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Comment Corner at The Black and Blue

Comment Corner: Week of March 7th

I've really started to look forward to Sundays now when I post the new edition of "Comment Corner." You have seemed to take to the idea voraciously and the comments on this blog are sometimes more useful than my posts. Keep it up, it is great to see! This week brings five informative posts by you, the reader, listed below.

by Evan LuziComment Corner

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This Week’s Comments

1. arrimanic on The Two Types of Camera Tape You Need

Here in Germany we use cloth tape for marking focus and actors too. Unfortunately it’s very hard to get paper tape in this area… The small cloth tape is called Lassoband and the large one Gaffer

2. FB on The Two Types of Camera Tape You Need

Same here in Italy…unless a camera assistant buys paper tape for him/herself, gaffer tape (here called “gaffa”, mainly referring to the 1′ size) is used for everything. ALL rental houses here have gaffer tape in their expendables order forms and it’s always in stock, paper tape is only found in art shops and some DIYs.

3. Adam Richlin on The Two Types of Camera Tape You Need

AC’s carry a 1″ white, 1″ black, and a few thin color tape rolls (2-3) to mark actors. Don’t need more than that. If you’re smart, you can take a white 2″ core from 35mm film and wrap your 1″ tape around it (one core for white and one for black) and have mini-rolls that weigh less and are less likely to nail you between the legs.

4. Steveo on The Two Types of Camera Tape You Need

There is a very fundamental difference between paper tape and gaffer tape – the glue. while that might seem obvious at first, try it when putting up some gel on a bare frame, or piece bits together, or making a quick cookie. paper tape sticks to gels, even when hot ( with in reason ). gaffer tape doesn’t stick well, and will let go.

5. Jeremy Bernatchez on 7 Things Camera Assistants Can Learn About Twitter

I’ve always been a fan of this guideline. I’ve even had guys surprised that I was honest about where the idea or suggestion came from. I just don’t feel right about taking credit for someone else’s good ideas. To add to that, I always a concerted effort to make sure if a more junior guy has an idea, that it’ll get heard. Mind you, that’s only if they’re good. If they’re a useless tool (I’ve met too many of those), I won’t bother.

Comment Call

As you may have noticed, a lot of the comments this week came from the same article. That’s because there was such a wonderful discussion going on with that post and many great comments were made.

I’d love to see more of that.

You have the opportunity to make this blog even more valuable than I could imagine by sharing your experiences, your opinions and your way of doing things. It’s a chance to help somebody with your expertise. Not only that, but I absolutely love to hear what you have to say.

So please leave more awesome comments, thank you!

 

Evan Luzi

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Creator of The Black and Blue. Freelance camera assistant and camera operator. Available for work: Contact Evan here. Learn more about Evan here.

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