It has been a VERY long time since I did a post on this blog. I rarely post on here and I do not want to start every post by pointing out how long it has been since I have posted! But, I suppose that is the way it will be each time I wait YEARS to make a blog.

You know, I really planned on making a blog every week when I first started this..

We AGrip is still in business and we are going hard. This weekend we have 3 days of Music Videos followed by a couple Music Videos next week. I am trying to think of the new capabilities we have to tell you.

Honestly our capabilities go past putting them on a public blog. But maybe I can share a few things with you. Let me think..

These are some of the Gels I am going to use on my video on Friday. Still using Gels. LED lights are here now with RGB but Tungsten and Gels still live on.

Aside from buying Grip Equipment I have begun the process of making my own. Soon I will be moving into a warehouse and I have plans in motion to buy the equipment that I need to turn "AGrip" into not just a G&E company but also a company that sells grip equipment.

I have been taking classes ferociously on so many different topics and these skills are coming out more and more. I have lots of pictures. We shall see what I decide to do with this Blog.

Walki Talkis

From here on when you hire AGrip we will come equipped with these Walki Talki's.

We have 5 Walki Talki's. They are Digital UHF of the finest caliber. We have surveillance kits for each of them. (feel free to buy your own ear piece.)

Walki Talki's make everything much more convenient. These Walki Talki's used in conjunction with my AGrip Grip's custom Tool Belts that I put together make my AGrip team one of the most capable grip crews that there is anywhere. I am very excited to use this on your next project. With these Walki Talki's, we can accomplish more, faster.

These Walki's make a lot of the things that we do so much easier and faster by being able to have a grip at the truck or somewhere within a location and being able to contact them without having to look for them. If a grip is already at the truck he can pull out a piece of equipment and begin carrying it while another grip is already in route, they can hand off the gear, and the specific piece of equipment that we need can be put into use in no time on set. 

These are great for our run and gun shoots. They are also great for our shoots that happen on in multi story mansions or in shoots where production is spread out. Any shoots that take place out doors are GREATLY enhanced with the ability to use wireless communication. It goes without saying that Walki's are a GREAT addition and now you won't have to take care of renting them and returning them from a 3rd party rental house because your grip crew already comes equipped.

How to not be a Noob when hiring a Professional in the Film Industry:

[Adding this May 27th 2015.. lol, I originally posted this in March of 2014 and man I kind of took some flack for this from a couple Union Grips who said that I was out of my mind for posting this on the Internet where my clients could see it. They said I needed to have a script and I needed to do better lighting on myself since I am a lighting guy and I think they wanted me to be way less real. But you know what, I just watched this and I like this because its REAL! I just wanted to record it and get it down and get it out back when I did it. and it really is good information. Like, I wish somebody would have just told me this stuff in about 2009. Honestly some mentors DID tell me this stuff.

But I will say I really do not mean to sound like a know it all in this.. I mean I shoot all kinds of stuff that is cool to me but we all know there are levels to this stuff so I'm not the Gaffer of Avatar! lol but it is good info from a fundamental stand point. And I may be the Gaffer of an Avatar Like Movie some day okay! anyways, Enjoy my dehydrated poorly lit webcam face!]



This is my 4 Part Lecture on how to not be a noob when hiring a Professional in the Film Industry:


Valuable information gleaned from many years of experience.














At the end of this video I am talking about going to Multiple Locations; I just want to clarify: I have no problem going to multiple locations and literally unloading everything out of the truck, shooting then loading it back in. The work of unloading the truck is not the issue. This talk is really geared more towards younger or more inexperienced film makers and making them aware of the fact that if you have these ideas that you want to get all this footage and all these shots in the videos, but you are planning on going to multiple locations, then that can really cut down on the amount of footage you get if you did want to use lots of equipment in each location. I used to shoot sometimes more when I was starting out, and a really ambitious director would be so disappointed when he wasn't getting all the footage he wanted to get in multiple locations.

Battery Powered Blowers for some quick, portable wind effects.

It is great to be able to use wind for certain effects in your movie or music video; however, often times when people try, they fall short! The most popular way to FAIL with wind is to go and buy a cheap box fan and then see if it blows enough air fast enough to get the effect that you desire. Box fans… Don't put out very much wind.. There are of course larger fans that you can use and these fans do work for a lot things but, they don't always work. Fans have their limitations. 

Recently I saw these blowers which are meant to be used with Makita tool batteries that I already own. I realized that because of the small nozzle on these blowers they could put the wind where you want it at the right speed. Think of it like a Leko light vs. a broad open face: the Leko will be brighter because it is taking all of its light and condensing it into one point while the broad open face light is shining its light all around. Dual Blowers gives more power and control over the wind.

Director Ryan Spencer contacted me to work on a music video that he was shooting in the night and he told me the concept for his video so that I could provide solutions to the needs of his videos story. One of the things that Ryan wanted, was an Angel dressed in a flowy gown that is always kind of blowing and fluttering in the breeze. Obviously it is not always breezy so we needed to take our own breeze. This video was a run and gun video on the streets. I got these Blowers and used them, they worked well.

Here is a short story about wind: one time I was shooting a movie where a little alien girl is on top of a mountain and her world's Mother Ship is coming to take her back. It was important for her clothes to blow around from the power of the ship coming in, the director brought a box fan! I have seen this box fan failure many times because they simply do not blow enough air; however, in our remote mountain location we also had to carry a generator over into position and run a stinger from it to the box fan. After all of that, it didn't work. These portable Blowers that I use can blow air at 179mph.

Now, these blowers are limited when you start shooting a very wide shot. With a flowy dress you can blow and have noticeable air when an actress is as far as about 12 or 15' away from the blower which does allow you to have a decent sized wide shot. For an even wider shot you would need a much larger blower possibly a Ritter Fan. Ritter Fan's are great but they bring with them, obviously, a whole new world of wind! (its hard to even mention a Ritter Fan in the same sentence with these blowers but these blowers DEFINITELY fill an important niche in production)

The day after we used these blowers for the Music Video in the night with the Angel, I used them on another Music Video for the artist RA Rugged Man in a Green Screen Studio. We used these blowers to simulate the wind that would hit somebody when they are riding on a roller coaster.

These Blowers are great to add on to my kit, at $25/day this is a great add on to have to your project.

These Blowers do of course create noise when they are in use just like other fans, but they work great for lots of types of things especially music videos or slow motion shots. Hit me up and hire AGrip for your next project and don't forget to ask me to bring these blowers.

Slider with Mitchell Sticks is a GO for AGrip.net

AGrip has added lots of great new equipment and capabilities to its arsenal. This is one of our new ones:




The Camera Slider:

This is a top of the line very smooth slider set up that AGrip now offers. Call me: 818-738-3696 to book AGrip or get information.

This particular camera slider is great because it is fast, the height can be easily adjusted with the Ronford Baker Heavy Duty Mitchell Sticks and the slider has a swivel in the middle that lets you add 360 movement to your shot if you desire. The swivel also locks and the slider can be used as a conventional slider. It is very smooth and is great for large format cameras. I have 100mm mitchell to ball connectors as well as 75mm mitchell to ball. The slider also of course has a Mitchell Plate. Aside from giving you a great slider movement, this slider can save many shots by allowing the camera operator to quickly adjust his framing depending on how the actor lands on their mark. Many people that work in television believe that every camera on a show should be equipped with just such a slider.

AGrip is a company that excels at rigging so this particular slider can be configured in a number of ways, the slider can be underslung or rigged to a car mount.

Progress report on the AGrip Jib Crane 6/27/12

Today is June 27th 2012 and at this point we've shot quite a lot of stuff with the AGrip Jib Crane. Many people remember the first Blog Entry for this Jib. Since that time Ryan Spencer and I did a lot of shooting and we cut a reel; now I feel like we have finished what amounts to "Round Two", which is in my mind, another 6 month time period of using this crane, and getting more experience, and adding to our family of Jib footage.

We've done quite a few shoots. I am going to write about some of them.


Recently we did a video for the artist named "Kornbread", we used a lot of Jib in this music video. The location was a gritty factory that had a a couple two story sections with steel grates and pipes. I lit this set up really cool and then when we filmed with the Jib Crane... It just looked awesome!

Kornbread Video in post production right now

Post production time line of the Kornbread video that is Jib heavy

Another shoot that we used the Jib Crane on was on a music video for an artist named DeSaint Reed.

Behind the scenes Jib shot from Desaint's video

Here is a link to the music video:

http://youtu.be/neFNl0BjRkI

The Jib shots start at about 3:58

We were able to get these beautiful Jib shots BECAUSE, the AGrip Jib can be set up so fast. All you need is somewhat flat ground and a close place to park the van. If you have that, then the Jib can be set up quickly and using a generator, you can get your shots on location. Mixing this amazing Jib crane with locations is simply awesome.


The AGrip Jib Crane was also used for Rebecca Black's new music video. Here is a link to the video:

http://youtu.be/PEXgUdNGkts

 

Jib Operator Ryan Spencer operating on the Rebecca Black MV

There are Jib shots throughout this music video. As you can see, the Jib shots look really cool with the beach house location because the Beach house had an area that you could see over with the Jib. The Jib was a great call for this music video.

The AGrip Jib Crane was used recently on a music video for Fredro Starr from the group Onyx. We used the crane in a private parking area in an apartment building in downtown Los Angeles. The parking area required us to enter a gate and drive up 1 story where we were in a parking lot, yet not on the street level with street traffic. This was the PERFECT spot to use a Jib. We would not be bothered by the police yet, since it was a dangerous street below we got to see the police in our shots a lot. For this video we wanted police syrens flashing onto the Mercedes that Fredro was performing on so we used lights and gels to do this. The Jib Crane was able to look over the wall at the real police and then fly over to Fredro who appeared to have been performing near police syrens. This was an amazing shot.

The Crane was also used in this same area to film a performance shot of Fredro on a fire escape. This vertical area worked great with the Jib. This video is going to be awesome. Stay tuned.










A Director that I work with hired me to get Jib Shots for his music video and after the first day with the Jib, the director decided that he wanted every shot in the music video to be a Jib shot and so he started hiring me for multiple days. We have gotten a lot of cool shots for this music video. The directors name is Lightfield Lewis. The music video is starring Lightfield's father, actor Geoffrey Lewis.

Behind the Scenes shot in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles

Actor Geoffrey Lewis being filmed by the AGrip Jib

One of the memorable shoots that we used the Jib Crane on was the B.A.D. video for the Rap group called "B.A.D. Company",

Check out the video:
http://youtu.be/lAaa2wCfINk

This video is filled with Jib Shots. It was a lot of fun working in 1 location with vertical areas such as external stairways, and 3 story shelving. I think that the Jib shots added a lot to this video. One of the uses of the Jib on this video that I especially liked was how we mixed aerial overhead shots of the fight scene near the stair well, with hand held shots filmed on the ground inside the fight.

DJ Laser Effects Lights in AGrip.net's Arsenal

This Blog Entry is kind of a "coming soon" blog entry that I will edit and update over time. I have however purchased my first Laser light. it is on the way even though this piece of equipment is somewhat unique, I do forsee it being an effect that ends up getting used in LOTS of my videos. I am putting together an affordable packaged deal of Laser lights that I offer with my "Van Deal" and these DJ Laser Effects lights will ad some really nice spice to a lot of videos. I will display some of my work with this kit, on this particular blog entry so, stay tuned. This is a picture of my new light:

These are some pictures from a shoot that I did a while back with Joe Nation using some DJ Laser Effects lights that he rented: