6 Pieces of Filmmaking Gear That Will Last FOREVER

investing in film making gear is kind of like buying a used car you might get years of good times out of it but somewhere in the back of your head you always know that eventually something is going to go wrong whether it's that drone you crashed flying backwards through a forest at night did that or that monitor you burned out because you accidentally left it on and plugged into the wall for six St eight weeks also did that most film gear isn't known for being able to take a lot of punishment but despite all the gear I've managed to destroy over the last 15 years working with cameras all over the world the six pieces of gear I'm going to talk about today have managed to stand up to years and years of heart abuse and if you're into gear that's actually built to be used in the real world like I am I made this video for you so minor click baity title aside because obviously no gear will last literally forever we all know that not all film making gear is created equal some of it can last your entire career and some of it will barely make it out of the first shoot in one piece it's kind of like buying a used car on one hand you've got a trusty old Toyota Camry a brand that's so synonymous with quality and a long lifespan that people will buy used ones with over 200,000 mil on them and then say annoying things like it's just getting broken in on the flip side of that would be a 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser a car so ridden by a design and quality issues that you could almost forget how hideously ugly it was the ridiculously low customer satisfaction scores the multiple recalls across the line and the possibly fatal airbag explosions you risk by driving it are so outrageous it might almost be funny unless you bought one that is I want more Toyota and less PT Cruiser and even if it costs a little more upfront I'm willing to spend it because I know that I'll actually end up saving money in the long run by not having to replace things every year or two I'll stop with all the car analogies for now but all of the gear I'm going to talk about in this video has been with me for a minimum of 5 years and in some cases closer to 10 which is when I started investing in professional filmmaking gear and that's an eternity in the age of modern consumer electronics and all this stuff has been tested on multiple professional shoots and climates as diverse as the Arctic tundra the Great Rift Valley and Kenya and Volcanic jungles in Papa New Guinea I'm saying all that to get across that I really do care if my gear is tough and I'm just cheap enough to get mad when I have to replace things but luckily that doesn't apply to the stuff we're going to talk about in this video all of which I give two very dirty thumbs up okay to kick things off I want to start with the one piece of gear that's lasted longer in my kit than anything else they're older than all three of my cinema cameras I've ever owned they've been with me on every single shoot since I bought them in 2013 and I've actually been using them since before was even shooting video full time they're so reliable and tough that I almost take them for granted these days one of those things that I just know is going to be there shoot after shoot and since I get asked all sorts of gear questions through this channel it's getting to be sort of an issue because I've been using the same system for so long that I can't actually give out good advice on the new gear out there because I just don't have any experience with any other system and that's these my senheiser G3 Wireless lavs getting mics onto characters is one of the most important things in documentary film making and I'm struggling to think of a single shoot in the last 10 years when I haven't needed to mic at least one person I bought these when I was still working as a photo journalist and I needed something to do basic interviews and at the time I remember thinking that the 500 bucks I paid for them was an outrageous price but if I'd known how hard wearing these things would be I wouldn't have hesitated because the value to price ratio over time has been insane they're so old that Sennheiser doesn't actually sell the g3s anymore and they've been replaced by the G4 model that my imagine is just as tough though again I wouldn't know because I haven't ever needed to upgrade I've also worked as one of the lead DPS on the Survival series alone for multiple seasons and when we need to leave miks on the cast who are literally living out in the woods for months at a time this is what we turn to which should tell you everything you need to know as cool as the new tech might be there is just no way that the DJI or road to goes could handle those kinds of environments and so these g3s get my highest recommendation when it comes to toughness rental houses tend to scoop up every used set of these things they can find so the g3s like these can be really tough to find actually but if you're planning to stay in the dock business for the long term you can't go wrong with these or from what I've heard the newer G4 models as well let's stick with the audio theme here for a second which makes sense cuz audio gear doesn't really go out of date as fast as cameras the next thing on this list hasn't been in my kit quite as long as the g3s though it's still been almost 6 years without a single issue and I actually use this thing even more than the lavs cuz it's on my camera every second of every shoot and that's my shotgun mic the Sennheiser 416 I'm actually using it right now so I'm not going to hold it in my hand for the whole video but just know it's there actually the baby brother the MK 600 has been in my kit even longer at about 8 years or so so it's really just a big overall win for Sennheiser in the audio department but I'm singling out the 416 over the 600 just because of how good the audio quality is not that the 600 is bad because it's not at all and I still use it as the main audio Source on my bcam but it's not quite on the same level but the 46 is a big step up in quality and that means I can use it for everything from Netflix level interviews to these YouTube videos and know that it's going to do a great job and since the real value in super tough gear is in being able to use it for years and years the 416 gets the nod because it's the kind of thing that can grow with you as your career moves on now it isn't cheap at all at around 1,000 bucks but if you consider that for the last 6 years it's been used on multiple camera bodies that have all since died at the hands of the brutal treatment environments I subject them to it's pretty impressive that it's still working like the day I bought it audio is so important in the doc storytelling process often even more than the visuals so investing in a highquality mic that can stand up to the elements without ever complaining makes it one of the best long-term Investments for any filmmaker out there all right let's move away from audio gear for a second in into the world of lighting because when we think of super tough long lasting gear lights probably aren't the first thing that come to your mind I mean I love my aperature chip on board lights like the 300D and I use them all the time but when I think about taking them into a truly rough environment like the 4mon shoot I just mentioned I just can't imagine it lasting like these things have my westcot 1 by1 panels I think I bought these in 2017 but it could even be a little bit earlier because B&H is only showing me my purchases dating back to 2018 so it's hard to say for sure either way I have treated these guys with total disrespect but they just refuse to quit like I've hung them out in the rain I've dragged them into deep caves I've used them to light outdoor interviews in the middle of the desert they just don't die now I'm not going to pretend that these small panels are the best key light in the world because the small size kind of makes them a little sourcy looking without using modifiers but they're sheer ver versatility and portability combined with the bombproof build quality makes them no less useful and to get the most out of these you will need modifiers but because westcot makes all sorts from soft boxes to China cubes I've used these to light up rooms and remote interviews all over the world the China Cube attachment in particular turns these guys into one of the most useful lights I own for filling up dark rooms with soft overhead light and because of how light these are you can hang them from trees or boom them over scenes using lightweight stands or just hand them off to a camera assistant who can can hold them using vmount power if that's not enough you can also tape them to the roof of cars or you can roll them up and stick them on bookshelves pretty much anything else your Twisted DP mine might dream up the downside like most of these things is that they're not cheap especially if you want the vmount power adapter kit with them and if you compare them to the offerings for more budget Brands like amaran or whoever else the price might seem a bit borderline ridiculous at nearly 1,000 bucks a kit spending that kind of money on small panel lights might not be for everyone and I totally get that but if you're the kind of filmmaker who needs stupidly tough gear that works in places where it's too risky or hard to carry in bigger lights then you're going to see the appeal here I fit two of these plus their soft boxes and diffusion and the battery packs into one small photo backpack that's about the same size as the travel case for a single 120d so I rarely have to worry about them taking up too much space and speaking of portability if you want to bring all this tough gear into the field you're going to need something to carry it in and if you've been watching this channel for a while you might be expecting me to talk about f-stop backpack yet again but I'm going in a different direction here cuz yes I do love those bags and they have a ridiculous 20-year warranty but I'm going to be making a separate video about them very soon so I don't want to repeat myself too often but when it comes to transporting film gear there's one brand that's so synonymous with toughness that they become kind of the go-to name for an entire class of products sort of like how we call all facial tissues Kleenex and that's a Pelican case if you've ever been on a set it's pretty normal to call any black case a pelican even though there are lots of other brands who make solid cases their own and there's a reason for that pelican cases are pretty much indestructible to the point where they have a lifetime warranty and in the gear world that's not something you find very often Pelicans aren't shooting bags they're heavy and bulky and they're really hard to carry on any surface where you can't use the wheels but when you need to get gear safely from point A to point B there's nothing better whether it's keeping lenses safe in the back of a production van or throwing delicate stuff into the belly of a plane Pelicans are the way to go I own two of them and I'll probably be adding a really big third one soon again I've had them so long B&H isn't showing me when I first bought it but I think I got the first one in 2016 I've got one really big one that I'm not even going to try and lift up I'll put all the model numbers in the description and I use that as an allpurpose case for travel and I'll just pack anything fragile into it like a drone or a gimbal when it needs to go on a plane or into a vehicle now this smaller one I normally use as a lighting case and I keep a bunch of different things in here there's an amaran 60x and there's some small gion lights in here and if I need more protection than my backpack can offer sometimes I'll take the stuff out and fill it up with lenses I don't really need to say much more about these because they only do one thing but they do it extremely well if you're a filmmaker who travels and needs to keep gear safe on the road then having at least one large Pelican on hand is a just no-brainer in my opinion with the warranty they'll last you your entire career and even your entire life and those are the kinds of Investments I love all right so there's just a couple more things that have been with me for five plus years and of all of them these were probably the scariest to buy but also one of the most impactful in terms of upping the overall quality of my work now I'm hesitant ever to say that a piece of gear is responsible for making me a better shooter because 99% of the time buying stuff isn't the path to Improvement it's mastering the fundamental skills of Storytelling and lighting and scene coverage and quick Shameless plug here this is exactly the kind of thing we talk about in my documentary cinematography course so if you're into this kind of thing jump on the wait list and I'll let you know the next time we're accepting new members who am I kidding though we also talk about gear there too but in general it's not the tools that make a cinematographer good I mean give chivo a GoPro and I'm sure he'd Come Away with something amazing even if it wasn't his first choice but with all that said when I finally pulled the trigger and upgraded to these guys I do have to admit that my footage got a lot better these are the Fuji MK cine zooms and you might have heard me talk about them before on the channel there're super 35 only lightweight Cinema zooms that are full manual meaning they won't autofocus unless you attach a separate motor for me that's not an issue though because the wonderful manual focus pull is a huge reason why I love these so much before these I was shooting everything on stills lenses which are optically just fine but as you probably know they're a bit finicky to manually focus sometimes when I bought these I suddenly found it so much easier to flow with the action and be really precise with my focus PS in a way that I'd never been able to before manual aperture control is also a huge bonus and then when you combine that with the fact that they look amazing and they only weigh a half pound more than my Sony 24 to70 it makes them perfect for handheld shooting all day like I do as a docin motographer and all that is great but this isn't a lens review and for 3500 bucks they better look good right no what really impresses me about these things in the context of this video is just how badly I've treated them and they just seem to keep on taking it seriously I've done almost nothing to protect these which I'm sure will trigger some people's OCD but I just don't have the time to baby gear in the middle of a shoot like I've shot with these things on the Marine Corp Yuma bombing range which is in the middle of a crazy Dusty desert I shot directly under the rotor wash of dozens of helicopters in the Canadian North taken them into caves onto boats into the jungle into the middle of snowstorms and just about any place you'd normally try to not take an expensive lens but through all that nothing has stopped them from working just like the day I bought them sure there are some dings on the front element but it makes no difference to the final image and since I never plan on selling them I don't really care about the superficial stuff the major caveat with these is that they're super 35 only meaning you can't shoot them on cameras like the fx3 without a digital crop but these lenses aren't primarily designed for mirrorless setups anyways I don't think if you need lenses like this in full frame you could check out the laa Ranger zooms I talked about in a video last month but honestly I haven't really put those to the test in a harsh environment yet so I can't put them in the same league yet no matter how nice they look all right last up here is one of my best alltime purchases when it comes to my film making kit and it has has nothing to do with the image quality or at least not directly I'm talking about tripods here because if you've ever tried to use a bad one especially in a fast-paced documentary environment you'll know just how annoying they can be and apart from weight and setup Speed a lot of tripods are often pretty fragile like surprisingly fragile like the super expensive Peak design tripod that only made it two months in my kit before the leg locks blew apart or the old benro that I cracked the first time I checked in under a plane and you might be saying that I'm an idiot for not putting it into a hard case but the reality is is that if something needs to be protected so carefully then it's not that much good to me others might disagree with me here but hey this is my channel so we're going to go with what works for me I'm the C to know and I'm guessing that some of the longtime viewers of this channel are already going to know what I'm about to say but it's the Sackler flow Tech that I've had for 6 years [Music] now all I really need to say is that this tripod literally got shot three times when my crew got caught in an ambush in northern Mexico in 2019 and it kept working perfectly now full transparency this isn't that exact same tripod I bought because Sackler replaced it 2 years ago but they didn't replace it because it didn't work it's because Sackler actually asked for it back so their Engineers could study it apparently it's so rare to damage these that the team had been struggling to find ways to improve the design and so when they heard that one had been hit with an assault rifle bullet they wanted to take it apart actually now I wish I hadn't let them have it because it was a really good conversation starter when people asked why there was a hole in the leg and I said it was from an AR-15 but hopefully by taking it apart in the lab they somehow found a way to make them even tougher I kind of doubt that though because this thing is an absolute unit I don't want a fanboy about it too much here because I think long-term viewers might be sick of me mentioning it all the time but beyond just being one of the best strength to weight ratios in the market you can use this tripod in any weather condition and not worry it's expensive there's no way around it the 75 mm bowl is 1700 bucks without a head and the 100 mm like I have here is almost 4,000 so it's not exactly a casual purchase but tripods never go out of date and if you want something that you're going to be able to keep for the rest of your career and that you can take pretty much anywhere on Earth without having to pamper it this is the one okay so there we go six of the toughest pieces of gear I own so much stuff out there these days is built to be disposable and I'm just personally not cool with that I want gear that helps me work the way I want to work not gear that I have to worry about every time I take it out of the case but that's not an issue with any of the stuff on this list because I've been abusing it all for years and yet it stubbornly refuses to die that's gear I'm happy to spend money on see you [Music]

Channel: Luc Forsyth

Views: 17,337

Keywords:

Id: feKHGOBcWFk

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2024