From the course: Video Gear

Creating a hand-cut gobo

From the course: Video Gear

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Creating a hand-cut gobo

- Now Rich, it kind of looks like we went to the art and craft store, right? - We did, actually go to the art and craft store. - That is, in fact, what I did. I got a pen. I got an X-Acto knife. - Yeah. - I got some foam board, a bigger piece of foam board. - Yeah. - And what's going on here? - Well, this actually makes a pattern, and when you shine a light through it, it's pretty cool. It creates things. Now, this is kind of just an organic one, a bunch of petals and leaves, and what were you going for there? - Well I was starting, as you can see here, with some really, kind of, I'll use the word organic, some bad circles, but that doesn't really matter. I was going for a little bit more of a porthole kind of effect, and this is an easy thing to do. All you have to do is find a piece of common foam board, like this. - I'm gonna take this out of your hands. - Okay, that's probably a good idea. Design or draw whatever pattern that you want, now here's the thing is that this doesn't have to be art. You can draw organic, abstract, weird patterns if you're into little birds or circles or triangles or whatever it is, just experiment. My advice would be to just use a piece of paper first, draw out an idea for your gobo, and then go and transfer that onto a piece of foam board. - And, what we have here is just a standard X-Acto knife. It's kind of sharp, and make sure that you change the blade out. Work in a well-lit environment. You don't wanna be doing this in the dark. You don't wanna be using a dull blade. Be very careful, but this'll cut right through the foam core and take that board to the side for a second. There is a piece of extra equipment here that I highly recommend. This is an X-Acto mat. This is hard plastic, sort of a rubberized plastic that's designed to not cut through it. This does a couple of things. It makes sure that you don't accidentally cut through and scratch up your table, and it just keeps the blade from getting dinged on a hard surface. - And, because it has kind of a ruler measurement on it, it allows you to kind of precisely measure things out. Now, there are a couple other pieces that you probably want to have when cutting out your own gobo. A compass works really well to draw perfect circles. On this example, yeah, these weren't perfect circles. These were we just free-forming it, which obviously wasn't pretty good. - You went for an organic pattern which is fine. Now, once you got these things cut out, it's pretty simple. You're just gonna clamp 'em to a lighting stand, and put it in front of a hot light. Don't get it so close, and make sure you don't leave it unattended. You don't want this to actually catch on fire, but foam board is gonna hold up pretty well. - Yeah, and just realize that these are disposable for the most part. We'll talk later this week and in further episodes about various gobo options, but I like to think about these as, you know, kind of use once or twice, and then probably replace with something new down the road. - Yeah, this one's been on a few shoots too many. I think it's ready to retire, but hey, it cost about a dollar to make.

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