RAMBLES: Terminology – Slang

I haven’t posted in a while, and there is a good reason for that!  I’ve been busy shooting!  During my shoot days, I’ve come to realize that often, new people don’t understand the slang of the average Canadian set, so I decided to clarify some of it here.  I’m going to skip some terms that are more common or are taught in school… slang isn’t taught in school haha.

CAMERA
Sticks – Tripod
Standards / standard legs – Normal size tripod legs
Babies / baby legs – Small tripod legs
High Hat – the device to mount the tripod head 12-18″ above the ground
Studio mode – for tripod setup.
Overs (ots) – over the shoulder shot
Check the gate – before in film world, it meant to check the film gate to make sure there was nothing to interfere with the film.  Now in the digital age, it means to check the last take to make sure the media was recorded properly.

GRIP/ELECTRIC
Stinger – extension cord
C47 / peg – clothes pin
250 – Lee 250 diffusion
baby C – 20″ c-stand
Gary Coleman – 20″ black c-stand (lol)
Skin – means to put a gel or diffusion on something.
Scrim – a metal wire mesh to put into a light fixture to adjust the strength of a light.
single / double – the stop value of a net or scrim.
Cube Tap – a 3 way splitter for power (in the shape of a cube)
Duve – Black commando cloth
Dingle – something to put in front of the light to break it up (like a tree branch)
Maffer – a super clamp.
Cardi – a cardelini or mathewlini
Sash – stage cord, rope.
Pony – spring clamp
#1 / #2 / #3, etc. – size of the spring clamp, in inches. (#1 opens to 1″, #2 opens to 2″, etc)
Spark – referring to turning on a light, or to an electrician

Apple boxes:
L.A. – to put the apple box on the lowest position
Chicago – to put the apple box in the middle position
New York – to put the apple box on the highest position

My 1st and I have been trying to change this to Canadian sayings though:
Toronto – to put the apple box on the highest position
Nova Scotia – to put the apple box in the middle position (i dunno, my assist thought of this)
Prairies – to put the apple box on the lowest position