Darren Smith, Flight Instructor, CFI Homepage


Home \| Login \| Schedule \| Pilot Store \| 7-Day IFR \| IFR Adventure \| Trip Reports \| Blog \| Fun \| Reviews \| Weather \| Articles \| Links \| Helicopter \| Download \| Bio

Building a Home Video Studio

A 12 part series of articles on the making of aviaTV.com

by Darren Smith, CFII/MEI

Sandbags

A must have for every video studio is sand bags. They are used to weigh down light stands, microphone stands, camera boom stands to prevent them from tipping over and destroying expensive equipment. You'll also find them useful in holding down the edges of your backdrop. See the sidebar "Why Use Sandbags?" for further information. They are must have and handy items to have around whether you are on location or in studio.

I figured I would need about 10 of these things in my video studio. A set of two will cost you $16 at Amazon, ebay, etc. That's $80 that wasn't in the budget. That doesn't include the filler material to bring the sand bag up to 10lb. Professional sand bags are filled with lead shot, which as $1.37 a pound (ala Google). That's $22 bag - way beyond my budget.

The ones pictured here from ebay are yellow striped & blue striped. I'd suggest using "don't trip over me orange" if you have a choice of colors -- especially if you're making your own sand bags.

I made my own out of old drapery material scraps for about $1 each. Here's how.

The first thing was to get the fill - as cheaply as possible. I chose river rock (right) which are marble sized pebbles that come in 50lb bags. To fill 10 bags, I figured I'd need 100lbs of rock or 2 bags, total cost $6 + $2 in gas to buy everything mentioned in this article. The first thing I notice when I got the rock: it's exremely dirty. I had to wash and dry the rocks (see image to the right). After drying, I could then place the relatively clean rocks into the fabric bags I made. For the super savers out there, you can use water expelled from your washing machine after a white load like I did.

The bags were prepared by cutting 14" x 14" scraps of old drapery fabric that I had. The sides were sewn with the top left open. I put velcro on the top of the bag so it could be sealed (and reopened if necessary). You'll notice I put two 1/2 inch grommets into the top of the bag (just under the velcro strip) which is where the rope handle will be secured. I spent $8 for a grommet set (tool plus extras). The two grommets came in a kit of 12 sets, very easy to install onto the fabric bags. The guy at home depot can show you how easy it is.

As you can see from the picture to the left, I didn't worry too much about the seams. I left them unfinished. The sewing machine I used could barely get through this thermal drapery fabric and putting a finished seam on the edges would have been just a little too much for that singer.

From here, it's pretty much straight forward. Fill the bag with rocks, and seal the velcro at the top (pictured to the right). Now, to hang them from the studio equipment, I would need some rope handles and some bungee cords. Every studio needs bungee cords, so put that on your shopping list too.

The rope handles are fairly easy, get about 24 inches of rope per bag, and tie a knot in the ends and voila, you have a rope handle. Be sure to burn the end of the rope so they won't come unravelled. I bought rope from home depot by the foot. Buying it in 10 separate pieces of rope means I didn't have the burn the end of each piece. They did it with their handy machine that cuts the rope and seals the ends. I spent $10 on rope.

Now, I could secure the various stands and tripods that I had purchased for the studio. I had to start thinking about the set design of my video studio. The first step was getting backdrops.

Total cost for this phase of the project: $26

I've Lost My Mind

shot bag

Somehow I lost my mind after making 10 of these "sandbags." I found a promo on digitaljuice.com for some software I wanted, but I had to buy a sandbag to get it. Well since I wanted three pieces of software, I had to buy three sandbags. At $20 each, that was a $60 purchase.

Actually, what I bought was called a shotbag (pictured right). I figured I could pull the same trick and fill it with rocks. What I found when they arrived is that they were so small that filling them with rocks didn't make them heavy enough.

Oh boy. More money. Well I had to buy some lead shot to fill the bags since they were so small. I found the cheapest solution online was from rotometals.com. I purchased 50 lbs of recycled lead shot for a cost of $70. You can quickly figure out that this cost me $1.40/lb.

I had considered using thousands of pennies. Post-1982 pennies yield 181 a pound, or $1.81 a pound (source). So for 50 lbs, it would have cost me another $20 not to mention the strange looks from the tellers at my credit union.

Now do you see why you should make your own sandbags? Total for the 3 bags+fill: $130.

New Total cost for this phase of the project: $156

<< Previous: Beginnings | Next: Backdrops >>

Why Use Sandbags?

Sandbags are an indispensable part of video and film production because they have so many uses. Primarily, they are used to add weight to objects like light stands and grip gear to prevent them from falling over.

Practically speaking, sandbags are also employed in all sorts of other tasks including:
- preventing the legs of a tripod from moving when a "lockdown" shot is required
- adding stability to a tripod - hanging a sandbag from the center lowers its center of gravity
- stopping a moving camera dolly on a track
- as an adjustable base to put a camera on for a ground level shot
- as a wedge used to level gear
- as a cushioned knee rest for camera operators or talent
- as a step for talent to stand on if an increase in height is required

Everyone involved in production, whether for video, film, or photography can benefit from having sandbags.

Independent producers or camera people who regularly have to do their own lighting, rigging and directing depend on gear that helps them work quickly.

Source: Digital Juice

Your Thoughts...

All content is Copyright 2002-2010 by Darren Smith. All rights reserved. Subject to change without notice. This website is not a substitute for competent flight instruction. There are no representations or warranties of any kind made pertaining to this service/information and any warranty, express or implied, is excluded and disclaimed including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. Under no circumstances or theories of liability, including without limitation the negligence of any party, contract, warranty or strict liability in tort, shall the website creator/author or any of its affiliated or related organizations be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages as a result of the use of, or the inability to use, any information provided through this service even if advised of the possibility of such damages. For more information about this website, including the privacy policy, see about this website.

Site Map

Building a Home Video Studio

Your Thoughts...