A hoodman, a cover that provides shade over a screen, is necessary on the brightest of days to see a monitor. While many production monitors come with them, they’re harder to find for small camera monitors such as the RED LCD. Luckily, with a bit of gaff tape and cardboard a hoodman can be whipped up quick enough and be portable enough to save for other occasions. This may be the easiest tutorial I ever provide, but nonetheless, instructions after the jump…

What you need:

- Cardboard
- Gaff or Duct Tape
- Velcro

Step 1 – Cut the cardboard

The easiest way to do this is to cut a strip of cardboard to the amount of DEPTH you want your hoodman to provide. That is, how far do you want it to stick out from the screen? Mine probably goes about 3 inches or so, but it’s all preference. Once you have that done, simply hold the cardboard up to each side of your monitor and cut a piece that size. At the end of this step you should have 4 pieces.

Step 2 – Tape the pieces together

Pretty self-explanatory – simply tape the pieces together to create a rectangular shape. Tape them on the inside of the corners as well as the outside. For good effect, tape the entire thing with black gaff tape to have a black hoodman. They look better than straight brown cardboard ones.

Step 3 – Add the velcro

Cut some velcro very thin and fold it over each edge of the cardboard (like above) on the side you want to attach to the monitor. Then using the opposite Velcro side (i.e. I recommend soft side on camera, rough side on anything attaching to it) attach Velcro to the monitor (like below).

The finished product:

My homemade hoodman before I blacked it out with gaff tape

That’s it you’re done! A cheap, simple solution to a hoodman if you ever need one and don’t have one and have some extra time on set.

(Although, an even cheaper solution: a t-shirt. I always wear an undershirt partly because if you ever can’t see your monitor, you can always take off your top layer shirt and cover you and the monitor with it, shielding the sun.)

About the author:

About the author: Evan Luzi is the editor and founder of The Black and Blue as well as a freelance camera assistant.

You can learn more about him or follow him on Twitter and Google+.