This isn't about my usual topics, like cool video lighting gear or LED softboxes.
What's the right thing to do, when you're loading up your car with equipment for the day's shoot on a dark rainy morning, when all of a sudden you find someone pointing a gun at your chest? It's a funny feeling, surreal as much as anything else. Like it doesn't make sense. Just finishing loading all the Jokers and Kinos and LED panels and and stands and everything else, and then you see someone walk up your driveway. You wonder who this stranger is, what they want, whether they need help with something, and then you see the silver shiny barrel of a handgun pointed at you. You might shout, you might run, you might freak out. You would certainly be late for work. You might shout once, but find that it sort of strangles in your throat, because you're not sure what this stranger is like, this stranger with the bandanna over their face up to their eyes and the wool cap pulled down low over their forehead, the stranger with black-gloved hands aiming a gun at you, might get upset about you raising a hue and cry and shoot you down outside your daughter's bedroom window. It's an awkward thing, having a gun on you at 6:42 AM in the rain.
You might just hand over your wallet; what's worth getting shot for? But how do you know what state the person is in, whether they're really in the mood to kill someone, or whether there are even bullets in the gun.
You might be pretty grateful that they just took your wallet and the 4$ that were inside, and didn't tell you to open up the vehicle and take something very expensive. OR even your phone, which would cost you a bunch to replace but he could only get a few bucks for an iphone 4s with a cracked screen.
So what do you do? You hand it over, even though you're thinking what a pain it will be to cancel all the cards and get a new ID. Do you buy a gun? Mace? Taser? Keep a baseball bat in your car? What good would that do, really? When there's someone on your, threatening you, are you going to have the presence of mind or the cojones to pull out a bat and attack them? Install a bunch of outdoor lighting perhaps. Security cameras? If you're not safe at home, then where?
The stranger was very professional, very fast, in and out. He came in very fast, everything about him was covered up, no way for me to identify him. Other than that he was black, adult, maybe in his 30s, 5'10", 180-200 lbs. If you can be this good a robber, why not do something useful?
The good news is that I got an email that the first batch of Airbox 1x1 Inflatable softboxes for LED panels are in the air on the way here. And I got another email that B&H is interested in selling them. And I wasn't hurt, nor did anything bad happen to my family, in bed just a few feet away from where this guy threatened me.
I think he was mad that there was only 4$ in my wallet. But once his back turned on me, I split. I didn't stick around to find out how he felt about his take.
I love Oakland, but that sucks. In my own driveway in my own house. What are you gonna do. Get over it and move on. And install some motion-sensor lights and things like that. Very soon. Not a nice feeling to not feel safe at home.
And: this is a pretty cool video, an ad for a really good kind of rum. http://youtu.be/8Vv_M2jBDf4
They don't pay me, I just like their rum. And I saw this video. And it's pretty neat.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Airbox Lights going solo! Inflatable Softbox for 500 LED panels now on Amazon...
It's been a nutty few days- made the agreement that I wasn't going to sell the 2 new Airbox Inflatable softboxes for LED panels through my distributor for the two smaller units, and all of a sudden a load of stuff is my problem, right now. You've borrowed a lot of money to get the inventory, now sell it. Sell it fast. Go.
So that's what's going on here- The new Model 126 is up on Amazon, and we're doing an early-adopter sale, 10% off.
Ok, we're doing it now. Business is getting real. No longer a hobby.
So that's what's going on here- The new Model 126 is up on Amazon, and we're doing an early-adopter sale, 10% off.
Ok, we're doing it now. Business is getting real. No longer a hobby.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Holy Crap! Here come the 1x1 Airboxlights.com Inflatable Softboxes!!
The factory inflates them all before they ship. That's quite a pile of awesome Airboxlights.com inflatable LED softboxes!
We shot a commercial for Airboxlights.com Inflatable Softboxes this past weekend also, it's going to be wicked funny.
Not to give it away, but here are two stills:
We're going to be selling the new units, the Model 126 for (6"x12"/6"x13") 500 LED panels and the Model 1x1 (for 1x1 LED panels, obv) directly now on Amazon. Store should be ready for business in a couple of days! Link forthcoming. You can also email us to order.
yours
Tom Guiney
Friday, October 25, 2013
Laryngitis at a trade show...
Airboxlights.com At Photo plus, big NYC trade show. Lost my voice! Pretty useless. You know how hard it is to give a sales pitch using gestures only? Fortunately, I had my handy sales video that I could point to. And my cool Inflate-O-Matic(see below).
Anyway, b&h is doing a show special on Airbox products til the 27th!
Some redemption codes for you:
1507446759165600
1507446733561900
1507446744501190
1507446729414320
At least I have my sales video to speak for me- http://vimeo.com/60720449
And cool inflate-o-matic to show people they're inflatable!
Inflato-video:
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Grip Olympics; news from DTC Gear Expo
Airboxlights.com was at the DTC Grip & Lighting Gear Expo last weekend, and there was an event that we've all talked about but have never actually seen put together formally:
The team of ladies from the DTC office won the sandbag relay, despite the best efforts of Steve Cardellini and his buddies.
There's something you learn when you get to be an old grip: Work smart, not hard. The other teams obediently pulled sandbags from the muscle cart, tossed them to the next teammate, who passed the bag to the next teammate, who tossed it over the line. Hard work, no? So the cagey old technicians just grabbed their muscle cart, pushed it to the finish line, and dumped all the bags out. Much faster than the recommended technique and easier on the back.
I was the dark horse competitor in the Cable Wrapping event. Everyone else in the event was well-known warehouse staffers or electricians, but then I came out of the booth and crushed everyone in my first heat. Alas, in the final round, I couldn't prevail against a handsome and strapping young gaffer named Evan Davies. He's 16 years younger than me and in frankly much stronger and faster. Plus I haven't wrapped any 4/0 in over 2 years. But I got a bunch of good cheers! People liked that an exhibitor got up in the competition. Next year I'll show them.
We of Airbox Lights were at the Expo in a booth next to Arri:
I was showing off a prototype of my new 1x1 Airbox as well as the new Model 126, both of which were very well received. The larger LEDs like 1x1s and 6"x12" LEDs are a perfect match for Airbox inflatable softboxes, because they've got enough juice that they can afford to be softened up more and made into a larger softer source, and then made controllable with a folding eggcrate.
Here's a preview of the 1x1 Airbox quality of light on a 1st generation 1x1 Litepanel:
Newish lights from Arri: the M90 , an update to the 6k par with a Max reflector, and the M8, an 800w update to the 575. The M8 was cool, but the rep said it wasn't intended as a competitor to the Joker 800. It's bigger, has the efficient Arrimax reflector, and doesn't go bug-style like a joker. Priced a little higher too, at about 8000$.
I liked the idea of a maximized HMI source that still works on 100A bates. Who doesn't want more power in a familiar package?
The M8 I was less enthusiastic about- I feel like the M18 pretty much covers that ground already, plus I have a vested interest because I own an 800w joker. Seriously though, it looked like a really good light. It has a great flood to spot range and will no doubt be as rock solid as all of Arri's products.
Barger Baglites: What I liked is some of the Lighttools crates he's carrying now. Besides the quick snap-open eggcrates and Octabank sized eggcrates, there's a new one they've got called a CUFocus soft eggcrate. The fins of the eggcrate are all angled slightly towards the center, so that the light from the frame or the softbox is directed towards a subject close to the frame. That's a clever innovation on the regular parallel fins in a soft eggcrate.
The CU focus crates basically "funnel" the light towards one sweet spot, and occlude an increasing amount of light the farther away you get from the ideal spot. In that sweet spot, you'll still see the whole frame and thus have a nice sift source falling on you, but anywhere else the light falls off quite a lot.
BBS lighting is bringing out a companion to their exciting Area 48 Remote phosphor fixture....
a 1x1 LED Panel! Ummm.... I asked them why they wanted to get into that saturated space, and Toby Sali said that theirs looks the same, but is much brighter and better colored than the competition. 7000-800W tungsten equivalent, 95 CRI. Ok, great, always happy to see the workhorse products improve. The brighter the better on that light shape.
Other than that, I was manning the booth the whole time.
See you at Photo Plus next week in NYC if you're there!
THE GRIP OLYMPICS!
 |
| The Sandbag Relay |
 |
| DTC Office Staff winning sandbag relay |
 |
| Why throw them when we can roll them? |
There's something you learn when you get to be an old grip: Work smart, not hard. The other teams obediently pulled sandbags from the muscle cart, tossed them to the next teammate, who passed the bag to the next teammate, who tossed it over the line. Hard work, no? So the cagey old technicians just grabbed their muscle cart, pushed it to the finish line, and dumped all the bags out. Much faster than the recommended technique and easier on the back.
I was the dark horse competitor in the Cable Wrapping event. Everyone else in the event was well-known warehouse staffers or electricians, but then I came out of the booth and crushed everyone in my first heat. Alas, in the final round, I couldn't prevail against a handsome and strapping young gaffer named Evan Davies. He's 16 years younger than me and in frankly much stronger and faster. Plus I haven't wrapped any 4/0 in over 2 years. But I got a bunch of good cheers! People liked that an exhibitor got up in the competition. Next year I'll show them.
We of Airbox Lights were at the Expo in a booth next to Arri:
I was showing off a prototype of my new 1x1 Airbox as well as the new Model 126, both of which were very well received. The larger LEDs like 1x1s and 6"x12" LEDs are a perfect match for Airbox inflatable softboxes, because they've got enough juice that they can afford to be softened up more and made into a larger softer source, and then made controllable with a folding eggcrate.
Here's a preview of the 1x1 Airbox quality of light on a 1st generation 1x1 Litepanel:
 |
| The only model available in a pinch. |
 |
| Nice soft source! No nasty LED quality here. |
GEAR AT THE EXPO
The gear that was there that I had a chance to see that I found noteworthy:Newish lights from Arri: the M90 , an update to the 6k par with a Max reflector, and the M8, an 800w update to the 575. The M8 was cool, but the rep said it wasn't intended as a competitor to the Joker 800. It's bigger, has the efficient Arrimax reflector, and doesn't go bug-style like a joker. Priced a little higher too, at about 8000$.
I liked the idea of a maximized HMI source that still works on 100A bates. Who doesn't want more power in a familiar package?
The M8 I was less enthusiastic about- I feel like the M18 pretty much covers that ground already, plus I have a vested interest because I own an 800w joker. Seriously though, it looked like a really good light. It has a great flood to spot range and will no doubt be as rock solid as all of Arri's products.
Barger Baglites: What I liked is some of the Lighttools crates he's carrying now. Besides the quick snap-open eggcrates and Octabank sized eggcrates, there's a new one they've got called a CUFocus soft eggcrate. The fins of the eggcrate are all angled slightly towards the center, so that the light from the frame or the softbox is directed towards a subject close to the frame. That's a clever innovation on the regular parallel fins in a soft eggcrate.
BBS lighting is bringing out a companion to their exciting Area 48 Remote phosphor fixture....
a 1x1 LED Panel! Ummm.... I asked them why they wanted to get into that saturated space, and Toby Sali said that theirs looks the same, but is much brighter and better colored than the competition. 7000-800W tungsten equivalent, 95 CRI. Ok, great, always happy to see the workhorse products improve. The brighter the better on that light shape.
Other than that, I was manning the booth the whole time.
See you at Photo Plus next week in NYC if you're there!
Monday, August 26, 2013
Award for Airbox! Light Breakup, milk crate management
The news: Airbox Inflatable Softboxes has been getting some great press lately, most notably getting the DV excellence award from DV Magazine and creativeplanet.com. I've put it all in one place on Pinterest.
What else has been happening?
Ok brain teaser: What the heck is going on here?
An impromptu and odd rig I came up with at the behest of DP Dave Scardino.
It's some scraps of opal diff hanging in front of a light acting as a breakup, but to give it a little bit of life he was asking around for a fan. The only fan I could find was the internal cooling fan in the 1200 ballast. So ok, let's get that ballast up in the air and aim its exhaust vent at those scraps of diffusion!
Whatever works, right?
Here's another notably useful technique I've observed for managing large numbers of milkcrates. Make a furniture dolly by putting casters on the bottom of a piece of 3/4" plywood, with holes drilled out in the middles of two opposing sides. Hook a ratchet or motorcycle strap into the two holes and strap it down over the top of the stack of crates.
The
problem that it solves is a common one- lots and lots of milkcrates
full of expendables or hardware and needing them to be portable but
still quick and easy to stage up or get into. You can easily load and
transport them en masse, or you can break out the crates of just the materials you need.
Custom-made steel carts are great, but they don't subdivide and organize the way this system does, nor do they hold as many crates usually, plus they're quite expensive. Ari Boles, the LD on Top Chef and other Bravo shows, came up with this technique to organize the huge amount of expendables, bulbs, kino parts, hardware and other small parts that are essential to reality show lighting installations.
Links to dealers for Airbox inflatable softboxes
What else has been happening?
Ok brain teaser: What the heck is going on here?
It's some scraps of opal diff hanging in front of a light acting as a breakup, but to give it a little bit of life he was asking around for a fan. The only fan I could find was the internal cooling fan in the 1200 ballast. So ok, let's get that ballast up in the air and aim its exhaust vent at those scraps of diffusion!
Whatever works, right?
Here's another notably useful technique I've observed for managing large numbers of milkcrates. Make a furniture dolly by putting casters on the bottom of a piece of 3/4" plywood, with holes drilled out in the middles of two opposing sides. Hook a ratchet or motorcycle strap into the two holes and strap it down over the top of the stack of crates.
Custom-made steel carts are great, but they don't subdivide and organize the way this system does, nor do they hold as many crates usually, plus they're quite expensive. Ari Boles, the LD on Top Chef and other Bravo shows, came up with this technique to organize the huge amount of expendables, bulbs, kino parts, hardware and other small parts that are essential to reality show lighting installations.
Links to dealers for Airbox inflatable softboxes
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Tiny Tiny movie
MICRO MOVIE:
Something I worked on has popped back up in a finished form. Does anyone remember this picture from 1989 in the newspaper?
(Am I dating myself?) That was when they figured out how to nudge individual atoms around on a plate of copper in a very cold vacuum. Since then, they're still using the same type of equipment, the scanning tunneling electron microscope, but they've set their sights a lot higher- making a stop-action animation movie using individual atoms as the pixels. The atoms are actually carbon monoxide molecules, but those are smaller than most atoms, so I figure we should let this one pass.
Here's the 2 minute movie:
Why is IBM doing this? It's all about smaller data storage size. The quote from Andreas, the lead scientist, is that if this works out, you'll be able to store all the movies ever made on your iPhone.
So IBM booked the prestigious Ogilvy agency out of new York to come and make a behind the scenes doc about this microflick, and they came out from New York, but they needed another local guy to shoot some more stuff for them. And then some stuff was missing, and out I went to Almaden again. And hmm how about some more nice shots of the microscope? Worked out pretty well in the end for me. The scientists in the Atom Lab were all really cool. Each of them was from a different country, and you get the sense that each was one of the best in their field in that area, to land this apparently cool job at the IBM research facility. Who even knew that IBM was still around! I'm exaggerating, but they're out of the limelight. Nevertheless, they have this massive high tech campus in southeast San Jose. The Science-per-square-inch readings were off the charts. Their chemical laboratories would have made Breaking Bad jealous.
Anyway, here's the flick. I shot a lot of the B-roll, everything of the microscope, and some of the interviews. Can you tell the 5D footage from the hacked GH2 footage?
Something I worked on has popped back up in a finished form. Does anyone remember this picture from 1989 in the newspaper?
(Am I dating myself?) That was when they figured out how to nudge individual atoms around on a plate of copper in a very cold vacuum. Since then, they're still using the same type of equipment, the scanning tunneling electron microscope, but they've set their sights a lot higher- making a stop-action animation movie using individual atoms as the pixels. The atoms are actually carbon monoxide molecules, but those are smaller than most atoms, so I figure we should let this one pass.
Here's the 2 minute movie:
Why is IBM doing this? It's all about smaller data storage size. The quote from Andreas, the lead scientist, is that if this works out, you'll be able to store all the movies ever made on your iPhone.
So IBM booked the prestigious Ogilvy agency out of new York to come and make a behind the scenes doc about this microflick, and they came out from New York, but they needed another local guy to shoot some more stuff for them. And then some stuff was missing, and out I went to Almaden again. And hmm how about some more nice shots of the microscope? Worked out pretty well in the end for me. The scientists in the Atom Lab were all really cool. Each of them was from a different country, and you get the sense that each was one of the best in their field in that area, to land this apparently cool job at the IBM research facility. Who even knew that IBM was still around! I'm exaggerating, but they're out of the limelight. Nevertheless, they have this massive high tech campus in southeast San Jose. The Science-per-square-inch readings were off the charts. Their chemical laboratories would have made Breaking Bad jealous.
Anyway, here's the flick. I shot a lot of the B-roll, everything of the microscope, and some of the interviews. Can you tell the 5D footage from the hacked GH2 footage?
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