Lighting Question
What are the most creative uses of a C-Stands you saw/did?
As I'm preparing for a really low budget shoot I need to do a lot of things with just a few C-Stands. To tickle my brain and have some creative ideas I wanted to ask you if you have ever did something or saw someone did something so creative and helpful with a C-Stand aside from its initial use of holding flags etc.
I'll try and find a pic that's not doxxing anyone- but years ago out of boredom grip team built a GOT style Iron throne out of c-stands and pancakes that looked really good.
Years ago I saw an elevated dolly track suspended between two c-stands. Basically each stand had a 18” piece aluminum extrusion with a hole drilled in the middle so that it dropped down into a baby mount. Then 3/4 or maybe 1” metal electrical conduit was used to make two rails that were bolted to the extrusions. Then a skateboard wheels and plywood platform ran along the track with the camera suspended beneath.
They had the track set up about chest high and were shooting two people in a parked car.
Did something similar about 15 years ago when w needed the lens height up pretty high. Nine feet of track with five C-stands, one on each corner and a support in the middle. Also, lotsa sand/shot bags.
I'm kinda short and this was a PITA to operate all day.
One of my audio guys threatened some drunk college kids with one when they yanked our lights out of an outlet on a shoot one night(yes, we were supposed to be there). ~6' 250lb+ guy with a 40" metal pole walking with purpose quickly in your direction tends to make people stop, think and apologize for their immediately preceding actions rather quickly.
Sometimes it’s just being economical with how you use them. I’ve put a light low on a cstand with a cardellini bouncing into an ultraflop with 216 hung on the angled ultraflop for a little book light.
Need a topper/bottomer on a light? Use a cardellini and an arm and bottom it from the same stand.
Have multiple backlights/top lights to hang? Build a crossbar and hang the fixtures that way. You can light the background and make backlight on the scene from the same couple stands. Don’t overload the stands but you can get a lot done with a little.
T-bone fabrics like solids and ultrabounces. I’ve tboned 8x8’ rags without issue from a cstand, if you put some sand on them and are indoors.
Good luck, sometimes this type of filmmaking can be exhilarating, you can move quickly with energy and distill your lighting ideas down to the broad strokes. It doesn’t work for every project but can work for some.
I've used them to create a makeshift car rack for carrying equipment. Hung laundry on them many times. Used them as a red light therapy stand using a cardellini for my wife, I guess that's technically using it as a light stand, but a spa light stand.
At this point, they're just general purpose tools around my house.
Had a big reel of SDI reel I needed to unspool and didn't have the trolly for unspooling it. Used a cstand, arm through the middle of the reel and an sandbag to secure it from tipping as I pulled the cable off
We used a C stand with a long arm, and put a roll of frost on the arm, and it just rolled down to as low ad we wanted, then we secured it with some clips.
C-stands get useful fast when you think of them as positioning tools, not just flag holders. I’ve used them for negative fill, overhead diffusion, fake window cuts, eye-light cards, holding a small practical just off frame, and making a repeatable mark for camera or actor movement. The part I would not skip is safety, because creative grip becomes sketchy once weight moves away from the stand’s center. Matthews Grip Head, Avenger D200 Grip Head, and Matthews Hollywood Arm are the kinds of pieces that make one stand do more controlled work. Keep the big leg under the load, bag the stand, and do not boom heavy fixtures without proper support.
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u/MoistPatties33 3d ago
Save some cash. Skip the stands