Gear you didn’t know you needed - Part 2: 5 under $50

Time for another roundup of unsung heroes of video production. These indispensable items will help you save time and headaches whether you’re a team of one or a team of many. They also happen to be things that you may not know you need until you need them. So, here’s my list of 5 production essentials that you can add to your toolkit right now without breaking the bank.

NOTE: I don’t receive any compensation for recommending any of the following pieces of equipment but I do use each and every one of them. Some of the items listed below are the exact products I use and some of them are just general suggestions. Always do your own research, read the verified customer reviews, and ask your friends and colleagues for their recommendations.

Gaffers Tape - This is an all-time MVP for video productions of any size. Whether you need to mark off positions for your on-screen talent, secure loose cables to prevent tripping hazards or even temporarily fix a busted leg on your tripod, having a roll or two of quality gaffer’s tape in your equipment bag can be an absolute day-saver. Stock up and use liberally.

Note: for productions in locations with expensive, hard to maintain floors, make sure you check with the facilities team to get their policies for using tape before laying it down. You don’t want to get stuck with a budget-busting cleaning bill.

Multi-Tool - This little dynamo will pay for itself just for the flathead screwdriver alone since you’ll be putting cameras on tripod plates all the time. But if you ever need to perform repairs in the field or cut wires for permanent camera installation you’ll be glad to have a multi-tool at the ready. If you’re the outdoorsy type, grab a multi-tool with camping-friendly bits like a mini saw. Just make sure you clean it well so you don’t get wood sap on any of your camera equipment!

Production Slate - A must-have if you’re doing multi-camera or dual-system productions. The slate provides useful information like scene and take number that can really improve your efficiency in post. It also gives you a visible and audible sync point for lining up multiple camera angles or marrying your secondary audio to picture. Added bonus: the white of the slate can be used as a white source during color correction if your camera wasn’t properly white balanced during production.

Pro Tip: try positioning the slate in the frame before you roll camera. This will make all the relevant information part of the default thumbnail for your clips, making it super simple to find the takes you’re looking for when you organize your footage after the shoot.

Label Maker - If a piece of gear ever gets lost or left behind, make it easy for the finder to get it back to you! I label everything, from production equipment to external hard drives to notebooks/folders to storage drawers. Entropy is a real thing and it’s easy for your office, studio and storage bins to descend into chaos. A label maker can help you to get back to a neat and organized workspace so you can easily find what you need when you need it. 

Battery Organizer & Tester - It’s just a matter of time before your batteries die. Having spares on hand and a battery tester to confirm the charge level of a suspect battery can really get you out of a jam. The Zoom H4 portable recorder, for example, is a notorious AA battery muncher. With a fresh set of batteries always at the ready you’ll go from a full stop of production to a quick reset.

Pro Tip: make sure you fully break down any battery-powered equipment before storing it. Not only will this preserve battery life, it will also prevent corrosion at the contacts of your gear which can damage or destroy your go-to tools!

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list of vital tools under $50 but I think I’ve covered some of the classics. What’s your favorite tool under $50 that I didn’t include?  If I choose your suggestion for a future post I’ll link out to your site and/or socials so make sure to include contact info in your message.

As always, please don’t feel any pressure to run out and buy all of these items right away. Build out your production toolkit at a pace that’s comfortable for you. That said, I can promise you that you’ll never regret having these workhorse items on hand… but you’ll kick yourself for not having them when you need them.

Gear you didn’t know you needed - Part 1: 5 under $10

When most people think about the gear that’s required for creating video content they think of the star players: camera, lights, sound. These are the obvious big ticket items. But what about the supporting cast? All those essential items without which you wind up in a moment  of “Oh, s&^t! How am I going to fix this?” when you get into the edit. Luckily for you, I’ve been building up my equipment cabinet for almost 20 years and have learned from those moments. I’m here to share 5 must-have video production support tools - all of them under $10 - so you can be better set up for success on your next shoot. 

NOTE: I don’t receive any compensation for recommending any of the following pieces of equipment but I do use each and every one of them. Some of the items listed below are the exact products I use and some of them are just general suggestions. Always do your own research, read the verified customer reviews, and ask your friends and colleagues for their recommendations. I am not suggesting that you run out and buy everything on this list right away. Slow and steady. Build up your equipment cabinet over time as you can afford to.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s dive in. 

In this post we’ll focus on some ultra-affordable production equipment that will save you time and headaches. If you’re looking for ideas on the best camera, microphone or lighting options for your video content creation needs, check out my free mini-course, Overcoming GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), where I share some tips on finding the right gear for your budget, production type and skill level. Without further ado, let’s take a look at some of my favorite unsung heroes of the game.

Lens Cleaning Kit - Even under the best conditions your lenses can get dusty or smudged with fingerprints. Failing to clean your lenses regularly can result in specks or flares in your footage that can range from really difficult to practically impossible to fix in post. A simple lens cleaning kit can keep your images looking their best. This is especially true for those of us using smartphones and laptop webcams for creating video content. A few extra seconds at the start of your production can be the difference between getting that perfect take or settling for second best.

Cable Ties - These little lifesavers will help you keep your editing station tidy and keep all those XLR, HDMI, USB and power cables neatly stored and ready for action. I collaborated with a musician friend for over a decade and, without fail, whenever I went over to their place to work on music we spent at least 15 minutes detangling cables just so we could plug in our guitars and mics. Been there? Get yourself a bunch of these little Velcro cable ties and watch those sour memories fade into the past. Coupled with some cable rolling TLC you’ll be up and running faster from now on. 

Smartphone Tripod Adapter - This is one of my all-time favorite pieces of low-budget filmmaking gear. With one of these tiny tools in your camera bag you can mount your smartphone onto literally any tripod or monopod, allowing you to get stable shots when the handheld look isn’t desirable or practical. No more leaning your phone against a stack of books! With the right tripod you can go from landscape to vertical video in seconds. Throw in a gorilla grip and you can mount that beautiful pocket-sized 4K camera virtually anywhere. Think of all the creative camera angles you can achieve to take your video storytelling to new heights - or lows. Check out my Better Smartphone Video for Everyone series to get schooled on this and other mobile-friendly tools and techniques for getting more from the camera you have with you every day.

Clipboard - I love my iPad Pro but sometimes I’m out in the field where there is no WiFi and less than stellar cellular service is the best that can be had. Or maybe I need to use my iPad as a teleprompter. This throwback piece is clutch in those situations and way cheaper than buying a second iPad. Shot lists, storyboards, permits and model releases are always accessible in paper form no matter where you go - as long as you remember to print and pack them back at HQ. Up the functionality with a clipboard that has storage for pens and such and you’re ready for whatever the day throws at you. 

Card Reader - For me this one’s a no-brainer. Without a card reader you’re stuck with having to connect your camera to you computer to offload footage from your shoots. With a card reader, however, you can swap cards and be copying and shooting at the same time - provided you have more than one card. You do have multiple cards for each of your cameras, right? My recommendation: 3 cards per camera. Same goes for batteries, but I’ll talk about those in Part 2 of this series. 

I hope you found these suggestions useful. Did I miss anything? What’s your favorite fun under $5 piece of gear? Let me know via email, social media or by filling out the contact form on this site. 

Now get back out there and keep shooting, rock star!

Manage your time to manage your stress

If you’re like me it probably feels like there are never enough hours in a day or days in the week to fit everything in. And, like me, you may have tried some time management tools, productivity hacks, training or coaching or even therapy if your overwhelm is really bad. Even though I was knocking out tasks and projects at a superhuman level, according to witnesses, this feeling of never being able to get to a good stopping point led to a downward spiral. I stopped having the energy to do the things that I love to do outside of work like making music, martial arts, and playing with friends. The problem is that I need all of those things to create some sense of release and balance in my life. Instead, I found myself insomniac AF, mind racing on all the things I needed to achieve in the next day, week or month.

The good news is, I found tools and tactics that work

It took a pretty major burnout and some tough conversations with my then boss and my therapist for me to realize and begin to articulate that I was on an completely unsustainable path. The thing is, I love being the superhero and, hell, I even love to work. I can’t count how many times I’ve pulled a 12-15 hour day and felt great about it, especially in work environments where we were offered a flexible schedule and I could make up the time elsewhere when whatever crisis or not-to-be-missed deadline was in the rearview mirror. For me, though, this workaholism coupled with a people pleasing nature started to get really tricky to manage when I started to operate at the executive level. And, yes, my dear freelancers I consider you to be in this category. The good news is, I found some tools and tactics that work for me. I hope they’re helpful to you as well.

Track everything

One thing you’re probably already doing is creating to-do lists and they certainly have their utility. But are you tracking how much time it takes to complete all those tasks? In my opinion, you really should be!

Reason #1 - keeping track of your time is a great way to identify opportunities to improve efficiency through automation, additional training or outsourcing.

Reason #2 - adding the time dimension to tasks is essential to make sure you’re pricing your time correctly.

Reason #3 - there’s this thing called the Pomodoro Technique that has been shown to increase focus and productivity by breaking work down into smaller sprints instead of a marathon slog where you forget to eat lunch. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, never going back.

Focus on what matters

This one is pretty cool. It’s a little old school but the classics never die. Ever been sitting at your computer with an overflowing inbox and a mile-long task list and get that deer in the headlights freeze? I can certainly relate to this version of decision paralysis. Enter the Eisenhower Method. Broadly speaking this method helps you to compartmentalize different types of work by assigning them an importance and an urgency. What you get is a decision matrix like this:

Image by Rorybowman - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2135450

The philosophy behind the Eisenhower Method is that if we spend more time on the things that are “Important and Not Urgent” (think big picture planning and long-term projects), fewer things rise to the “Important and Urgent” status, also referred to as “Putting out fires”.

I asked on Quora a while back what things should go in the “Not Important and Urgent” quadrant and a helpful commenter replied that they use that quadrant for things they should delegate. This user was interpreting that lower left quadrant as “Not Important TO ME but Urgent. I like that twist when working with teams. I like the example above, too, because it helped me to think about how to create a work environment that is more focused. I’m as distractible as Dug, the dog from Pixar’s Up, so open-concept or co-working environments really don’t work for me. Even when I’m working from home I literally jerk my head towards the window every time I see a squirrel run by from the corner of my eye. I just can’t help it. What I do to control my work environment, besides closing the blinds when I need to focus, is turn off all social media notifications and assemble my personal and business email tabs into a tab group and then collapse it. 

Use a scheduling tool for meetings

I’ve used Acuity in the past and now use Calendly for scheduling calls and meetings but Google Calendar is good enough to get you started, provided the majority of your calls and meetings are with Google users. Using these tools has greatly reduced interruptions and unscheduled calls. No more phone tag and no more losing your train of thought when the phone rings in the middle of your carefully cultivated flow state.

Last tactic: Try, Troubleshoot and Tweak 

Try out one or more of these tools and tactics and commit to using them for 30 days. That’s how long, on average, it takes for a person to adopt a new habit. It can be really easy to try something new and then flake out when the going gets tough, even when you’re pretty convinced that that new habit will have long-term benefits.

Troubleshoot any barriers to adoption that you encounter along the way to see if you just need to change either your mindset or the way you’re implementing (or both). Not every tool or tactic is useful to everyone and I certainly ran into my share of false starts and roadblocks before settling on the suite that I use.

Tweak the way(s) that you’re implementing your selected tools and tactics and continue to take note of any hiccups. Rinse and repeat.

Bonus tip: Celebrate your successes

As a small ritual I have set aside the final 2 hours of every work week with a block of time called Reflect and Plan. Carving out this time helps me look back on all the accomplishments of the week. With that done, I’m better able to let go of any guilt or stress about the things I didn’t get around to. I bust out that crossed off to-do list and marvel at my productivity. I also use this time to look ahead to the next week and figure out how to catch up on anything that slipped through the cracks as well as dedicate time to new tasks. As I close up my laptop for the week I can sail into the weekend without my brain buzzing about all the things I’ve been juggling. Well, most of the time. It’s important to remember that this is a living process and some weeks will end with more wind in your sails than others. However, I can say with confidence that taking time to manage your time will reduce confusion and stress and help you enjoy the precious time with friends and family more, thereby reducing stress even further.

If you’d like a more in-depth look at the tools that I’m using and how I’m using them, head over to our YouTube channel and do all the things so you’ll get notifications on a series devoted to time management coming very soon. You can also use the contact form on this site to request notification when the complete Time Management for Creatives course launches at the end of the year, just in time for you to set a resolution for 2024 to be more productive and less stressful.