It’s Not My Bag, Baby! Errr, Yes It Is

Ok – to start this off, I have to say I’ve come to realize the importance of the bag. What bag, you say?  I’ve got a few collections going as a result of this Compositing career o’ mine, and all of the on-set stuff I’m about to rattle off is jammed inside of the trusty bag of on-set tricks.  It’s not very shiny like inside of the mysterious briefcase in Pulp Fiction, but ironically it does sometimes have a mysterious glow inside, if a set of battery powered LED tracking markers are left on accidentally.  Ha!  Mine turn on when you shake them so it seems like something is always glowing in there.  No, seriously though, the bag is actually pretty plain looking – but I did figure out early on that having a giant bag would play out well in the long run, as you collect things from shoot to shoot.  So, if I could impart some wisdom:  Supersize it.  Head to some sporting goods store and pick up the biggest one you can find.  You’ll find you almost never throw anything out, and being able to keep it all under one “roof” so to speak will do you some good over the long haul.  🙂

Ha, can’t say I’ve ever really had a reason to pull all this junk in my trunk out and take inventory, but here goes!  I should say, this is meant to be a list without much explanation, but I’ll jot down a few scribbles and try not to be too vague if I can manage.  Just for cleanliness sake, I’ll rally back around and bundle it up into a tight little list in the end for when it’s time to lock and load.  That’s a little self-serving, as this is going to become my own little checklist to refer back to, since some of this stuff ends up in other bags and strung out across my office from time to time.

I think it’s a fair disclaimer to start with the fact that much of this is hardware store custom jobbies because there’s no store out there for VFX Supervision that I know of.  No 24-hr “Blue/Green Wall-Mart.”  (ba dum dum, peeesh)  Even at the pro level and in the studios I’ve been in, the mostly DIY vibe to the gear is pretty common…  with hacks to the left of me, fabrications to the right.  Honestly, the more you see it, it’s kind of relieving to know that we’re all in the same boat.