Source four on a stick / spot dot

[josh88]

http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/03/14/tale_of_the_tape/
thats the article they site and I've read multiple similar articles over the years. There seem to be as many people claiming there isn't strong evidence either way as there are people claiming it was a waterproof "duck" tape. One of its primary original uses was for sealing up ammo cans and because of the duck fabric (being more like gaff than modern "duck" tape) it picked up that nickname but technically wasn't ever given much of an official name. Perhaps because the nickname sufficed.

 

[DavidJones]

It's situational. For most shows they shouldn't. But then there are those head shots from 200ft away. Or the shows where your running at 50% with a heavy diffusion and your fighting a bright wash.

And I'm the LD that gels spots with 1/2cto, 1/8 minus green and 2 stops of ND all at once. Why? 20 people, 2 spots....oh by the way we are shooting this for TV broadcast. Spot dot helps.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Perhaps because the nickname sufficed.

Sort of like "cyc".

 

[JohnD]

Oh golly, it seems obligatory to also mention the theory that duck tape is called that because it sounds like a duck when you pull it off the roll.
In other word news, although archaic, lecturn is still an acceptable spelling.
Now, what was the question again??????

 

[TimMc]

Oh golly, it seems obligatory to also mention the theory that duck tape is called that because it sounds like a duck when you pull it off the roll.
In other word news, although archaic, lecturn is still an acceptable spelling.
Now, what was the question again??????

But does it walk like a duck?

A former business partner of mine called it "quack" as in "hand me the roll of quack tape".

 

[Van]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to start a sidetrack... Did we cover the OP's question sufficiently?

Back in my day we just took a screw out of the name plate on back of our Supertroopers then marked up the back wall of the spot bay with chalk for all our pick-ups. Light would make a little dot, line up the dot with the chalk, boom.

 

[Ben Stiegler]

that SpotDot is a neat idea! New to me ... I hail from the days of cranking the carbon arc rods slowly together and hoping we'd make it til the end of the song. I always wondered where the little exhaust fan was actually taking the fumes, too.

 

[JChenault]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to start a sidetrack... Did we cover the OP's question sufficiently?

Actually yes you did. ( or you gave me some ideas to try)

I took a 4 inch angle bracket and cut it into two pieces about 3 inches long ( sure - I could have just used a mending plate - but I could not find one in the shop and I had the angle brackets). Turns out that the focus knob / screw is plenty long to go through the flat metal of the plate and still hold the barrel of the fixture. So now I have a ferrous piece of metal sturdily connected to the barrel and will simply use the spot dot magnet to attach to the bracket.

The show is early next week. I will try and post images.

Thanks for all of the ideas.

 

[JChenault]

Here is an image of what we did and it worked beautifully.

If I were doing it again I would probably get a thin sheet of silicone ( like they use in pot covers ) to put between the barrel and the metal plate to add a bit of friction -

Thanks for all the help and ideas.