Cool Tools: Matthews Magic Stand

Posted by Steve Herzberg on Oct 21, 2009 in Quick Focus | 0 comments

My name is Steve. I’m a tool junkie. I’m in love with a light stand.

How did it happen? It called to me. The moment I saw it in a Matthews catalog, it called to me. All I could hear were the paraphrased words from a great Heart song:

You don’t have to love me yet,

Let’s get high a while,

But try to understand

Try to understand,

Try try try to understand

I’m a Magic Stand, Ohhhh, yea. I’m a Magic Stand.

Magic Man: Written by Ann and Nancy Wilson (1976)

Uh, the last line is what I heard, not what the Wilson sisters wrote. And, by the way, in my mind the second line is not a drug reference — it’s all about a light stand that extends way up, as high as 12.5 feet.

How do you write about a light stand. I decided not to.

Instead, I decided to make a down and dirty video clip to both show the Magic Stand and give some ideas about how to use it.

In this clip, I show how I use the Magic Stand to create one of my favorite lighting set ups — the Paramount or Butterfly lighting pattern — I use quite often. And, in the clip I put in a special tip that I find very useful when working alone, which is almost all of the time.

The video was shot on my new Kodak Zi8 pocket video camera by my good friend, photographer Ed Bensen and features, in a cameo appearance, model Stephanie Vostry.

I think that in cases like this, pictures are worth thousands of words and plan to do some more of these videos. I don’t want to create monsters that take a long time to plan, shoot and edit — so I plan to stick with this format for a while — with one change, I’ll get a clip on mic to improve the sound.

What do you think? You can use the Contact tab on the home page to send comments and suggestions.

(Copyright: PrairieFire Productions/Stephen J. Herzberg — 2009)