red leader standing by

film leader is what you use to splice to the start and end of your reels to protect the film and attach it to its core. its papery texture on the painted/emulsion side makes it a happy medium for sharpies so you can identify what’s hiding on that core. white painted leader is usually used … More red leader standing by

be kind, rewind

more than you possibly ever wanted to know about edit bench rewinds. ok, now let’s talk rewinds, the workhorse of an edit bench. one of the oldest edit technologies. how else are you going to crank through miles and miles of film? what we got here is your standard rewind. an edit bench typically has … More be kind, rewind

editors love counting

in our last episode of “this is how we count”, i talked about the measuring stick. let’s now take a look at the film ruler. this one here measures two feet of both 16mm and 35mm film. you’ll usually find these fastened to an edit bench or flatbed. because we like to count, we have … More editors love counting

measuring time

back in the days before timecode, time was calculated by how much film there was. instead of speaking timecode, editors would speak in feet and frames. how did we do that? with a measuring stick, of course! film measuring sticks generally have two sides. this one gives you the option of measuring black and white, … More measuring time

the chopping block

wik’s splicing block. this one here in particular is a rivas splicing block. a roll of 35mm 4-perf on the left and 70mm 15-perf on the right. we used to label our splicing blocks because each one handled a little bit differently. it made everyone possessive about their particular gear. i stole mine from paul … More the chopping block