Tennis Balls: SAFER Filmmaking With This Simple, Fast, & CHEAP Tool
This Video Covers: How you can use TENNIS BALLS to guard eyes and camera lenses against damage on your film and video sets. Safety is the first priority of any professional, amateur, student, or hobbyist film set. So, cheap, easy, and fast tools like these help make every set safer! Remember: film sets are like construction sites in terms of danger, treat them as such with responsibility and caution!
To get started: grab a box cutter and a tennis ball.
Directions:
- Cut a 1 inch by 1 inch X into the side of the tennis ball.
- Be careful to keep your fingers out of the way of the knife blade, and take your time as the rubber is a bit tough to puncture.
- If the hole is a bit bigger than 1×1 that is completely fine, your goal is to get it over the end of the gobo arm but also to have it stay on the end no matter the angle.
- Now, simply set your gobo arm up, making sure to angle the end of the arm up or down for added safety. And then slide the cut tennis ball over the end.
The greater surface area, rubber flexibility, and soft material, combined with simply covering the end of the arm, reduce the chance of life or lens changing damage should someone run into the end of the arm. Keeping ourselves and others safe on-set should be the 1st priority of any production and we have a responsibility to hold high safety standards.
To see video examples, watch the video above!
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