DIY Tube Light Case

It's been a bit quiet around this part of the website the last few weeks. I'm neck deep in an edit for a project I directed/DP'd a couple of weeks ago and I'm prepping for another shoot in NYC this coming weekend. Turns out there's only so much time in a day.

That being said, I did manage me work out a DIY PVC pipe case for my two Astera Titan tubes. There aren't a ton of case options for LED tube lights unless you've got quite a few of them. I've been looking for case options for individual tubes that could fit in another case vs. dedicated cases that would just be an additional checked bag for flights and/or one other case I'd be lugging around on shoots. I've been using the cardboard tubes the lights ship in, but they got rained on during a shoot and quickly started coming undone.

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Astera has a fancy $1,500 case for their Titans that's super nice, but it holds eight LED tubes, is heavy AF, and tough to travel with. They've also got a soft case, but it's not a good fit for what I'm looking to do. Hot Rod Cameras has a custom case for Quasar tubes, but again, I'm not looking for an additional, dedicated case that'd most likely end up costing me more in checked baggage fees than if I'd just rented at the destination.

Surprisingly, the Google searches for "DIY tube light case" were more about building your LED lights which is something I'm not even close to wanting to do. There are tons of YouTube videos for DIY PVC pipe cases for fishing rods, so I figured that'd work. Freakin' kudos to the YouTubers and the rest of the internet for making step-by-step tutorials for the rest of us to follow. If I hadn't been rushing to get these done in between my normal work day and family responsibilities, surely it'd have made for a useful resource.

For this project I used a 2" wide PVC pipe and glued a fixed cap on one end and a screw top setup for the other. The pipe came in 5-6' pieces, so after working out the measurements with the Titan tubes, I hacksawed them down to 41" long and sanded off the painted and raised labels on all the parts. For the interior padding, I glued 2" of dense foam to the interior end of the closed/fixed cap. I also ended up making something like a sock to put over the light so it doesn't get scratched and banged up once it's inside the rigid case. There's a bit of extra fabric on the open end of the sock to act as additional padding to keep the whole thing snug once the cap is screwed on.

All in I think I've spent about $50 on parts, so that's like $25/case. They haven't traveled or been on a working set with crew yet, so I'm curious as to how they'll work out. If I were to do it again, I'd like to find a bit thinner walled PVC pipe and not be as messy with the purple primer/glue process. The sock is made out of some fleece-type fabric my mom and I scrounged from her sewing room. I'm hoping the seams hold and the fabric doesn't stretch too much. The DIY PVC cases are close to the same length and diameter as the cardboard tubes I've been using, so it's not a problem to fit them in my 48" Tenba stand case. I'm planning to also get a couple of C-stands with turtle bases to go in the same case to make for a travel-friendly, battery-powered interview lighting setup.

UPDATED 6/1/21
Traveled back and forth to NYC in mid-May with these DIY PVC cases. The lights did fine and were packed in that long case with a couple of C-stands with turtle bases. The case did get a bit heavy but was still under 70 lbs, even with a 15lb sandbag.

The TSA did go through and open both PVC pipes while in the screening process on my flights out and back. They left their handy dandy "TSA Screening" note inside the main case and I could tell they'd pulled the lights out of their blue socks. No harm, no foul, and they lived to fly another day.

Traveling & Working During a Pandemic

Traveling for work during this nonsense is...something. The last week of September I was out in central Wyoming and back in New York City the next. Do understand that I'm stoked to be back on the road, but there's new adjustments in doing the thing.

It's weird to admit feeling spoiled by New York City Lyft drivers compared to using the app in another part of the country. In leaving for my flight to Wyoming, the Lyft driver wasn't wearing a mask until I asked about it from behind my own. She fumbled around a bit before putting on her mask and then started blasting old school country music I'm assuming to remind me of where I'm from.

The process at the airport was pretty much normal short of most people wearing masks and just about all the food options and most stores being closed. The OKC airport traffic was way down, but my layovers in both Denver and Houston felt like business as usual. The only time I whipped out my eye protection while flying for my Wyoming trip was in the Denver airport. It's not like I was having to avoid people trying to lick my eyeballs, but the place was nearly shoulder-to-shoulder packed in some areas. Just wearing another layer of protection at that point seemed more responsible than dealing with an unnecessary panic attack.

With most of the food options at airports closed, I figured my salvation would be behind the walls of the United Club. Nope... After piecing together a dinner of chips, a cheese stick, and a vodka tonic I re-joined the masses at the airport Chick-fil-As and Shake Shacks. Nothing says "luxuries of travel" like sitting on the floor, facing the wall, and eating fast food out of a paper bag. Oh, and don't forget to brush your teeth any chance you get; those KN95 masks aren't forgiving.

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An unexpected benefit at the moment is United Airlines lowering the requirements with their MileagePlus policies. Currently I'm Silver and somehow most of my flights had me upgraded from economy to First Class. Being at the front of the plane during Covid isn't the same as what it was like in the Before Time (masks, additional fear of death, etc.), but I'm absolutely not complaining about the perks especially considering how full my flights have been. Still, I'm absolutley using that airline provided alcohol wipe to disinfect my seat and tray table.

Now granted, the flight attendants and pilots were only wearing the basic blue medical style masks and no eye protection. I felt ridiculous wearing goggles, especially with them fogging up the entire time, but more than anything I was wearing them to help me calm down when I needed to. Nearly everyone had a mask on at the different airports and most were wearing them properly. It was odd seeing people in those full on splash guard style face shields like they were about to deliver a baby, but I'd rather be doing the thing next to those people vs. the True American Heroes not wearing a mask at all.

In terms of actually being on set, things weren't dramatically different. I've seen a multiple things about the Covid safety preference of using a shotgun mic to record audio, but both my shoots used lav mics. By all means I'd stress the importance of having multiple monitors on set so everyone else isn't up in your business trying to see the image. We didn't have one for the Wyoming job and we should've. For my NYC shoot, we were able to have one for the client and an additional one off set.

Out in Wyoming we shot almost entirely outdoors. There was plenty of space to spread out so social distancing wasn't a problem. At one point I stepped in to help the talent fix the placement on her mic. I'd kept my mask on and she said, "Oh don't worry, I'm not infected. I'm a nursing student and get tested all the time." I kindly replied, "But you don't know that I'm not. I'm not from here and I've been around a lot of people I don't know." Her eyes widened a bit and you could tell she understand my caution.

New York felt completely different. Each of the Lyfts I took while in the city had drivers in masks and a plastic divider between us to stop the spittle. I'd not ridden the subway since mid-March, so it felt like home stepping down into the sights and smells of that underground world even though I – along with everyone else – was wearing a mask. For my shoot, we had to fill out a Covid questionnaire beforehand, wore masks, had plenty of hand sanitizer, and weren't allowed to have food or drinks (other than water) on set.

Several friends of mine living in NYC have talked about how the city somewhat feels back to normal – short of wearing masks and using hand sanitizer all the time. One mentioned how it seemed like most people there were on the same page about masks and fighting back against Covid. It sucks that the rest of the country isn't.

This Week in Complexity

Did I tell you the one about moving my family across the country during a global pandemic while also dodging protests in every major city we drove through? Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City. The world was burning with a righteous anger over the death of another black man in police custody and I was driving a moving truck across the country with my dog sleeping in the passenger seat. Nearly everything we own was packed into that truck while Saint Anne the wife followed close behind in a rented SUV with our two house fires strapped into the backseat.

There's a tsunami of news, posts, and information about what's happening right now and trying to stay informed is like drinking from a fire hose. Honestly I'd much rather get into the recent release of a project I got to be on, but that blog post can wait. I'll not get into the weeds about the reality of institutional racism and police violence, but those four Minneapolis police officers killed that man. We left Brooklyn just hours before the protests broke out not far from our home and it's crushing to not be there during this time.

The past week or so here in Oklahoma City has had the wife and me focused on family and trying to adjust to life outside New York. Most of our stuff is now neatly packed into a storage unit that's six times larger and nearly a third of the price of what we had in Brooklyn. With all that's going on I feel like we're approaching Inception levels of our lives still being somewhat on hold. We're staying with our parents for a season before deciding what's next and there's plenty of room to sorta sprawl out compared to our small New York apartment; our boys are loving time with their grandparents. We even bought a car which is pretty much a must have in living here. The salesman looked at us like we had horns growing our of our face when we told him we hadn't owned a car in the last 18+ months.

In the midst of trying to get the dust to settle in our own major life event, I still strongly feel like it's important to not let what's happening in the world pass us by. Anne and I had a conversation about racism and police brutality with our seven year old. We stuttered and stumbled in our attempt, but we did the thing. Anne was eloquent as always, but what was helpful for me was to sit down with him and go through some of the photos posted from the protests, especially the ones taken not too far from our Park Slope apartment. One of the major focuses of our move to New York was to make sure our family was around people and ideas that were different than ours. Different races, different faiths, different political beliefs. No question we'd have participated in the Brooklyn protests if we were there. Like the rest of this country, Oklahoma has to address and work through its own problems and history of racism. There have been protests and demonstrations across the state and I jumped at a chance to participate in a peaceful event this past Saturday here in Oklahoma City.

Again, it's wild to be here for now, especially without serious plans. Being back in Oklahoma is like being on another planet considering all we've been through in New York. Anne and our boys will be back in the classroom in a few months and I'll be spending a good deal of time commuting to NY and wherever else for work once it spins back up.

Travel Week - Oklahoma City

Don't tell me what I already know; it's Wednesday and I'm two days late. It's a travel week for work stuff and I've been hustling around doing the thing. Last week had me on another shoot and (thankfully) working seven days straight only to jump on a plane the next day and head out on the next project. Have I mentioned that my wife is a Saint?

I'm back in Oklahoma City this week working again with one of my oldest clients, Cryder Marketing + Advertising. I met Sterling Cryder back in 2011 over a beer in our neighbor's backyard right as we both were getting started and we've been working together ever since. I've been busting my tail to make new connections in NYC, but I'm crazy thankful for the clients I still get to work with back in Oklahoma. Bonus points too for getting a chance to spend some time with my parents while I'm in town.

Surely I'll talk more about it later, but this week I'm doing some documentary work for Cryder and their client, Central Oklahoma Habitat for Humanity. We've already filmed two of our stories and I've got one more to go before heading back to New York early Thursday morning.

Phoenix and Red-Eye Flights

This week had me booked again with Running Robot to shoot out on their home turf in Phoenix, AZ. Being used to flying out of Oklahoma City all these years, it was a bit of a hike from New York to that part of the country. Flying out Wednesday afternoon got me there in time to get to sleep that night, pick up rental gear the next morning, the actual shoot, return rental gear, and then race back to the airport for a red-eye flight back to NYC Thursday night.

Big fan of LensRentals and how easy they make shipping across the country. For this trip, it was easier to rent and ship a similar tripod to a local FedEx vs. me traveling with mine. For grip and electric, I connected with MP&E Equipment Rental out in Scottsdale. They're 30-40 minutes outside of Phoenix but the scenery was worth the drive.

Speaking of Scottsdale, Chris Fenner – a solid Instagram follow and car enthusiast – introduced me to Four Coffee and their rubber stamps. Have I mentioned I've got a mild obsession with collecting rubber stamps from coffee shops? It's a thing and filling up my notebooks...

Once again, we were rocking the two-camera interview setup: Canon 5D Mark III with a 70-200 lens for the tight; Canon 7D with a 24-70 for the wide. They also had me shoot a third camera through the interview to act as additional B-roll for the edit. The Running Robot guys booked a conference room in a downtown Phoenix co-working space. Three of the four walls were floor-to-ceiling glass so reflections were a real issue.

Slowly but surely I too am preaching the good news of working with these 4' Quasar Crossfades. The slim profile let me get the backlight in a tight spot between the talent and the glass wall. The skimpy dimmers from the rental house were unusable trash, so instead I used some gaffe tape on the fixture to make a small skirt on the light cutting back some of the output. Oh, and the baby pin mounting option and rubber bumpers on each end of the tubes – so rad. The hodgepodge of color temps flooding the glass room from everywhere was a hot mess. I still feel like the color on these fixtures is a bit more red than I'm used to, but it's an easy fix in camera or post. My iPhone Xs was having issues too in getting the color temps correct for these BTS photos. Side note: we had to rig the audio boom pole to a light stand via spring clamps because we felt like it (and didn't have the proper mount anyway).

Can we talk for a moment about red-eye flights? They're pretty awful – but still have their place. By all means it was my choice in scheduling because I wanted "the experience." Plus I knew it would help budget-wise seeing as how expensive all this is. Plus (plus) I'd already scheduled a couple meetings back in NYC knowing I'd be back in time thanks to flying through the night. The air travel part isn't that bad. Yes, it sucks trying to sleep on a plane, especially on a rough flight and next to a seatmate who isn't into "personal space", "boundaries", or "jackets without massive shoulder pads." Some solid red-eye flight tips are only a Google search away and I know what I'll be doing next time – i.e. neck pillow, window seat, glasses instead of contact lenses, etc...

For me, the rough part of flights back to NYC is actually getting from the airport back to my place in Brooklyn. There's a tipping point between the financial benefits of public transit ($15-20 and 60-90 minutes) and the time and comfort of just hiring a car from the airport ($50+ and 30-40 minutes). It was seriously a trip stumbling into my now regular coffee shop knowing only a few hours earlier I was standing on the other side of the country (Phoenix to San Francisco to Newark). I was fried for my 11am meeting in Manhattan, but it still went well. I was two coffees in before my 1:30p back in Brooklyn, but again, it went well too.

Philadelphia for a Night and Day

Just before moving to New York a client I've worked with the last few years reached out about a quick shoot in Philadelphia. No question – let's go. I knew I'd already be in Brooklyn by then, so I did the normal thing and looked for flights, this time out of New York City. Google Maps made fun of me and let me know Philadelphia is a two-hour drive from the city.

"Don't be dumb, get a rental car." - Google Maps (pretty much).

Booking a car and picking it up in my neighborhood – easy. Driving in and around NYC and trying to park – I'd rather lose a fingertip in a fight with a table saw.

Not having to fly my gear on this shoot allowed a bit of wiggle room with my grip and electric budget. All the cool kids on the internet shoot with those fancy Quasar LED tubes but it's tough getting your hands on those Jedi laser swords in Oklahoma City. This is where Lightbulb Grip & Electric comes in. By far they were more than accommodating in my small order and made sure I had what I needed and knew how to use it. They set me up with two 4' Quasar Crossfades, dimmers, clamps, and c-stands.

After more than an hour trying to drive the four or so miles from Park Slope to the other side of Brooklyn to pick up the gear at Lightbulb, I was off to Philadelphia and working up fresh 'Yo Momma' jokes for the next table saw I came across. Good lord it was weird being out of the city after not being more than six to eight miles from my apartment for nearly a month.

It was dark when I got to my hotel in downtown Philadelphia and paid the $30 for overnight parking. I bundled up and headed out with a camera instead of camping out in my room because, again, that's what the cool kids do (I'm told). Word to the wise, the National Park Service Rangers – or at least the hired overnight security guards – will yell at you if you're walking too close to the chain railing on the street next to Independence Hall. Also, make sure your headphones aren't up too loud so you can hear them yell at you the first time. Oh, and they're not up for jokes if you're trying to lighten the mood and get them to stop yelling at you.

The shoot the next morning and the reason I was in Philadelphia went very well. We were shooting another two-camera interview for a series of client videos. It's not like these things come with a built-in location scout, so I showed up with my normal Rock-N-Roller cart full of gear. Thank goodness for carts. We had to park in a garage a couple blocks away and then use a service elevator to get where we needed to be in another building. Luckily I was able to get all my nonsense from the car to where it needed to be in one trip.

So those Quasars... I'm a fan. We were shooting in a white room with plenty of daylight bouncing around. If I'd just had my trusty tungsten ARRI kit (650/300/150) I'd be freaking out knowing the gel and diffusion death march I'd be putting it through in getting the color and softness I wanted while praying it still had enough horsepower to overcome the ambient light coming through the windows. Those Quasar Crossfades were soft and bright, and I was able to quickly dial in the color temperature to what I wanted. They also weren't hot so the talent wasn't melting and I didn't have to wait for them to cool off before packing up. They felt a bit more magenta than I was used to, but that could've been how my monitor was set up. I've heard the color temp warms up a bit as they're dimmed down, but I had them at full blast. Seemingly the only butt-pain in using these lights in a travel kit would be hauling around c-stands; surely there's an easy solution to that.

Clara the dog is up here with me in NYC and needed to be boarded overnight while I was gone. That was a whole thing too, but it was a great experience with both the neighborhood vet's office and the actual boarding facility. I'm assuming you're not here to read about my dog, but I will say she had a good time riding the subway. You're not supposed to have a dog on the train without them being in some kind of carrier – which again is a whole thing – but she immediately made friends on the train and surely made it on at least one more Instagram account.

West Virginia

Went deep in Trump country a few days this past week on a client project in West Virginia. We spent two days filming a client testimonial in a small city about an hour and a half north of Charleston; Thx Signal Factory.

All that work footage will end up cut together to make something rad I'm sure, but I did get some time on the drive back to Charleston to get pseudo-lost on some sketchy but seriously beautiful backroads. Word to the wise: if given the option, always schedule extra travel time and make sure to rent an SUV at the airport.

So we made a thing

No clue. Absolutely no clue what was going on here. I'm just diggin' the fact that I've got friends who trust me and are basically up to make stuff no matter what.

In the latter part of June, I'd bought a one-way ticket to New York City with plans to connect with friends, make stuff, and meet new people. In prepping for the trip I reached out to Olivia Abiassi to see if she'd be up to make something while I was in town.

Olivia is an actress friend of mine who I stumbled upon while casting a short film a few years ago. I say stumbled because she was actually off-camera reading the female lead's part to help with the male talent's audition video. In hearing her read I immediately knew she was the lead I was looking for. She worked her tail off for that little passion project of mine and her performance was more than I could ask for. Fast forward a couple years she's now living and working in NYC.

Normally I'll put solid time and effort into prepping for a shoot. This project was more or less thrown together during my 45-minute subway commute from Washington Heights to her apartment on the Lower East Side. There was no scout ahead of time; not even a decent concept. Just me plowing through her Instagram account and listening to a TON of Logic's "The Incredible True Story" album.

A few months ago she had posted a short clip of herself prepping for something and accidentally – and absolutely – struck gold. She's got a great sense of humor and doesn't seem to take herself very seriously. She's also got great eyes and facial expressions which absolutely deliver on camera.

This simple Instagram post opened the idea of her getting completely lost in her own world and caring less about what people around her thought. In just about everything I try to make there's a bit of me braided in somewhere. For this utterly informal short I started her off buried in her phone trying to keep up with either the nonsense of social media or the non-stop stream of the world's bad news. In putting on her headphones, she's able to escape for a bit.

From a production standpoint, the headphones were key. I sent her a playlist I'd put together during my commute, but we ended up keeping Logic's "Fade Away" on repeat and that kept her movement timing consistent. I on the other hand couldn't hear the music, gave some basic direction, and just had to keep up.

Just about every movement piece I've done recently has been shot off-speed. There's a TON of grace and forgiveness in shooting in higher frame rates, but for this piece, I wanted to challenge myself with shooting in real time and intentionally using longer takes in the edit vs. the easy out with quick pacing to hide mistakes.

The edit took a bit longer than I expected in trying to sync her movements to the music as well as the un-rehearsed and un-controllable aspects of the footage we got. There were plenty of interesting-looking shots that I just couldn't use because they didn't fit the music – not to mention the unusably soft shots I blew focus on.

We're not curing cancer or anything, but we did have a very loose storyline with a beginning, middle, and end. We honestly just wandered around the Lower East Side not far from her apartment, looking for good and interesting light. The ice cream break was intentional, but accidentally hitting someone on the subway with her purse while she was dancing wasn't. Thank God that very large man was cool as hell.

UPDATE: As per usual, the footage from this film is available for licensing over at Filmsupply. Speaking of footage licensing, here's an example of how it was used to create an actual spot. Thank goodness too because the proceeds helped me pay rent in May 2020 during the Covid-19 nonsense.

...a day late. Thx New York.

My bad. Monday's post didn't happen. But hey! It's Tuesday Wednesday morning and I'm doing the thing... My apologies to the five RSS subscribers – who I'm assuming are mostly bots at an Amazon server farm outside Boardman, Oregon.

I'd been in NYC since last Monday working to make new connections and continue building existing ones. Thank goodness for creative friends who've opened their homes, studios, and schedules to take me in.

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First and foremost, David and Cassie Bizzaro are freakin' saints. They let me crash on their couch while I was in town. David and I – along with puppeteer Jake Bazel – shot some new content for one of his YouTube channels that should be released soon. If you've not done so already, do yourself a favor and check out The Bayr Show. I got to the point where I couldn't breathe because I was laughing so hard throughout the Clap with Rhythm stuff.

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There's also this gem. Olivia Abiassi is an actress who played the lead in my 2015 short "Nora" while she was at the University of Oklahoma. She's now living in NYC doing the working actress thing. She and I ran around the Lower East Side of Manhattan with her dancing like a crazy fool in public in front of my camera. I'm working on the edit now and hope to release it soon.

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Outside the people I met, I also spent a good deal of time roaming the city. On July 4th, my watch recorded me walking just over 21 miles. Some of that was thanks to me roaming The Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than three hours and still not seeing everything. There was also the "Hey, I'm going to join the masses in watching the NYC fireworks in person." I figured that'd be awesome (meh, it wasn't) and I got some blurry photos of fireworks like everyone else in America that night. My blurry photos were intentional though. "Slow-shutter speeds, you're the best." he said in trying to justify carrying around a full-frame DSLR all day.

Back in NYC

Work last week had me back in New York City for the fourth time since November – that's a personal record for those keeping tabs. The first time I was in NY was the summer of 2002 while on tour with a music group from college and both work and personal travel have kept me going back over the years. I swear I’m slowly getting more and more familiar with the city.

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Days one and four of this most recent trip were travel days. Days two and three were spent wearing dress blacks and shooting b-roll of a corporate event in downtown Brooklyn. Crazy thanks to Rik & Heather at Rusty Dog Films for having me out again. They run a Chicago-based production house and I’ve shot for them several times over the last couple of years.

The now beardless David Bizzaro and I met up once I got in town and dropped off my luggage (Side note: go check out his short "The Pits" finally out on Vimeo). We hung out and got coffee near his office space in Dumbo and ended up watching a couple guys choreographing a sword fight with plastic lightsabers.

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Afterward, he left for home and I trekked into Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge, dodging selfie-taking tourists, runners, and bicyclists along the way. David and I met up again along with his wife in Washington Square Park and then went for dinner at a German spot in the West Village. That night had me falling for this part of the city and spending most of my free time there chasing food and non-tourist traps for the rest of the four-day trip.

The morning before my flight home got me re-connected with Ed Gungor. He was a pastor, mentor, and boss of mine while I was in Tulsa for undergrad and grad school. He and his wife Gail now live in NYC to be close to their kids/grandkids in the city as well as finish up his Ph.D.

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As an outsider spending more and more time in New York City, it feels like a place that's absolutely fine with different ideas. There's the smoosh of all kinds of people getting on and off the subway. There's the huge metal and concrete skyscrapers within walking distance to nice parks with grass and trees. I saw a homeless guy take a full-on piss facing the curb not far from the open-air restaurant full of trust fund kids. That neighborhood sex shop was just as accepting as the children's bookstore and fresh-squeezed juice place it sat between. The more I'm there, the more it feels like the kind of place I'd want to be part of.