Grip Equipment for Film and Video production Illustratrated Dictionary

G

Gaffer - boss of the lighting crew, chief lighting technician or lighting designer. The gaffer works directly with and reports to the Director of Photography in the film/video crew chain of command.

Gaffer's glass - is a piece of "welding glass" or heavily darkened glass designed to be used when viewing intense (and possibly eye-damaging) light. It is very useful for avoiding the "seeing spots" effect when aiming lights. A cool function of gaffer's glass is: when looking at a fresnel light, you can see the rings in the lens quite distinctly, which makes it really easy to aim the light with high accuracy.

Gobo - a light beam modifier with a specific or random pattern cut out. Internal gobos such as those designed for and used in Leko lights are made from metal for heat resistance, and have random or specific patterns, from leaves and clouds to emblems, symbols or just lines, shapes, etc. Gobo is also used sometimes to describe external pattern generator/light beam modifiers, placed outside of and in front of a fresnel or open faced light. These can be made with cutouts from foam core, black wrap and other materials.

Gopher/Gofer (aka P.A./Production Assistant) -  P.A.'s may be asked to "go fer" this or that from a truck, run and pick up gear or expendables, etc.- hence the name.

Golden Hour - or more realistically golden moment, is the time of day immediately before the sun goes below the horizon. Golden "hour" lasts for 10 to 15 minutes, and is much desired for certain moods in shots. The fading sun and it's reflected light in the sky creates a diffused golden glow. Golden moment varies in length and quality depending on time of year, weather conditions and the location's land or cityscape. A related end of day moment is "magic hour".

Greens - in classic, large movie studio type of facilities, greens are the catwalks around and above the set or cyclorama. Greens are great, and better than a grid, because you can easily walk out and mount lights, set stands and more without a ladder or lift device required.

Grip - is the film or video production crew member who works with some lighting control devices not attached directly to a light (flags, silks, nets, reflectors) along with safety and other rigging. Grips may work with or specialize in camera support/rigs/mounts other rigging (camera grips and dolly grips). The lower the budget, sometimes (non-union), the more a grip may be asked to do on a shoot.
See also: key grip.

Grip clip - a simple, jumped up C-47-like clamp, readily available at hardware stores, since they are used in many areas of work other than video and film production. Grip clips are spring loaded somewhat like a bullet/C-47, come in various sizes, and are handy for attaching all sorts of expendables, backdrops and more on a wide variety of attachment spots.

Grip head - the removable or hard-mounted device found on or used on several types of stands that is perhaps the core of grip work and equipment. It is the tool that can grip several sizes of studs, posts and many other impromptu attachment opportunities. Best know for it's work on C-stands, grip heads also appear on combo and combo-pop ups, high-rollers, and other types of stands and devices. They can come hard mounted on grip arms for C-stands, or in a "lollipop" style (a grip head with a junior stud, for example for other stands/mounts), No shoot should be without at least a few available!



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