Camera Coach

Boot camp is sometimes called basic training, right? Well, you can’t get much more basic than these three things that you will need to know about throughout your career as a cameraman;

• Gaffer Tape
• How to over/under cables
• Which direction to run cables

Let’s start with Gaffer Tape.

Really? An article about Gaffer Tape. Hmmm………

When I taught Television Production at a local Technical Collage a few years back, I gave the students a couple of useful skills on the first day that would be helpful for the rest of their careers. The first was how to use Gaffer or duct tape. Remember – duct tape and gaffer tape are two different, but similar items and terms in the TV business. Gaffer tape is a much better tape to use for most things we do, but it is more expensive too. Most of us hate duct tape. It’s great for furnaces, boxes and a million other jobs – but not for general TV use.

When I started out on a TV remote crew last century, we went through duct tape like it was going out of style – because  it was cheap. We used it for taping down cables to the floor, taping electrical plugs to the wall, taping down anything that you didn’t want to move or possibly have someone stumble on or trip over. Those were the days when there was only one color on the trucks – shiny silver, and one width.  Nowadays you have every color imaginable and a variety of widths. There are three key things to learn about both Gaffer and duct tape;

• How to tear it off the roll

• How to pull it off the surface you have used it on.

• It is seriously affected by heat

Here’s the duct tape description in Wikipedia;

Duct tape, or duck tape, is cloth or scrim-backed pressure sensitive tape often sealed with polyethylene. It is very similar to gaffer tape but differs in that the former was designed to be cleanly removed, while duct tape is not. It is generally silver or black but also available in other colors. With a standard width of 1+⁷⁄₈ inches (48 mm), duct tape was originally developed in 1942 during World War II as a water-resistant sealing tape for ammunition cases. Permacel, then a division of Johnson & Johnson, used a rubber-based adhesive to help the tape resist water and a fabric backing to add strength. It was also used to repair military equipment quickly, including jeeps, firearms, and aircraft because of these properties.

In military circles, this variant is known as “gun tape”, typically olive-green, and is also known for its resistance to oils and greases. It is also called “duck tape”, “riggers’ tape”, “hurricane tape”, or “100-mph tape” – a name that comes from the use of a specific variety of duct tape that was supposed to hold up to 100 mph (160.93 km/h) winds. The tape is named so because it was used during the Vietnam War to repair helicopter rotor blades, thus earning the name 100-MPH tape.

Check Wikipedia out for the rest of this subject – there’s a ton of info about it.

Here’s the Gaffer tape description in Wikipedia;

Gaffer tape, gaffer’s tape, gaff tape or gaffa tape is a strong, tough, cotton cloth pressure sensitive tape with strong adhesive properties. It is used in theater, film and television productions as well as during live performances and any other kind of stage work. While related to duct tape, it differs in that it can be removed cleanly because it uses a synthetic rubber adhesive rather than a natural rubber adhesive. The tape is often referred to as a production expendable because it is discarded after the production process is complete.

The most common use for gaffer tape is securing cables to the stage floor or other surface, either for safety or to keep them out of view of the audience or camera. Camera assistants use short strips of different colors to lay blocking markers for actors. Similarly, a narrow version of gaffer tape, called spike tape, is used in theatre productions for floor layout. It is also widely used by audio-visual departments in hotels and conference centers for holding down wires to podiums and stages. It can also be used as a waterproof packaging tape and some grades even meet packaging certification standards such as ASTM D5486.

It is named for the gaffer, the head of the lighting department on a film crew. When cables are taped down on a stage or other surface, either for safety or to keep them out of view of the audience or camera they are said to be gaffed or gaffered.

Gaffer tape generally costs 3 to 4 times the amount of a roll of duct tape of equivalent length; this is because it is manufactured in much smaller volumes, and to different specifications that make it easy to tear and to remove cleanly.

There you have it then.

Getting back to the things to remember about tape;

1. How to tear the tape off the roll ;

a.     Hold the color side towards you with one hand

b.     Pull the amount you need off with the other hand

c.      Press your thumb against the roll at the point you want it to tear off, right at the upper edge of the tape.

d.     Hold your thumb firm against the roll, twist the roll slightly away from you and pull the extended tape away from the roll and it should tear very close to where you pressed your thumb.

2. How to pull tape off the surface it has been used on;

a.     Always pull the tape off while holding the item that has been taped down, to prevent it from lifting off with the tape.

b.     If you just pull off the item with the tape still attached, the tape may very well fold over and stick to itself, making for a very difficult, and time consuming job of pulling it apart.

3. Heat affects duct tape;

a.     Duct and Gaffer tape works well when a little bit of heat is given to it to “set” the glue a bit. After you have applied the tape, rub it back and forth with your hand so the friction adds heat.

b.     Too much heat will just cause the glue to melt, get sticky, loosen and be a big mess.

c.      Depending on how warm the tape gets will affect the amount of residual glue remaining on the surface that you tape down too. If you leave duct tape on anything too long it will be a mess. If it stays on for years, the glue dries out and starts to turn to powder.

Well that’s my lesson on duct tape. And Gaffer tape. That will hopefully the last time I feel the need to write about it.

Next time I’ll talk about over/under cable coiling.

Is anyone reading this stuff? If so, let me know by commenting on, ranting about or ridiculing anything I say here – except if it has to do with grammar, writing style, use of proper spelling or any improper use of prepositions, right here in the comment form or emailing me at zoomit.cam@craigjkelly.com