I will disassemble them and reassemble them so they are on the right.

[@josephfriedman614]

I've had this running "discussion" between a sound man I often work with and myself about how to sandbag a C stand when you have a large Chimera Pancake soft light suspended from a boom arm. I maintain that, in addition to counterweighting the boom arm with a 20 lb bag, you should also add a 20 lb sandbag onto the raised third leg positioned on the OPPOSITE side of the heavy load. Just seems logical to me re: physics.

[@meetthegaffer]

I get why you want to do that, but the other part of that equation is that without the sandbag your structure is very weak underneath the load and will go over. I think you want to fulfill the first issue first, which is build the best structure if there were no sandbags available, and then deal with offsetting the leverage with weight.

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

YAY !!! First video I've seen in ages for C-stands that Actually has the first shotbag go where it belongs! Achemedes said 'Give me a long enough level and I can move the world' The mass of the shotbag should always oppose the lever of the load expressed through the stand.

[@HackingHollywood]

PiDsMedia i was taught the first bag goes on the large weight under the load... it sounds like y’all would know better but I’d like to fully understand the difference between weighting the middle leg and the largest leg if you don’t mind explaining.

[@meetthegaffer]

My thinking is it makes more sense in terms of counterweight, but there are other factors to keep in mind. Some c-stands have legs that are not that high off the ground, in which case a larger sandbag might flop mostly on the ground rather then be suspended on the leg and therefore not do as good a job as it would if placed on a higher leg. In this case, putting the bag on the high leg first makes more sense:) I’m using shot bags, and my American spring loaded stands have a high enough middle leg, so it works well for me and follows the counterweight principle. Hope that makes sense.

[@delanoforbes]

Hey Luke .... Want to thank you for sharing all these videos ... They are very insightful !!!

[@meetthegaffer]

Delano Forbes, you are most welcome!

[@benrickard5092]

Another thing would be the other end of the arm. It can inverted and used for things that clamp down on baby pins.

[@hdrstratcommsaa7645]

loving your channel. also i dont think ive ever seen a video with zero dislikes. bravo!

[@meetthegaffer]

As a friend says, “You can always offer a full refund!” I’m glad you find it useful and appreciate the kind words.

[@AlfredNew]

Really helpful.

[@XavierPil]

Man I love your videos!

[@meetthegaffer]

Thank you for the positive reinforcement!

[@TheRickurb]

Great series Luke! PS: like the flower pots

[@meetthegaffer]

+Rick Urbanowski, Ha, ha! Thanks... I'm afraid I can't take credit for any gardening, only blame:-)

[@benbo101]

Loved the video, thanks for posting! Can I ask you if you know if there is much difference in quality between American and Matthews stands? I've used both, and get on with both pretty well. Also like the crack at the end regarding finding lost C-stand arms, I hear you!

[@janbarnabas2473]

That's a very informative video :) Thanks!

[@meetthegaffer]

You are very welcome, Jan! I hope you find a few more episodes helpful:)

[@ROBLOXowns]

All the C-stands I work with are really tough, so I have to flip them on the head to open/close the legs with all my upper body strength.

[@meetthegaffer]

Sorry to hear that! All the best.

[@xx1simon1xx]

some form of grease, even just wd40, helps. take some time to service your equipment, it just saves so much time and nerves on set!

[@vombrackmultimedia]

This is great! Sent here by Nathan Bush

[@meetthegaffer]

Welcome, Nick!

[@nykolaszollbrecht7671]

What sand bag brand do you use? They look wonderful and thanks for the content!

[@meetthegaffer]

My shot bags are from American Grip.

[@FergVision]

Audio Guy walks up and takes out a C stand arm, Luke: "Like, what? Leave it in man!". I find this funny because I do a ton of medium and close shots and normally just use a standard c-stand arm as my mic boom or leave it in and add an extension like you said, kinda baffling why they wouldn't use the free extra arm there to help position their shit.

[@meetthegaffer]

Ha, ha!

[@camero1972]

Pretty Cool! Thanks for the video.

[@bryanalcantarfilms]

Great advice Mr. Seerveld!

[@panaruss]

Nice. I noticed you never brought the arms so low in the gobo head that the knobs interfered with each other, but didn't mention it. And you left them in the righty-tighty mode so they would be easy to grab, go and set. You want a pet peeve? Guys who drop the arm as far as possible and flip it to the other side, then tighten the crap out of it so you look like an idiot when you have to wrestle it into submission on the set in front of everyone. It also guarantees a newbe set C-stand will be dangerous (like they need help). I like to use an allen wrench to move the knuckles to the left of the tall leg. Also, most of my sand bags would be resting on the ground on the middle leg, so using the tall leg means all the bag's weight is in play. I think Gaffers dream of the day they will never again have to set a C-stand, but that day never seems to come. Thanks for doing these, they make great teaching tools.

[@chantalbernard]

Thank. You. For this video!!

[@meetthegaffer]

You are very welcome:) Good luck out there!

[@m.colechilton16]

You'd be the best film school lecturer.

[@meetthegaffer]

Ha, ha... I need a some work in that department. I try to share everything at once!

[@ultrabounce]

generally almost every spark/grip here in the austrian filmindustry uses the goboarms just when they are really necessary.but hey different country different habits

[@meetthegaffer]

I have heard that about other Euro countries too:)

[@meetthegaffer]

I would say that these days there is not much diff btwn American, Matthews, Norms, and Modern, but my personal preference is American. I do have other stands and grip hardware from the other manufacturers, but as far as C-stands go I stick with Am'n:-)

[@benbo101]

Good to know, thanks Luke.

[@gregthompson8062]

Modern Studio has stainless steal stands. Still very good but not having to worry about the chrome chipping away over time is a good thing. Although Matthews and American are still super solid. I own Modern, Avenger and Matthews. As a side note Avenger used metric and American and Matthews use imperial if I'm not mistaken but correct me if i'm wrong. Anyways Luke you have some of the best content on the web. Great vids and keep them coming.

[@meetthegaffer]

Thank you for that info, Greg. I didn’t actually know that about Modern’s C-stands. I knew they make other stainless stands... Arri used to make stands too, but I think Avenger took over that line? And of course Mole Richardson used to make, and may still make, their own version of Century stands:) There are more variants, of course, and we all get comfortable with certain brands... Thank you for adding to the conversation. Cheers.

[@bozzy9887]

Righty Tighty Lefty Loosey

[@meetthegaffer]

:)

[@Fuz3j]

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about

[@meetthegaffer]

Very true... we await your words of wisdom.

[@Fuz3j]

@@meetthegaffer from the mouth of babes... Idk if ready hear wisdom. You seem like the type to have cotton in between his ears. I'll leave you with this kzbin.info/www/bejne/aoKXXqWBh9GUqKs

[@meetthegaffer]

He prefers to put the high leg opposite the weight. It seems to make sense, but it’s actually not a wise move in most cases. A set C-stand should be as stable as possible before you put a bag on it. I would go with safety and physics before imaginary sight lines... but maybe that’s because of all the cotton between my ears. Best of luck out there!

[@danielgreene89]

@@Fuz3j That video you shared is more geared towards studio photography use of a C-stand, where the load is straight along the vertical axis of the stands riser. In that case, yes you could point the legs in any direction, since the load is not cantilevered out over one side. Also, the reason that video you shared recommends pointing the big leg away from the set is so that the legs have a better chance of staying out of the cameras field of view. However, most C-stand use is in video production, with loads cantilevered away from the stands riser using the gobo arm - in this case, the load should ALWAYS be placed over the big leg, as @Luke Seerveld points out in this video. This is the safest method and is what all grips are trained to do. I've seen them fall over many times when this principle is not followed on a film set.

[@roryonabike5863]

I'd suggest that you watch this video by still photographer Seth Miranda, who is involved in Adorama training videos. He agrees with Seerveld, and has no patience for KZbin videos like the one that you linked: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oJyzkHyvhrZ7rc0