- All right, so this week we're gonna be talking about
gear that's helpful for filmmakers under $100,
because filmmaking gear can be expensive.
And sometimes you don't have the luxury
of spending all your money on camera gear.
You have to sometimes pay for things like weddings
and wedding venues, which, I don't know,
this is looking pretty good, what do you think?
- Yeah, I think so far, so good.
- Also, huge thanks to PGYTECH
for sponsoring today's episode.
We have a big list of things that we're gonna be going over,
and PGYTECH has a couple of things in that list.
Let's start off with number one, Red Whips.
You know those little red
- Oh, Bongo Ties.
- Yeah, they're not Bongo Ties,
but they're better because they're adjustable.
- Why do you always call them Bongo Ties
if they're not Bongo Ties?
- Okay, they work like Bongo Ties.
So, Bongo Ties are pretty popular
because they are good for fastening down cables
and stuff like that, but they're not adjustable.
- [Carrie] Okay, but the Red Whips are adjustable.
They're everywhere. They're on all the extension cords.
They're on our luggage.
- [Gene] Oh, yeah, exactly.
Wrapping extension cables or just bundling cables
that you need for different sets of things.
(laid-back music)
- Get yourself a LEATHERMAN multi-tool.
Those just come in handy in any situation.
- [Gene] Frank actually carries around his LEATHERMAN
on his wrist, actually.
- [Frank] What's up, homie, what's going on?
- [Gene] You literally are always wearing it, huh?
- [Frank] Yeah, because I'm always using it, that's why.
I was using it earlier for the bike seat.
Flat head, a Phillips,
a couple of allens, box cutter/opener kind of thing.
But it's the most useful tool I've ever owned
in my entire existence.
- [Gene] And here's my tool set right here.
It's very minimal. I actually love this thing.
There's definitely been plenty of times
where I was just like, crap,
I don't have my tools with me
- [Frank] The tool that I use the most right here,
which is the one that you have on there.
- [Gene] It's for all the base plates and everything.
- So I don't think LEATHERMAN sells that bracelet anymore
unless I'm missing something,
but I didn't see it on the LEATHERMAN website.
So you can get one that's not LEATHERMAN branded.
So this one's a knockoff.
- I've been hitting record and stop record.
I thought I had an SD card here the whole time,
and there's no SD card.
Such a dumb ass.
- [Gene] Guess what?
Thanks to our sponsor, though...
- [Frank] Shut the hell up. Are you serious?
I'll take this one. The one that says Insta 360.
- [Gene] Okay.
- This almost feels staged, huh?
(laughter)
- [Frank] It feels so fake, but no, it's real. Thank you.
- [Gene] This thing's dope.
Actually, have you ever seen this yet? Actually?
So this is called the PGYTECH CreateMate,
and it's a case for your memory cards,
but also a micro SD and SD card reader.
- [Frank] Oh, there we go. Oh, this is nice. I like this.
Does it have like a little key chain? Oh there it is.
For me to hang it like from somewhere.
- [Gene] You love putting stuff on your belt
like you're some handyman.
Do you even use your pockets?
(laughter)
- [Gene] So yeah, this one's for you?
- Oh, Awesome.
- This was a- Aww.
Good thing it's durable
with a rubber protection thing.
- [Frank] Oh cool. I like this.
- [Gene] Super simple, right?
Four SD cards, four micro SD cards, SIM cards
and a card reader.
And the good thing is the card reader is fast.
312 megabytes per second. USB 3.1.
- [Frank] Oh, nice.
- You can even take off the rubber cover
and make it just, just that.
And then there's this mantis pod,
which I've been using for a while.
Definitely makes the list for being under a hundred bucks
It's just very versatile, you know, it's like a tripod
or just a grip, and it's super quick to adjust.
And of course the thing that made it really
unique was this hook right here.
So you could usually find something to hook it off of
like a fence or wall or anything like that.
Awesome for vlogging.
But now that I'm starting
to use this pocket a little bit more often,
I'm gonna try this out.
The PGYTECH CapLock MantisPod Z.
It's specifically designed for lightweight cameras
like GoPros or this Pocket 3.
But the reason why I really wanted to check this out
is it can do this.
So I'm gonna go ahead and attach this little tiny base plate
and I told you I use this tool all the time.
So I like that this adds more versatility
to the already versatile camera
and already versatile tripod.
So check that out. Pretty cool, huh?
Yeah, I think actually with this grip I could get like
some good low angle shots.
- [Frank] Oh yeah.
- [Gene] Lemme extend this thing out real quick.
Check that out.
- [Frank] That's cool, that's cool. I like that.
- [Gene] Low angle shot.
So check it out, I'm just holding this camera out
and using the phone as a controller so I can go ahead
and just see my framing and I can put the camera in
like interesting positions.
Bam!
These things must definitely make the list.
I wanna say it's almost like a soft case sort of for things,
but it's just very universal in terms of size, right?
Like for example, I have this grab bag of batteries
and I wanna put like an action camera in there.
It's just nice to be able to just take this
and just like roll it up real quick.
It works like Velcro. It is not nearly as strong as Velcro,
but it's much softer than Velcro.
If you decide you need to travel with something
and you just roll it up in here
and it basically becomes that shape.
It sticks pretty good though, huh?
It's a pretty heavy battery that I have in there,
but it just kind of sticks to itself.
But at the same time it's like-
- [Frank] Yeah, but it won't come undone
once it's in the bag or wherever.
- [Gene] Yeah
- [Frank] PGYTECH?
- [Gene] This one's PGYTech,
but they're not the only ones that make this.
Sometimes you just need to throw camera gear in places
that you're not supposed to put it into, you know.
It's just like quickly we gotta get outta here,
so you just throw a bunch of crap into a bag.
It's perfect for times like that.
I've also mentioned these little porta brace bags
in another one of my videos, and I love these things.
I don't know how many of these I've bought already,
but they're super useful cause they're transparent.
So if you're looking for a certain cable
or something, you're not like
digging through a bunch of bags.
It has like a high quality zipper
and you just, you know it's gonna last you a lot longer than
a Ziploc bag, which is gonna get all crumbed up.
Feel the quality of that?
- [Frank] No, no, no.
- [Gene] It's like way better.
- [Frank] You can't compare this to a Ziploc bag.
- This specific one I leave in my backpack,
and I just leave a couple of USB C to C see cables in here.
And I got a bunch of these adapters which basically convert
USB C to pretty much everything else I might need.
So micro USB C to full size USB.
And then there's also lightning and the mini USB.
So basically you can make any sort of combination
out of all these.
So I just always leave this in the bag.
What's nice about this is that it also does data transfer.
If I'm only just looking to charge,
I also have this other cable that basically goes from USB A
to a bunch of different plugs.
It's really handy, but there's no data that goes through it.
- Sooner or later all these ports are gonna be obsolete.
It's all gonna be USB C.
- [Gene] I know I can't wait for that day.
- I can't wait for that
- But until that day, these things are only
like a couple bucks for an adapter
and I just leave it inside of here.
- Do they have different size bags?
- Yeah, so that's the smallest bag right here.
But they come in different sizes.
So I have one for my eight inch propellers
that can hold all of them.
There's also a good mid-sized one for tool sets
and just different things.
It's probably the best organizational thing I've ever had.
The company is porta brace.
They have been making bags
for the film industry for a really long time.
Anyways, that was a fun session of flying while it lasted
until we both destroyed everything.
Ooh!
And we can't make a video about stuff under $100
if we don't mention this aperture light,
the MCs, these things are so useful.
- [Frank] Can you change the temperature on this?
- [Gene] Yeah, it's full RGB.
Nice and warm lighting right there.
It's not like crazy bright,
but this is full power, like daylight color
but like indoors or sometimes you just wanna have
a little accent light. These things are awesome.
Different colors. Whoa.
Yeah, it's magnetic too.
So it's like the Insta 360 Gos kind of.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- You know, just magnetically sticks onto things.
So really easy to rig, quarter 20 on the bottom.
- If I need a little down light here, it's super easy.
So I like these.
- [Gene] Ooh, and I see you have one of these
- A B7C
- [Gene] At first I didn't know this was battery powered.
- [Eric] These are just cool
because you can plug them into sockets
- [Gene] Yeah
- And they're battery powered, so you can be a dummy socket.
- [Gene] Oh sprigs!
- [Frank] A sprig. I love sprigs.
And then these you can download on my website for free.
It's a STL file
and then you can 3D print them
at DeHavencamera.com.
- [Gene] These just go into any like quarter 20, right?
- [Eric] And then that helps you route your cables.
You know your transmitters.
- [Gene] Ooh The lighting on you is so dramatic right now.
It's like... with that window coming through.
- I know, I'm, I'm a beautiful guy. What can I say?
The other thing I like are these,
this is a Kondor Blue QRs.
- [Gene] Those are awesome, the quick releases.
- [Eric] So that's like a cool way to, you know,
be able to QR.
I know a lot of ACs now, they're mounting them here
on the back of your handle.
So the antennas are out of the way of everything.
So you can do this, and always make sure
to point your antennas up.
Don't do that because then they radiate the wrong direction.
- And then there's gaff tape.
Everyone's gotta have gaff tape.
- Gaff tape and paper tape.
This is my tape.
- [Gene] There's your gaff tape roll.
- So I have a lot of different tapes.
We have gaff and we have paper.
We have, what you don't carry on set, duct tape,
but you know, every now and then
you just gotta fix some with duct tape.
- It's gonna take forever to take that residue off.
- Dude, It makes a mess.
- [Gene] Yeah
- I mean even gaff tape, if you leave it on for too long.
- Yeah, and if it gets hot and then
you peel it off, then there can be residue.
- So, again, if you're putting tape on something
that you're gonna take off
or mark with a marker: paper tape.
So that would be this stuff. Marking tape.
- [Gene] It's almost like kind of like a painter's tape
- So it's like a little bit thicker
and more colors and whatever.
If it's more permanent
or you're trying to tape something together,
use it on set pieces or whatever: gaff tape.
But you know this also works for taping
your producer's mouth shut when they tell you to stop-
- [Gene] No, that's what duct tape's for.
- Oh, duct tape is for hostages
(laughter)
- [Gene] Gaff tape's for crew members. Okay, gotcha.
- Gaff Tape is for crew members.
- A little more gentle.
- Yeah, yeah
- But gaff tape's definitely like one of the first things
that goes into a kit, I feel like.
- [Eric] If you're cleaning lenses, period,
without any question, this is what you use.
- [Gene] Actually I think I have an old video
talking about PANCRO and KIMTECH.
- [Eric] Yeah but do you have this?
- [Gene] What is that?
What?! Is that just for cleaning?
Man, you're so fancy.
- This is what happens when you have time and a 3D printer.
You can just put it in safely and then voila.
Now you can work on it.
Kimtech, a single use wipe.
Two sprays of PANCRO, start in the middle of the lens
and I make a circular motion on my way outward
and then I turn it over and I just touch up.
And we don't ever scrub a cinema lens,
we just wipe.
- [Gene] It's actually surprising how often
you could get a lens to be pretty clean with just this.
- On most cases I would blow off
long before I would even go to cleaning.
- [Gene] This is definitely one of the
top things on the list.
I actually have like this battery powered blower thing.
Kind of overkill, but it is nice
because you push a button and it just runs a little fan.
- Blows air. That's cool because you're always like this.
Everybody should have this in their kit.
- Things under a hundred bucks for filmmakers.
- I got one.
- You got something?
- I got one for you, yep.
- [Gene] Aside from great coffee.
- [David] Aside from great coffee, yes.
Apache 5800. It's a case from Harbor Freight.
It's a hard case, almost the same as Pelican.
Locked, waterproof.
- [Gene] Waterproof too?
Hey, it's like the same size as the little air case,
like the 1510.
- [David] Carry on size for travel.
You don't have to check it, you can put it up above.
It fits all my work stuff, all my camera stuff.
- [Gene] So budget Pelican case.
- Not quite as good. Like I've had it for a couple years.
There's a little bit of warping. Still a great case.
- Oh and you got these inserts.
- The inserts are probably more than a hundred bucks, yeah.
- The insert was $160. My camera, C70, my junk drawer.
- [Gene] Oh you made a little swivel?
- [David] Little Allen wrench.
- [Gene] Oh that's genius actually.
- And then also like when I'm setting things up
I wanna like, you know, grab other stuff.
- [Gene] Yeah.
- [David] It's my little...
- [Gene] Dude, this is actually brilliant right here.
- [David] Fit everything. Cables, memory cards, poofer.
- [Gene] I love these inserts though.
They're expensive but they're like awesome.
- [David] It's incredible.
- Way better than the foam inserts
that don't last very long.
- Yeah, it starts squishing down
and then they can get little foams everywhere.
- Day 21 of running every morning.
So this next thing is free.
- If it's free it's for me.
- It is a morning routine.
And I would say for someone that freelances
or you know just how every day is different, it's very hard
to have any sort of stability in your life sorta of, right?
In terms of organization and planning.
And we do it in the mornings
because that's when we have the most discipline.
And I think a lot of people have the most discipline.
You got this audio book called The 5 AM Club.
Speaking of audiobooks, there's that app Headway
that's actually really cool.
So basically it's like audio books.
But CliffsNotes, basically compressed down to 15 minutes.
I've been listening to a lot of that stuff.
- Yeah, almost every day you're listening to something
- And then 15 minutes is good
because it gives you a general idea of it.
Like the 5 AM Club was one book
that basically I got summarized in 15 minutes.
I'm like, oh this is an interesting book.
So then I got the whole audio book on Audible.
So that's two different subscriptions I guess.
But it's stuff that improves your life,
you know what I mean?
- Yeah, like the 5 AM club,
that's where you kind of got some of your ideas
for what we're doing right now.
- [Gene] Yeah, because we wanted to do
like a routine in terms of just making sure
we go out and exercise every day.
And we tried it at different times of the day
and they're basically just like, no,
the morning is when you have the most discipline.
So do it in the mornings before you get your day started.
So we're like, okay, let's try.
And we've been doing it 21 days in a row now.
And this next thing I would say is maybe not for everybody,
but for me it was just an absolute game changer,
which is the focus planner.
I've tried a bunch of digital organizational stuff,
but this is just like a physical notebook that I bring
with me literally everywhere.
I've been filling it out every single day.
- I got one too. I love it.
I love physically writing things down.
I like the organization of this notebook.
And it has a lot of prompts.
- Each day you have a page that you can fill out as much
or as little as you want, but then you have your big three,
which are the must-dos basically.
And then at the end of the day you can generally be like,
okay, well at least I did this big three
and everything else, like check off as much as you can.
And then there's also weekly pages where it goes like,
all right, reflect on your last week
and see what you did well, what you want to change.
I have way more clarity
and understanding of how I'm spending my time every day
and more realistic expectations of
what I can accomplish throughout the day.
And I just, I feel way more organized using this
than any other digital planner I've ever used before.
- Yeah.
- And it's funny because it's just like,
it's a piece of paper, it's not digital, you know,
it doesn't live on the cloud, it's not backed up anywhere.
It's just like a physical thing.
But for me, I don't know why, but it just,
it's the one that I've stuck with.
It is 50 bucks for the notebook,
and it's once every three months you get a new one.
But if you don't wanna pay for that,
you could always just kind of do the same type of thing
and just put it on a regular notebook.
Right. But the big three is I think what really helped,
- [Carrie] I think with your ADHD it was really hard
to decide what things were priorities.
So you would have a list of 20 things,
and they all had equal priority level.
- Yeah.
- So this really helped you, I think, narrow down
what's really important to get done in your day.
And you, you get them done every day.
- Now if you fly a lot of drones: launch pad.
This one's I think 3 feet or something like that.
You never know where you're gonna end up flying.
And if you get dust or sand in your motors,
that could really ruin your day.
So yeah, launchpad can definitely help you out here.
(chill music)
You definitely don't want dust in the motors.
Ignore that happened please.
I get a three footer that I use for most of my stuff,
but I also just got this five footer
for the bigger drones like the Inspire and the Cita lifter.
But if you're flying something like a DJI midi,
you could probably go with like either a two footer
or just one of those folding ones.
What you don't want is something
where the edges aren't weighted down.
because if you take off, there's a lot of prop wash.
You don't want it to flop up and take down the drone.
This launchpad is made by Hoodman.
All the pros like light craft
and complex cereals, they use this.
So I just copy them
Most useful things for filmmakers under a hundred bucks.
- Under a hundred bucks?
- [Gene] Yeah.
- [Frank] I'm actually surprised he's like
looking through his bag.
- Something like this, right?
- [Gene] Oh yeah, yeah.
- I use it every day.
As an app, like Sun Seeker for like 10 bucks..
- [Gene] Sun Seeker, ah.
- I use this one. Sun surveyor.
- [Bearded Guy] Oh sun surveyor, yeah.
That's like another version of it, yeah
- I love this one.
- This is like kind of an essential app
for when you're location scouting
and trying to figure out what time of day
you should be filming to have the sun be
in favor of your lighting.
There's the sun right now,
but you could see what time
of day the sun is gonna be when and where.
And speaking of the sun, sunscreen,
Carrie got this stuff for me, I actually like it.
It's kind of like a ballpoint pen.
You just sharpie yourself up and then you just...
The easiest way to apply sunscreen without it getting
everywhere, and you don't have to do the tube thing
and you get to kind of... it's kind of fun.
It's like you get to draw on each other.
- You can draw happy faces
- Or peni-.
- You actually use sunscreen now because of this.
- Yeah. Before she would pull out the tube
and be like, want some sunscreen?
It's like I'm good,
I'll just take the cancer.
And then I would say last but not least, air tags,
- They have changed everything for you.
- Yes.
- You know how many times you used to ask me,
have you seen my keys? Have you seen my wallet?
Oh my gosh.
- Yeah. I got one in my wallet now
and it's like the best insurance policy
to just throw one in your camera bag
and kind of hide it somewhere
for protection against yourself being forgetful
and small rig even makes this thing
where you could rig it straight onto a camera cage.
- We even put them on the dog.
- [Gene] Yeah, in this little slot in the harness
that Carrie puts him in.
There's no monthly subscription.
You could get as many as you want
and if you're not an Apple user then there's like other
versions of the air tag from different brands.
- [Carrie] I think tile or something, right?
- [Gene] Tile, I think Samsung makes some.
But anyways, we came here to enjoy the sunset,
but it is cold.
So let's just finish off this video in the van shall we?
David says, "if you don't have it already
on your geared for under $100 list,
I would consider the Aputure MC RGBWW LED light.
A small light comes in handy for sure."
Yeah, it's just useful. I mean I used it yesterday.
The only thing I don't like is it doesn't get super warm
- [Carrie] Like you want that super dark orange amber?
- Yeah. Mine only goes down to 3,200 degrees Kelvin.
But yesterday I was trying to match it
to like 2,700 degrees, like really warm
but I couldn't get it to match that.
But I don't know, maybe there's a new version out
that actually can, because I know their bulb can.
Brendan says, "As for useful things,
the Anker 737 power bank is clutch."
The top comment from the last video: Joel says
"DJI made an exceptional decision
to use a bigger sensor on the Pocket 3.
Pair this with the improved low light processing
and this is the best pocket camera you can get.
So clean in lower light and nighttime too.
I would say like 98% of this video was shot on this.
There were definitely times where I saw the limitations
of the dynamic range of this Pocket,
but I have also been just like leaving everything on auto
and just letting it just auto expose everything pretty much.
"I bloody love that Carrie loves metal detecting.
It's so wholesome and fun."
- It is fun. I'm a little bit of an old soul.
I like quirky things.
- Keith says, "please talk about the smart telescope
revolution such as ZWO Seestar S50 or Dwarf II."
I looked it up and it looks like there's just like
tiny little telescope cameras
that are supposed to be fairly easy.
They're like 500 bucks or something.
It would be an interesting video
to just kind of explore something new.
because I've never really done astrophotography,
so that could be cool. That'd be fun.
That's actually another thing
that Carrie's been wanting to get into.
- Yeah, we briefly looked into it.
- "What drone are you using?" Which drone am I not using?
- So true.
- It depends on what I'm trying to do.
"Hey Gene, please tell me what soldering pen that is.
It looks so sick." TS100.
Old guy on the couch says,
"you two are living the dream.
Think you were flying a drone in Mexico.
Hope you know only residents are allowed
to fly drones in Mexico.
Would hate to see your next video in Mexican jail."
That would be an interesting episode.
But no, actually you can bring a drone in under 250 grams.
So there I was flying a three inch
with a O3 air unit on it to just keep it under 250 grams.
It's a tiny little thing.
- It went through customs.
It went through customs and they did make me pay
like a 17% tax on it to bring it in.
- Like an import tax, I think.
- These laws are always changing.
Like it's still kind of-
- It's hard to keep up.
- Thank you once again to PGYTECH
for sponsoring this episode.
Links down there in the description if you're interested
in any of this PGYTECH stuff or other stuff.
I'm gonna just... affiliate link Mayhem down there.
And yeah, Carrie actually does the descriptions now.
She helps me out there.
- I'll even link the sunscreen.
- She'll even link the sunscreen.
- Yeah. So yeah, that's it.
Bye
- Bye.