When appearing on camera, wearing makeup is a necessity…for everyone! The camera sees things that we do not see with the naked eye and it can distort your features and lighting can wash you out or make your skin tone appear uneven. There are four basic makeup must-haves: foundation, powder, blush, and lip product.

Foundation is meant to even out the skin tone and help you to appear alive! It is not necessary to wear a ‘mask’ of foundation; just enough to give the appearance of the same overall color. Pay close attention to the areas under the eyes as this area of the face tends to be either lighter or darker than the rest of the face.

Being in front of the camera can make you sweat, this can be due to stress, nerves, or heat from the lights. This sweat will make you look shiny and it is not a flattering look for anyone. A light dusting of powder will take care of this issue.

Blush is meant to enhance cheekbones and the appearance of a natural, healthy glow. Applying blush to the apples of the cheeks is best. It can also be applied to the overall face in moderation to give a more bronzed look.

The use of a lip product, either balm or lipstick, will allow your lips to be seen on camera. At times the color of the lips will blend straight into the color of the face. You want the focus to be on the actor and the actions, not the imperfections.

Remember that the purpose of makeup is to dull reflections created by the on set elements and keep you looking like you! Follow the tips below for the best results:

Tips:

*Men: Be sure to get a nice clean, close shave. Facial hair is not easily concealed by makeup and you will save yourself a lot of time in the makeup mirror if you take the time to shave!

*Makeup should ALWAYS be the same color of the skin on your face, not your hand. Test makeup colors on your cheek or chin, not on your hand. Unless you are a hand model, your face is the most important thing being seen on camera.

*Blush should not have shimmer or the cheeks will appear shiny. Use a matte blush to prevent unwanted shine.

*Makeup is not the enemy, it is your friend!

1. An extra tripod plate.

Where did I go? Hell if I know.

These things get lost, and how. They are the guitar picks of the DiY filmmaking world, and it helps to have a bunch around so you aren’t stuck doing a hand held shot for something that really should be locked off on your tripod. Luckily, these guys are less expensive than the whole head, so while they aren’t exactly something you should toss out the window on the highway in large quantities, the loss of one shouldn’t ground production to a halt. Your tripod may have actually come with two of them. If so, hooray for you. If not, then it’s a good idea to buy a backup.

2. Power adapter (NEMA 1 to NEMA 5)

These guys are a little life savers! They are tiny, but they come in big when you find yourself in a location with only two pronged (NEMA 1) outlets. Bring a few – they can fit if your camera bag is bigger than a ring box (note: it should be).

Note: for the hardcore among you, try this crazy looking thing (international power adapter). It is pretty compact and if you find yourself traveling the world I’m sure you can pony up $5.10.

3. Lens cleaning cloth

There is nothing worse than getting something on your lens and then having to wipe it away with your shirt or sandpaper because you don’t have the proper type of cloth that doesn’t damage a lens. Everyone will see your footage through that lens so be kind to it and pack a few of these.

There are a variety of cool ways to keep a cloth around too. You could do the basic classic style cloth, the cloth in a keychain pouch, a really handy little non-keychain but still cool retractable pouch thing, and of course a lens cleaning pen. Why not.

4. An extra tape

Yes, I know, this is blindly obvious, but it is forgotten more frequently than we would collectively like to admit. Pack one more extra then you could possibly need, and you’re good to go.

5. Regular Sharpie/Thin Sharpie/Extra tape labels

These are the holy trinity of keeping things labeled in the field. Yes, the tapes come with their own labels but a reserve supply is a good idea. Don’t bother with ball point pens for marking on them, they’ll only smear. Thin sharpie (the pen kind, not just the thin type of marker) for the labeling, and the regular sharpie for marking bigger things and writing on gaffer’s tape.

6. Extra lightbulb for light

Another oft-looked over no-brainer. If your light goes out, make sure you aren’t in the dark. You can find the type of bulb to get from your light’s manual or website.

7. 1/8″ cable extender

This one may not be so obvious, but sometimes the situation pops up where you are getting distracted by a shorter than necessary headphone cord and you need some length. Same with if someone else needs to hear the headphone audio to work a boom for a shot or two. Very handy.

8. RCA butt connector

Or RCA female coupler, I guess. Why not “butt” though? I can’t tell you why you may need this, because the situations are very diverse and strange, but at some point, having a RiteAV – RCA Coupler makes life a lot easier.

9. Microphone stand thread adapter

Sure, your mic goes on your boom pole just fine, but somewhere along the line it may have to play nice with another mic stand, or you may need to fit another mount on your pole. One of these little guys can save you from awkwardly taping some things together.

10. Roll of gaffers tape

Gaffers tape is the most popular guy at the party (the party being your shoot). Keep a nice big roll in your bag and its like coming to the party with a 24 case of non-Keystone light beer.

* For more on the importance of gaffers tape, check this out.

11. Firewire 400 to 800 adapter

4-circuit firewire can be found on most pro-sumer camcorders out there. The firewire cord you have laying around is most likely firewire 4-circuit to 6-circuit (400).  Oddly enough, I keep running into newer computers (especially Apple laptops) with no firewire 400, just the 9-circuit firewire 800. A show stopper in most cases, but not with this bad boy. Pull this one out of the bag in a pinch, and you are the village hero.

With these 11 items, you’ll have the tools to face a wide range of production problems that come up – just reach into the bag and make the magic happen.

Many people on a shoot automatically reach for duct tape in these situations. It’s a household item that is available at practically every general purpose store, and it’s cheap. But pull out a roll of duct tape in front of a pro and they’ll be horrified. Why? Duct tape is the worst thing you can use on a film shoot, and there is a better alternative: gaffers tape.

Why not use duct tape?

We shouldn’t just dismiss duct tape right away because it’s available and common, so let’s talk about why duct tape is a bad idea for shoots.

First of all, duct tape’s pressure sensitive adhesive leaves goop – everywhere – and since its made to stick it and leave it, it can be very difficult to remove. Try taping some cables down with duct tape and come back an hour later – your cables will have a charming thin sticky surface that is great for ruining them.

Maybe the worst use of duct tape for a production is that situation where you need to stick something to a wall or another part of your location, and when you remove the tape later, it takes a piece of the location with it. It’s always important to treat your locations with respect and leave them the way you found them, and taking some paint off a wall isn’t going to put the location owners on your good side.

Meet Gaffers Tape

Gaffers tape is a cloth tape with a different type of pressure sensitive adhesive that allows it to come off clean, eliminating the problems of duct tape above. You can tape down cables with no fear. Gaffers tape also has some other useful aspects:

1. Different sizes. Gaffers tape comes in different widths from very narrow (called “spike” tape) to wide tape which is useful for taping down larger groups of wires. For general purposes though, you can get gaffers tape that is roughly the size of duct tape for your shoot.
2. Different colors. From fluorescent pink to blue to black to white, gaffers tape comes in all sorts of colors for all different kinds of uses. I recently went to shoot on a location that was very brown so I got some brown gaffers tape in case any of it showed up on screen. Worked like a charm.
3. You can write on it. White gaffers tape and a sharpie makes for some extremely easy and fast labels for just about anything. Audio engineers often use it to mark inputs on boards that may change often.

Maybe the best part of gaffers tape is that you can scoff at duct tape users and brandish around your sweet roll of the real deal. While girls are not impressed by it (in my experience) you can still impress yourself.

Bottom line: for any shoot, big or small, gaffers tape is a wise investment. It’s certainly more expensive than plain duct tape, but it’s an essential tool for any production bag.