March 16, 2023 • 42 mins
Tune in to this episode of The Walkie Check featuring Greg Flores, who went from turning a Facebook group elevating grip & electric departments. to a full blown business.
Host: Layne Marie Williams
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Layne Marie (00:10):
Hello and welcome to the Walkie Check.
Hey folks, welcome to the WalkieCheck.
I'm Layne Marie Williams, a filmdirector in Los Angeles,
California.
We're super excited to beworking with our friends at
Noisefloor to bring you the mostcreative and talented people out
there to share theirexperiences, knowledge, and
power.
(00:31):
Today we're gonna be talkingwith Key Grip and business owner
Greg Flores, who is the founderof the popular social media
Instagram handle@griprigs, alongwith gripsupport.com and The
Grip Store.
Greg started his career in 1997at age 17 when he got an
interview for an internship at astudio in San Diego called Stu
(00:52):
Segall Productions.
He found a passion for the filmindustry and learned every
position from an onset grip,rigging grip, dolly grip, and
best boy grip, and eventually itbecame a well-known key grip in
the industry working oncommercials, TV shows and
feature films.
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Greg (02:00):
Go for Greg Flores.
Layne Marie (02:02):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Walkie
Check.
Today we're here with GregFlores.
That's beautiful.
Where are you from originally,Greg?
Greg (02:12):
I'm originally from Orange County, California, but now I
uh, I'm in San Diego for themost part.
Layne Marie (02:17):
That's awesome.
San Diego.
What do you feel like is specialthere that keeps you creating
and uh, working with filmmakersin that location?
Greg (02:25):
Well, that's where I started my career, which was in
San Diego at a studio called StuSegall Productions.
What I like about it is thateverybody loves it when you're
filming here.
I've noticed that when you go toother places, such as LA or
stuff like that, people are overit in a way.
Everybody has a good attitudehere, it seems less congested,
and overall the the weather'sgreat.
That's what I love about SanDiego.
Layne Marie (02:46):
Yeah, it's definitely a really cute beach
town.
I've visited a couple times andyou know, I know we grabbed
lunch on that like boardwalkarea.
There's this like really coolmermaid sculpture or sign, I
can't quite remember, but uh, itwas really great.
Greg (03:02):
Yeah, a good thing about San Diego is it has everything
you need.
You can go an hour away and youcan have snow if you want during
the winter.
It's literally the mountains oryou can go the beach or regular
city life.
It's whatever you need.
It's all here.
Layne Marie (03:14):
Yeah, I feel like that's why a lot of people stay
in California, especially thosethat are born and raised from
just the folks that I'veencountered so far, which is
kind of fun.
Greg (03:23):
I agree.
Layne Marie (03:24):
Yeah, I mean I definitely would love any excuse
to return to San Diego,especially to film something
there.
So I'm very envious of the factthat you get to work there every
day.
So in regards to Grip Rigs,which is a very cool popular
platform that you built, and nowyou have your own facility that
(03:46):
you sell grip equipment and gearout of.
From my understanding of it, youstarted Grip Rigs back in 2012
and you started it through aFacebook page called Grip Rigs.
Tell us, what first ignited thisidea and what was the actual
follow through to get it to theplace that it's in now?
Greg (04:06):
Well, when I was working in the industry, there was a lot
of cool stuff that we did and Iwould always have a camera on me
and I'd take pictures and dothese videos and all kinds of
stuff like that.
But there was one time, Iremember when I was doing this
commercial in Los Angeles, ACarl's Jr.
commercial, and it was a reallytough rig we had to do.
The director of photographywanted the camera to be mounted
(04:28):
onto the car and as a car backsup out of a parking space, he
wanted the camera to come offthe car when it crashes into
another car.
So the camera would come off,float off of the car, and then
reveal the whole overall scenein a wide shot.
But he wanted all that to happenin one shot and I couldn't
figure out how to do it atfirst.
So I kept looking on theinternet and things like that
(04:49):
and trying to get ideas of whatI could use to mount onto the
car to be able to float off andstuff like that.
But besides, I figured out theshot and it came out great, but
that caused me to wanna makesomething where I put all my
albums and all my pictures andvideos onto essentially a
gallery.
And I started doing that bymaking a page called Grip Rigs.
And once I did that, I figured,you know, what I could do is
(05:12):
highlight all the grips outthere and what they do and have
them get credit for their work.
And so I, that's when I built,grip rigs and started putting it
out there, and it became popularreally fast.
That's the story.
Layne Marie (05:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I really do feel likegrip, electric and camera teams
are truly the unsung heroes offilm production.
So it's super cool to see theways that, I feel like the
social media presence even thatyou've started through@griprigs
on Instagram.
It's huge and it's, in perusingthe page itself, it's been
(05:47):
awesome to see everything fromlike really wild rigs, to things
where I'm like"Oh God, the poorcamera".
You've definitely got a funrange of content.
Greg (05:58):
Yeah, it's fun to see what we do behind the scenes.
We get so creative, and it's socool to be able to see that in
one page.
It's brought a lot ofopportunities too.
There's like a lot of showswhere like Chapman Leonard or
Matthews or Jay Fisher will dothese big shows outside and
they've invited me to set upbooths and we do like cool
spots.
Like I've done one for Matthews,we did two cars and we had five
(06:22):
key grips rigging cameras allday and it was a live event.
And then there was another onewhere we built the world's
biggest apple box in an event,and we showcased all that what
grips do.
That was really cool.
Along with the world's biggestsandbag, which was cool.
It was a beanbag.
We did a giant basketball court,kind of like when you see at the
carnivals, where you can, youknow, shoot the basket, but we
(06:43):
made it all out of grip stuff,that was cool.
And we always give away thingsat these events.
The last one we did was a lowrider.
We had these brick walls in theback with graffiti, the set grip
rigs and we did a low rider andmounted nothing but Matthew's
car mounts onto the car.
And then at one point during theevent we brought everybody over
and we had a DJ and we had thecar hop with these cameras
(07:03):
mounted on it.
It was so fun.
But yeah, I agree with you thatthe opportunities and what we do
is so cool, but nobody gets tosee it.
You know, it's all behind thescenes.
We see the movie, and we see thecamera smooth on a car, but you
don't realize how hard it was todo that.
The lighting, you know, all thatstuff.
So it's fun.
Layne Marie (07:22):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
I mean that's definitely beenone of the benefits of social
media, you know, us being morein charge ourselves as content
creators is, you know, now wecan have a BTS photographer on
set, and a videographer that'scapturing the way that we made
that car crash happen, that sortof thing.
(07:43):
Yeah, right.
So I love it.
Greg (07:44):
Yeah, I wish we could have somebody do something on us.
Layne Marie (07:48):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean hey, we can! Like, justall we need is equipment.
It's not like you and I don'thave access to that, so.
Greg (07:56):
Oh no, I mean more behind the scenes if we could have like
a camera crew following thegrips doing car rigs and stuff
like that.
But the problem nowadays, withso many NDAs, you know, nobody
wants to show anything so it'skinda hard.
Ever since social media camecame out.
Yeah, back in the day it wasokay, everybody had cameras and
nobody cared cuz you weren'tputting it anywhere.
(08:17):
But now social media's out, it'skind of hard to do that.
You know, you kinda have to shownothing regarding the shot.
Layne Marie (08:23):
Yeah, I mean it's like hopefully focusing on just
the gear and not so much seeingtalent, but totally depending on
like your NDA or whatever kindof contract you've got on a
shoot or something, I can seehow that would be super
limiting.
Usually like at least for me,like I'm not able to share
stills for a while and that sortof thing, so I'm more reliant on
(08:45):
BTS, but I usually use BTSthat's not showing a whole lot
just because I want the stillsto really be what shines later.
In regards to the IATSE strike,the industry itself I feel like
is improving.
It has been improving.
Do you have any comments on thestrike itself, and how it's
(09:08):
affected you and your company?
Greg (09:10):
The strike makes sense.
We do a lot, and we've gotten toa point where we should get, you
know, more benefits and morethings for us.
Since there's a lot that goeson, we lose a lot.
We lose a lot of time with ourfamilies.
We're always at work, you know,12-16 hours a day.
On Fridays, they tend to keep ustill like 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 in
the morning, sometimes longer.
(09:31):
So there goes our weekend.
We just need to be compensatedfor things like that.
So it makes sense that they'refighting for more.
I agree with that.
As far as the strike, andsituations like that, I think
everybody should be prepared inour industry for moments like
that.
You should always have somethingon the side where you can make
income on the side so that whenthese things come in play,
(09:51):
you're ready for it and youdon't have to worry so much and
your family's gonna be okay.
But, you know, I know there arethings like unemployment that
help a lot, so that's good.
Layne Marie (10:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm in full support as well andthere's obviously a lot more
that needs to be done, but itwas really cool to go be a part
of the IATSE strike events herein LA and just be there in
solidarity.
You know, the way that I'vealways looked at it is like; I'm
nothing without them.
So I want people to feel valuedand cared for and to have the
(10:24):
time and the money that theydeserve always.
Greg (10:27):
Yeah when I started my career, I was here in San Diego
for about I wanna say 11 yearsor something like that, and we
were all non-union so we learnedhow to do a bunch of crafts in
one.
And when I finally went to LAand I became part of the union,
I couldn't believe that I missedout on so much.
It helped me because you getbenefits and it helps your
family and you're able to putaway for retirement and there's
(10:50):
so much to it that I missed outon.
I'm so glad that I got theopportunity to get in.
Layne Marie (10:54):
Yeah, yeah.
So as far as joining the union,could you walk us through that,
what that's like for folks thatare considering joining IATSE?
You know, obviously as adirector that's not a union that
I would necessarily join myself,so I'm curious as well to hear
directly from you like what'sthat experience like and do you
(11:15):
have any recommendations?
Greg (11:17):
Yeah, well the first thing you gotta do is contact the
union cause they have a lot ofprograms to get you in as
permits.
They'll call you in and you canessentially go and work on a
union show.
And once you get 30 days workingon a union show, they allow you
to become part of the union, butyou need to pay a fee.
But it's definitely worth itbecause once you're in you can
get all these benefits.
And the one good thing that Ilove about it, is you have to go
(11:41):
through all these safety course.
And the safety courses can belong, but you go through like
driving lifts, and going throughsexual harassment classes, and
there's so much that goes intoit so that when you're on set
you know how to behave and youknow what's going on and you
know how to work so you don'tget hurt so much.
But at least you're prepared forit and that's what the union
does.
Layne Marie (12:00):
Yeah, love that.
Some training.
So tell us a little bit morespecifically about the facility
that you have and all of thegear equipment that you are in
the process of selling, renting.
I was looking at your Grip Rigswebsite, and it's super
user-friendly by the way to ourlisteners.
(12:21):
I found myself looking at thegrip gifts and you've got some
great stuff in there.
Literally for any and every typeof occasion.
I'm not even a grip and I foundmyself being like"oh yeah, these
are all tools that could come inhandy for me as well".
Greg (12:35):
Yeah, I started a page called gripsupport.com, and what
I wanted to do was bring thewhole industry together.
Because at the time I realizedthat the whole industry is all
in it on themselves.
Everybody has their own companyand they don't really get along
with everybody.
They're each trying to do theirown thing.
So I wanted to bring them alltogether into one place so grips
(12:56):
like myself can find what weneed and all the information all
in one place.
And from there it grew and itbecame popular and then I
realized"why don't I start astore?" Where everybody can buy
the same stuff, but all in onestore and it's called the Grip
Store and I started that.
It's all online and now you canget anything you want in one
place.
(13:16):
And from there we grew.
We have a shop here in SanDiego, we just acquired a small
studio, so we're about to starton getting that going here in
San Diego.
It's fun just to be able to shipthings out and get the grips
what they need.
The hard part about it is that alot of these manufacturers are
way behind and there's a lot ofback orders.
So I spend most of my day justtalking to customers and letting
(13:37):
them know that it's gonna be awhile.
And it's hard in our industry.
Most of the time people buysomething, they want it right
away.
So for the most part we do that.
But a lot of the stuff, it'shard to do.
That's what we have going onright now.
We also have rentals.
I have a five ton grip truck anda sprinter van here in town and
I love to use that.
That's what's going on rightnow.
Layne Marie (13:55):
Oh nice.
That's amazing.
What's like the most popularitem that you see rented?
or is it primarily just forpurchasing or rentals as well?
Greg (14:06):
It's both, but for rentals it's always the C stand,
sandbag, apple boxes for sure.
For sales, the most popular onesare gadgets, like little cool
things that people can buy.
Like for some reason a lot ofpeople are buying the small mini
apple box, which you can put onyour desk and a small mini C
stand, which is cool.
They're buying a lot of biggerstuff nowadays that are like
(14:29):
stabilized arms that I sell.
That you can, you know, shootcar to car and you have a
stabilized image.
We're selling a lot of that, andRickshaws.
Rickshaws are very popularbecause you can sit an operator
or a stabilized arm on thisRickshaw.
Essentially it's a platform withwheels that you can push around,
and the operator can sit on itor he can mount the camera onto
(14:50):
there and do it remotely.
But that's really what's sellinga lot right now.
It's really fun to see.
We're about to launch a fewother things, which is an
electric trike.
We've used it quite a few timeson commercials here.
You can have the operator sit onthe back with the camera, or you
can mount a remote camera to it.
It goes 20 miles an hour.
That's what I got.
Layne Marie (15:08):
Wow, what would you say the difference between that
and the rickshaw is?
Because it sounds like they'reboth platforms or seats for ops
and potentially other folks.
Greg (15:16):
Yea, one of them you have a grip pushing you around and
the other one you have'emdriving you around.
So it's good for, let's sayyou're doing a bicycle shot, you
know if somebody's riding abicycle, you wanna be able to
keep up with that speed.
You don't want a grip runningwith you, pushing you, you know?
It's easier if you run a bikejust on the left.
But it's really fun.
(15:37):
I've used it quite a few timesand it's really fun.
We did an an Olympic runner thatwas fun, of course I had to get
a headstart.
And then we did one where a dogwalking scene, they wanted to
get a front shot of a dogwalking and you know, you never
know how fast he's gonna go, soyou're just walking through the
park and the good thing is thatyou don't have to worry about
getting tired cuz you're on atrike, you're on an electric
trike.
Layne Marie (15:57):
Yeah.
I feel like I'm so accustomed tolike dollies and jibs and that
sort of thing.
So hearing about other ways forthe camera folks to move
themselves is very fun.
I'm very into grip gear, despitethat not being my department.
It is such a necessary aspect ofcreating something.
And again, like we've beentalking about today, the people
(16:19):
that work in the grip andelectric department are truly
the unsung heroes because thethe complicated technical things
that y'all pull off, I mean it'samazing.
It really is.
Greg (16:30):
Yeah, and just trying to find better ways to do things is
what's going on.
You know, trying to get thingsthat are lighter or the lights
these days are lighter and youcan get more punch out of'em,
which is cool.
Cameras are getting lighter.
I mean the rigging is still thesame but it's, it's really cool
to see all these innovationscoming out.
I wanna say like a year ago theycame out with the apple boxes
(16:50):
made out of foam and everybodythought it was gonna be weird
but it's actually great.
It weighs nothing and you canuse it the same way and it's
more comfortable and it's justas sturdy, you know?
And I didn't think you can screwinto it, but apparently you can.
I tried that and it works.
But it's things like that thatare making our industry better,
and that's why I do the thingsthat I do, and I have the store,
because every time somethingcool comes out I get to focus on
(17:12):
it and show everybody, andthat's what it's all about.
Layne Marie (17:15):
What do you feel like about gear and the
technical aspect of it draws youin so much?
I mean, you really have to havea very curious and certainly a
lot of patience in order to beable to figure out the mechanics
of that.
What do you feel like makes youso interested in it?
Greg (17:36):
You know, ever since I started buying equipment, you
buy the stuff that you needalways.
You know, the c-stand, the appleboxes, the sandbags, all the
flags, and all the stuff youneed because you know you're
gonna use that.
But where it gets cool is whenyou start thinking about all the
stuff that you don't have, thatyou could possibly use one day
and you don't know you neededit.
So it's cool to have all thoselittle gadgets, and all the
(17:57):
little arms for mounting camerason cars, and doing all kinds of
cool little things around carsor bikes or anything that you're
rigging, you just never knowwhat you're gonna do.
This industry, that's one coolthing about this industry, is
that you never know what you'regonna do.
You're always in a differentplace, always in a different
situation.
You're mounting cameras, you'recoming up with different
creative shots, and if you havethat equipment you can help the
(18:18):
production so much because notonly are you gonna save time,
you're gonna have the rightparts.
It's gonna be safer, it's somuch better.
So that's why I love having allthe right gear and all the right
parts so that we can make ithappen.
Layne Marie (18:30):
And do you yourself, when you're working on
productions Greg, you chargelike a rental fee I imagine?
Greg (18:36):
Yeah.
You charge rental for yourparts, usually you negotiate
that before.
But a cool thing is if you haveall these extra parts, you
always let them know,"hey I gotthese things in case you need
'em", you know.
Sometimes you don't have a dollyon set but you have a camera
slider, you know, a cameraslider can do so much and that's
a good rental, or you havesomething else that you need
like a rag, you know, adifferent flavor that you needed
(18:58):
that you have just in case.
There's all kinds of things, butthat's the cool part about an
industry is that they allow youto also have a business within
your industry.
So if you're a key grip you canhave your own side business
where you could rent fromyourself, unless you're working
for a studio.
If you're working for a studio,usually they take on all the
rentals and the cool thing aboutthat is that you don't have to
worry, but if they don't have itthey allow you to bring it and
(19:19):
rent it.
Layne Marie (19:20):
Awesome.
So yeah, for any potentialgrips, aspiring grips, folks in
that department, do you have anyadvice or like go-to things that
you feel like they shouldconsider purchasing and you
know, sounds like they wouldmake their money back and then
some if their kit is gettingused regularly.
Greg (19:40):
Right.
Well what I recommend if they'retrying to get in the industry,
they should first get the righttools, right?
The right wrenches, the rightparts that they need.
And then once they have allthat, they should try to get in
with somebody that's in theindustry and offer their
services.
Try to work for them even ifit's for free.
You're getting in there, you'renot really working for free cuz
you're getting paid withexperience.
But most of the time people callyou and they wanna work but you
(20:02):
don't know them and it's hard tohire somebody you don't know or
you don't know their work ethic,how it's gonna work out.
So it's best if you can get themin.
For example, somebody justcalled me yesterday, they
emailed me yesterday and theysaid:"I just moved here from New
York and I'm starting a familyhere, my wife's pregnant and I
would love to figure out how Ican get in the industry".
And the first thing I told him,I said"Hey, come on down and
(20:22):
help me unload my truck".
And he came on down, he helpedme unload my truck, I introduced
him to a gaffer and two otherelectricians.
He didn't get paid.
We bought him lunch andeverybody loved him.
Everybody got his number and I'mpretty sure that he's gonna get
hired here in town now they knowhis face, they know who he is,
they know that he knows whathe's doing and that's what it's
all about.
You gotta try to figure out howto get in there without just
(20:44):
sending an email and justthinking that that's gonna do
it.
Try to go face to face and letthem know that you're willing to
do whatever it takes to get inthere.
Because once you're in there,it's a good industry.
You get paid more than mostindustries out there and you
don't have to have muchexperience.
Like you don't have to go tocollege for it.
You learn mostly on the projectand that's what's fun about this
industry.
You want to get in there and dowhat it takes.
(21:05):
To be honest with you, nowadayswe're in a need for grips and
electrics and camera people.
Everybody seems to want to be aDP or director and there's a
lack for everything else.
So the more people the better,you know.
So bring it.
Layne Marie (21:18):
Yeah, I love hearing you say that Greg.
Especially for women,gender-nonconforming folks, and
people of color.
We really need to see more ofthose folks in the grip,
electric, and camera department.
You know, when I'm in a placewhere I'm recommending people, I
always try to push those peopleto the front.
(21:39):
But I do think I'd like to askyou, what do you think the
discrepancy is there and how dowe provide more opportunities or
maybe spread the word of thesepositions that are available to
those folks?
You know, there's gotta be somekind of way to build the bridge.
Greg (21:58):
Yeah, I honestly think people don't know much about it.
They don't hear much about it.
I don't think people know aboutgrips and lighting and all that
until they start looking intothe industry.
But most of the time people justknow acting and directing and
directors of photography, andthe rest of it just gets lost.
We need prop masters, we needwardrobe, makeup: there's so
(22:18):
much in our industry;transportation.
There's so many industries andthey just don't know.
I don't have an easy way to tellthem.
I don't know how we can get thatout there.
I know that it's needed, and wegotta figure it out.
I have thought about making akind of training program where
you can learn everything, how tobe a grip in some kind of a
program.
I've started that slowly.
But it's hard to do, you know,because you have to teach them
(22:40):
each part of every equipment,and how it can be used, and then
how to use it, and set etiquetteand, you know, how to act on
set, how to know what to do whenyou're on the set, you know,
when you see a camera going onthe ground, what are you gonna
need?
You know, there's so many stuffto it.
I wanna figure it out.
I'm with you.
Layne Marie (22:57):
Yeah, I love that.
Back when I was living inChicago, I produced a couple of
working with cameras and lensesand that sort of thing.
Training programs for women,non-binary, and people of color
to attend.
And it was like the mostfulfilling work that I've
probably ever done.
I feel like creating a safespace where people can firsthand
(23:21):
get access to the tools and beled by an expert in that field.
It is necessary and, you know,creating perhaps a sliding scale
for the ticket price because youknow, I understand these things
take time, they take money.
Probably wouldn't necessarilyneed to be led entirely by you.
(23:41):
Like it would be great if youhad other people to help you,
but no, I love that.
Keep me posted.
Greg (23:47):
Yeah, for sure.
We gotta do something like that.
You know, I've seen a lot ofdifferent types of people in the
industry.
You know, there are all kinds ofraces.
I've worked with a lot of womenthat are grips and it's always
good to see that it is foreveryone.
You just gotta know what youwanna do, and what you like, and
as long as you're happy doingwhat you gotta do, you're in a
good place.
You know, I just feel likethere's a lot of people out
(24:08):
there that think that they can'tdo something because they see a
certain, you know, race or theysee your men or women or there's
mostly men or, but it's nottrue.
You can get into anything youwant.
It's just, you just gotta wantit and everybody notices that
you want it and they get you in.
That's all what it's all about,you know?
Layne Marie (24:22):
Yeah.
Well and I do think that thisindustry, it's ultimately all
about relationships and theconnections that you have with
other folks and even, you know,my early days of PA-ing, which
I'm so grateful that that wasthe way that I came up in the
industry, like forever and everwill be so grateful that I
started like at there, you know?
(24:45):
Yeah, tt is a tough job and it'sa great job to figure out if you
really wanna do this or not!
Greg (24:51):
Yeah, well at least you get to support all the different
departments, so you get tofigure out which one you wanna
do.
Yeah.
That's a good entry level.
Layne Marie (24:59):
Exactly.
And you know, that's honestlylike if anybody asked me like
what I would recommend fortrying to get into the industry,
is I would absolutely start outPA- ing.
Because I think that is whereyou get to kind of be like a
hawk and watch everybody and beinvolved and stay alert and
(25:20):
discover if you know, do you hitit off with the grip department
and if you do maybe they cankind of start showing you some
things when you have a downtimemoment or not.
There are ways to get on setexperience while PA-ing and kind
of keeping an eye on thedepartment you yourself are
interested in.
Maybe it's more than onedepartment.
Greg (25:41):
Yeah.
I've seen so many PAs becomeother things.
Usually, all the otherdepartments, they start to see
them and they go,"oh you know,he shouldn't be a PA that's a
grip" or"he shouldn't be a PAthat's an electrician right
there".
And they start to bring you inand help you out.
It's good to see, the sad thingabout becoming a PA is that they
don't get paid enough for whatthey do.
They do everything.
They're there before everybody,and they do so much, and they
(26:04):
don't get compensated for it.
That's the sad part about that.
But hopefully it changes, youknow, with the unions and
everything else.
Layne Marie (26:12):
Absolutely.
I hope so too because they arean instrumental part of keeping
the ship moving, that's forsure.
Okay, so, Bring It On, the movieBring It On.
Is truly like one of the mosticonic movies of all time, in my
opinion.
I feel like I need to rewatch itnow, especially after getting to
(26:34):
talk to you about it today.
Tell us about your experiencewith that.
It feels like it was probably somuch fun to make.
Greg (26:42):
I was a grip on it, but you know, it was at the
beginning of my career it wasabout I wanna say like the third
job that I did, and there was akey grip called Marcus'Roo'
Flower.
He's done so much stuff now.
What he did is he got this movieand he came into town, it was
called Bring It On.
And it was so much fun to workon.
You know, there was so manycamera moves that we did and so
much stuff that I never realizedthat we could do.
(27:03):
Cause it was early in my career.
And what's funny about it, isnowadays you hear all these
people singing the songs from it.
And when we were on set theywere stuck in our head also.
So we were filming and we werelistening to these songs over
and over and they were juststuck in our head and a couple
cool things happened on thatshow.
I remember asking the key gripwhy he ordered a Technocrane,
(27:24):
and for those that don't know, aTechnocrane is a telescopic
camera where you have a cameraat the end, it's remote, and
it's on this base, and it's ableto telescope out to certain
amount of feet.
You know, at that time I was newto the whole thing, it was
actually new in our industry.
And I was asking,"why did youorder this piece of equipment
for this movie?
How do you know to order thatpiece of equipment?" And he was
(27:46):
saying that, you know, whenyou're reading the script, it
told him that they wanted a shotwhere the camera goes through
all the cheerleaders and at thevery end ends up on the top of
one of the pyramids with thecheerleader on top.
And he was thinking,"there's noother way I could think of doing
that".
And so I was like,"ah, I see.
So you visualize from the scriptwhat you need, and then you go
(28:07):
and you rent that equipment andyou get it".
So it was a key moment in myindustry where I realized, okay,
so everything that gets orderedprior is because of what you're
talking about in pre-production.
There's so much goes on inpre-production to be prepared.
So when you finally get to theset, everything's already been
ordered, everything's alreadythere.
You know what colors you'regonna use on the lights, you
know what equipment's gonna beused, you know when you're gonna
(28:29):
use it.
There's so much to do, and howmany manpower you're gonna need.
So it was a good experience.
There was one scene in Bring ItOn where they were gonna have an
ambulance coming down thestreet.
It was lit up and what happenedwas one of the electricians cut
his leg and it was bad.
He was cut, he needed to cutsome gel, and he put it in front
(28:51):
of him and another electricianhe had his knife and he cut the
gel and they were in a hurry andthey ended up slicing his leg
like quite a bit.
And so the ambulance thatactually came down the street
was actually for us and theysent him away, and he ended up
getting 80 stitches thathappened on that movie.
But there was a lot of fun stuffthat went down.
We built scaffolding to shootall the closeups on the
(29:12):
cheerleaders on the tops of thepyramids.
We did a lot of cool lighting.
It was a good experience, youknow, like when we did the
frames for outside forexteriors, you see the shadows
on the ground from the frames,and we were doing the car
washing scene and they had allthose little, it's kind of like
little triangle flags that yousee at like, you know, car
(29:33):
dealerships.
They had'em all over the placethere for that scene for some
reason it was that, that lotthat they were at.
And so the key grip out ofputting those on the edge of the
frame, so when you'd see it inthe shadows on the ground, it
would look like it was part ofwhere you were at.
Which that's what we donowadays, is we make'em look
like trees.
We'll actually put branches onthe sides of'em or we put what
we call socks on the edges offrames so that it looks like a
(29:54):
building.
Cuz you know, you don't want theaudience ever to think that
you're filming, you don't wannatake away from the story and you
know, them see something thatthey shouldn't, you want them to
be involved in that story andget into it.
So it's fun to see all thosethings and learn all those
little tricks of the trade.
Layne Marie (30:10):
When I think of Bring It On, the first scene
that comes into my head, wellthere's a couple but the very
first one because it had such animpact on me as a little girl
watching this movie, is thescene where Kirsten Dunst comes
home and puts in, I can'tremember if it's a tape or a CD,
I think it's a CD.
(30:31):
And she puts it into herboombox, and hits play, and it's
a song that he like records asong for her.
And she like just jams out onthe bed in her underwear.
And I just, I remember thatscene, you know, like I just
watched it because it was soiconic.
What was that like?
Greg (30:52):
Yeah well, most of the scenes like that, the director
and the director of photographythey've had a really good eye,
and it was fun to see all thesedifferent projects and different
scenes that we did on thatmovie.
I don't quite remember exactlywhat went down on that scene,
but I know that every scene thatwe did on that movie took time
and took a lot of effort.
And what I noticed coming fromTV world and from the
(31:16):
commercials and things like thatis that when you work on the
feature, it's much different.
You're working on televisionshows and you're doing, you
know, a lot of pages in a dayand when you go down to a
feature, you're doing like onescene a day.
So you're taking your time andyou're doing it right.
That's why when you see movies,you're really seeing the quality
of the movie because there's somuch time and effort and love
(31:39):
that goes into that scene.
And that's what's cool aboutthat.
Yeah, I remember that scene too.
I don't remember working as partof it.
You know, when you're on set,everybody can't be in there at
the same time.
Especially me, I was justfeeding the set, you know,
you're giving them the equipmentthey need and stuff like that.
Layne Marie (31:54):
Feeding the set.
I like that.
That's a good, a good way to putit.
It's a good phrase.
How do you stay healthy and welloutside of work?
Greg (32:03):
Well, I started doing a thing where I just try to eat
good stuff.
It's really hard on set, but itseems like everybody's catching
on now, right?
When you go to craft servicetable, there's more healthy
options.
It looks like they're buying atWhole Foods and stuff like that.
It's really good for you.
But I agree it, it's really hardon the film set cuz there's so
many snacks and so many thingsthat they're giving you.
(32:26):
And then you always get pizza atthe end of the day and I mean,
you have to care about yourselfand you gotta work on those
things.
You know, I started doing athing where I would just eat
things that came from the Earth,and that helped me a lot.
So, you know, nuts and fruitsand vegetables and stuff like
that.
Meats, but try to stay away fromall the other stuff and that,
(32:46):
that actually helped a lot.
You know, stay away from sodasand stick with the water or
other stuff like that.
Layne Marie (32:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It definitely can be a challengesometimes when you know you're
not quite in control of whatyou're gonna be eating.
What about like, outside ofwork, do you have any tips and
tricks for things that you'vefound that help you stay
mentally and physically and allthat good stuff?
Greg (33:10):
Well, I definitely go out for walks every day with my wife
and my child.
But we try to do cool things.
We try to go on hikes or we'llgo down to the park and walk
around and do all kinds ofthings.
But you really gotta stayphysical, and as a grip you're
always staying physical,especially if you have a rental
company.
You know, going and gettingequipment, and moving it, and
doing stuff like that.
These rickshaws are reallytaking a big toll on me cuz they
(33:33):
come in these huge cases.
So when I have to ship'em out, Ihave to open up the case, make
sure all the stuff is in there,I gotta wrap'em up, I gotta
plastic wrap'em and then, ship'em out and they're not light.
So there's a lot of things thatwe do in this industry that
keeps us going.
I don't know what you do.
Do you have any tricks that youdo?
Layne Marie (33:50):
Well, uh, I was just thinking about it while you
were saying that.
Just one thing that I've foundis I really try to focus on
being as well-oiled as I can be,particularly leading up to a
shoot.
So, you know, I do a lot ofrunning outside.
I also have like an outdoor gymthat I go to.
(34:11):
I think it's important for me tobe in the best shape that I can
be, because I'm expectingeverybody to be able to perform
at a really high level on set.
So, you know, I think it's onlyfair that I'd be right there
next to them, able to offer upthe same.
What I found is there's a lot ofmanual labor that goes into
(34:32):
working on set, and even as thedirector, it's sweat equity for
me too.
Like I don't gain anything bystanding around and not helping
when we are trying to hustle andwe've got a million more shots
that we wanna do.
So yeah, I'm gonna jump in andhelp move something.
So, you know, that's one thingfor me that I found is like I do
(34:56):
feel like a responsibility tokeep myself trained.
Greg (34:59):
Yeah, it's definitely important.
Another thing that's importantis being mentally fit.
I try to read something everyday.
Always setting goals and doingthings that you can move
forward.
That you're always one stepahead and your mind's getting
stimulated, because it's reallyeasy to become complacent and
just do the everyday thingsevery day that you're doing.
A lot of times you wanna keeplearning something new,
(35:22):
something you wouldn't haveknown, and it's so fun to find
things out and to become betterand to grow.
I love all that aspect to it.
You know, I try to wake up earlyand read and do all kinds of
things, but it's fun and I thinkthat's what keeps me going.
Layne Marie (35:37):
Yeah, reading.
Such a simple thing, but it doeshave a big impact especially,
you know, there's so manydifferent things I feel like
that you can read in order tostimulate your mind and your
work in a plethora of differentways.
And maybe you're reading a bookabout intimacy and maybe you're
(35:58):
also reading a book about thelatest equipment to be
introduced to camera, you know?
Like I have the tendency to readseveral books at once, because I
feel like I need to constantlybe exploring different things.
Now that doesn't mean I'm alwaysgreat about reading all of those
books all the time, but I dofind myself needing more than
(36:20):
just one topic to devour.
Greg (36:22):
Right, I agree, I do that too.
You know, there's also Audiblein case you're busy.
When I'm doing things, sometimesI listen to Audible, you can
pick a book, and it helps youthat way.
But it's so good to be able toknow anything.
We're really blessed now to beliving in this time where we can
find any information we needwhen we need it.
We can get anything we need asfast as we want it.
(36:43):
It's pretty amazing, and I thinkwe gotta learn to take advantage
of that and not just get so, youknow, wound up in this world and
in ourselves, and forget thatthere's so much more out there
and that we can become so muchmore.
I love seeing myself grow andother people grow and businesses
being created and you know, it'shard when I see people that've
been in the same place for along time and I wanna help them,
(37:06):
but I know that they don't knowhow and there is a way, but they
don't look for it.
They just think that what theyknow is what they know and I
really wish they would seek moreand find it cuz it's there.
Layne Marie (37:16):
Ugh.
Yeah, you're really passionateas a person.
And I remember feeling that whenwe had lunch too, and you're
incredibly passionate about thework that you do, and I'll tell
you what, that contagious.
It absolutely is contagious.
Like other people's enthusiasm,I feel like-
Greg (37:34):
I see, I see it over and over when I'm on set.
Everybody comes up to me withtheir ideas and they're always
giving me these- what they wannado and they're asking me for
advice, for anything thatthey're trying to do at the
time, which is really fun tohelp people.
To me, the best thing ever is ifyou're asking me for advice or
you want help, because that'swhat I'm all about, I'm here to
help.
That's actually the coolestthing about gripping is that
(37:56):
you're there.
You're kind of like a personthat's just helping every
department you know?
The camera wants to go higher,you figure it out.
The camera wants to go on aplatform, you figure it out.
Actor needs a platform, youknow.
You're just constantlytroubleshooting and fixing all
these problems and it's verycool.
I mean, it could be something aseasy as making a wardrobe rack
for wardrobe.
But this industry is so fun andit's so awesome to be able to
(38:18):
help everybody.
And if you ever have anyquestions or if anybody needs
anything, please reach out tome.
I'm there.
I answer every email.
I actually have a team now thathelps me; they send me the
emails that I need to read andthe ones that are just spam, but
I'm here.
Let me know.
Layne Marie (38:33):
That's great.
Yeah.
What's the best way for folks tocontact you if they're looking
for advice or recommendationsfor how they can get involved
more in the Grip and Electricdepartment specifically, or even
in general?
Greg (38:47):
Well, you can always DM me on any of the social media
platforms on@griprigs orgriprigs@gmail.com.
I'll definitely contact you backand we'll talk and we'll figure
things out.
I'll help you out.
I've helped so many people and Ilove to do so.
It's so fun to see all thepeople I've helped and they've
moved on, they've done so manybig things nowadays.
It's really cool.
That's what we should all bedoing and we can keep growing
(39:08):
and maybe they'll pass it on.
Layne Marie (39:10):
Yeah, the film industry is certainly an
industry that you can grow init, and you can grow in it in so
many different ways, and itdefinitely feels really
beautiful to have that growthwith the folks around you.
So for anyone thinking aboutbreaking in, we probably need
you.
Greg (39:27):
Yeah, we need you.
We need you more than ever rightnow, so if you're looking to get
in the industry, let us know.
Layne Marie (39:33):
Yeah we need you! Yes Greg out here selling it! I
love it.
Cool.
Well, do you have any big futureplans for yourself or for Grip
Rigs that you wanna leave uswith that we can look forward
to?
Greg (39:44):
Oh yeah.
I'm coming out with so much coolstuff.
This trike is about to launch.
I think it's gonna help so manypeople be able to get those
moving shots creatively.
I'm launching a new thing that Ihaven't really told anybody, but
it's a base that's gonna be ableto wheel your apple boxes
around.
It turns any apple box into abutt dolly so that camera
operators can use it.
I worked really hard on itbecause the hardest part about
(40:06):
it was making the wheelscompletely silent.
So these wheels are gonna besilent.
They have precision bearing inboth directions and you can put
any apple box in any directionreally fast.
The thing is, when you're onset, and you're a cameraman, and
you're about to shoot somethingand you gotta squat down, and
you gotta move left and right,it's really hard.
So you gotta figure out is theresomething out there for you?
(40:26):
And there is some things outthere for you already.
There's like three differentpeople that make these things
called butt dollies.
Those costs over$1000.
They're great pieces ofequipment, but what I think
could be more beneficial is ifyou can go up and down fast so
you can adjust the height reallyfast.
And that's not what you have inthe ones out there today.
(40:46):
So I figured if I make one foran apple box, you can flip it in
any direction and you're readyto go.
And you know the store's gettingbigger, every time that you need
a new piece of equipment oranything, it's there.
All these manufacturers arethere, and they contact me and
they let me know that they'reabout to launch something and we
put it on there and we launchit.
Like when they came up with theminiature C Stand that just
launched, we were the first onesto get it out there.
(41:08):
It's really fun to be able tohelp everybody in our industry.
And that's what I'm doing dayafter day.
So if you need anything, let meknow and we'll get it going.
Layne Marie (41:14):
Love it.
This episode of the Walkie Checkis sponsored by Camera
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Thanks so much for joining us onthis episode of The Walkie Check
.
Be sure to give us a like andfollow on Instagram and Facebook
@thewalkiecheck and@legacymariepictures.
Special, special thanks to ourexecutive producers Noisefloor
LTD, and we look forward to thenext episode.
Hello and welcome to the Walkie Check.
Hey folks, welcome to the WalkieCheck.
I'm Layne Marie Williams, a filmdirector in Los Angeles,
California.
We're super excited to beworking with our friends at
Noisefloor to bring you the mostcreative and talented people out
there to share theirexperiences, knowledge, and
power.
(00:31):
Today we're gonna be talkingwith Key Grip and business owner
Greg Flores, who is the founderof the popular social media
Instagram handle@griprigs, alongwith gripsupport.com and The
Grip Store.
Greg started his career in 1997at age 17 when he got an
interview for an internship at astudio in San Diego called Stu
(00:52):
Segall Productions.
He found a passion for the filmindustry and learned every
position from an onset grip,rigging grip, dolly grip, and
best boy grip, and eventually itbecame a well-known key grip in
the industry working oncommercials, TV shows and
feature films.
The Walkie Check is sponsored byMedia Exclusive, where you are
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Greg (02:00):
Go for Greg Flores.
Layne Marie (02:02):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Walkie
Check.
Today we're here with GregFlores.
That's beautiful.
Where are you from originally,Greg?
Greg (02:12):
I'm originally from Orange County, California, but now I
uh, I'm in San Diego for themost part.
Layne Marie (02:17):
That's awesome.
San Diego.
What do you feel like is specialthere that keeps you creating
and uh, working with filmmakersin that location?
Greg (02:25):
Well, that's where I started my career, which was in
San Diego at a studio called StuSegall Productions.
What I like about it is thateverybody loves it when you're
filming here.
I've noticed that when you go toother places, such as LA or
stuff like that, people are overit in a way.
Everybody has a good attitudehere, it seems less congested,
and overall the the weather'sgreat.
That's what I love about SanDiego.
Layne Marie (02:46):
Yeah, it's definitely a really cute beach
town.
I've visited a couple times andyou know, I know we grabbed
lunch on that like boardwalkarea.
There's this like really coolmermaid sculpture or sign, I
can't quite remember, but uh, itwas really great.
Greg (03:02):
Yeah, a good thing about San Diego is it has everything
you need.
You can go an hour away and youcan have snow if you want during
the winter.
It's literally the mountains oryou can go the beach or regular
city life.
It's whatever you need.
It's all here.
Layne Marie (03:14):
Yeah, I feel like that's why a lot of people stay
in California, especially thosethat are born and raised from
just the folks that I'veencountered so far, which is
kind of fun.
Greg (03:23):
I agree.
Layne Marie (03:24):
Yeah, I mean I definitely would love any excuse
to return to San Diego,especially to film something
there.
So I'm very envious of the factthat you get to work there every
day.
So in regards to Grip Rigs,which is a very cool popular
platform that you built, and nowyou have your own facility that
(03:46):
you sell grip equipment and gearout of.
From my understanding of it, youstarted Grip Rigs back in 2012
and you started it through aFacebook page called Grip Rigs.
Tell us, what first ignited thisidea and what was the actual
follow through to get it to theplace that it's in now?
Greg (04:06):
Well, when I was working in the industry, there was a lot
of cool stuff that we did and Iwould always have a camera on me
and I'd take pictures and dothese videos and all kinds of
stuff like that.
But there was one time, Iremember when I was doing this
commercial in Los Angeles, ACarl's Jr.
commercial, and it was a reallytough rig we had to do.
The director of photographywanted the camera to be mounted
(04:28):
onto the car and as a car backsup out of a parking space, he
wanted the camera to come offthe car when it crashes into
another car.
So the camera would come off,float off of the car, and then
reveal the whole overall scenein a wide shot.
But he wanted all that to happenin one shot and I couldn't
figure out how to do it atfirst.
So I kept looking on theinternet and things like that
(04:49):
and trying to get ideas of whatI could use to mount onto the
car to be able to float off andstuff like that.
But besides, I figured out theshot and it came out great, but
that caused me to wanna makesomething where I put all my
albums and all my pictures andvideos onto essentially a
gallery.
And I started doing that bymaking a page called Grip Rigs.
And once I did that, I figured,you know, what I could do is
(05:12):
highlight all the grips outthere and what they do and have
them get credit for their work.
And so I, that's when I built,grip rigs and started putting it
out there, and it became popularreally fast.
That's the story.
Layne Marie (05:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I really do feel likegrip, electric and camera teams
are truly the unsung heroes offilm production.
So it's super cool to see theways that, I feel like the
social media presence even thatyou've started through@griprigs
on Instagram.
It's huge and it's, in perusingthe page itself, it's been
(05:47):
awesome to see everything fromlike really wild rigs, to things
where I'm like"Oh God, the poorcamera".
You've definitely got a funrange of content.
Greg (05:58):
Yeah, it's fun to see what we do behind the scenes.
We get so creative, and it's socool to be able to see that in
one page.
It's brought a lot ofopportunities too.
There's like a lot of showswhere like Chapman Leonard or
Matthews or Jay Fisher will dothese big shows outside and
they've invited me to set upbooths and we do like cool
spots.
Like I've done one for Matthews,we did two cars and we had five
(06:22):
key grips rigging cameras allday and it was a live event.
And then there was another onewhere we built the world's
biggest apple box in an event,and we showcased all that what
grips do.
That was really cool.
Along with the world's biggestsandbag, which was cool.
It was a beanbag.
We did a giant basketball court,kind of like when you see at the
carnivals, where you can, youknow, shoot the basket, but we
(06:43):
made it all out of grip stuff,that was cool.
And we always give away thingsat these events.
The last one we did was a lowrider.
We had these brick walls in theback with graffiti, the set grip
rigs and we did a low rider andmounted nothing but Matthew's
car mounts onto the car.
And then at one point during theevent we brought everybody over
and we had a DJ and we had thecar hop with these cameras
(07:03):
mounted on it.
It was so fun.
But yeah, I agree with you thatthe opportunities and what we do
is so cool, but nobody gets tosee it.
You know, it's all behind thescenes.
We see the movie, and we see thecamera smooth on a car, but you
don't realize how hard it was todo that.
The lighting, you know, all thatstuff.
So it's fun.
Layne Marie (07:22):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
I mean that's definitely beenone of the benefits of social
media, you know, us being morein charge ourselves as content
creators is, you know, now wecan have a BTS photographer on
set, and a videographer that'scapturing the way that we made
that car crash happen, that sortof thing.
(07:43):
Yeah, right.
So I love it.
Greg (07:44):
Yeah, I wish we could have somebody do something on us.
Layne Marie (07:48):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean hey, we can! Like, justall we need is equipment.
It's not like you and I don'thave access to that, so.
Greg (07:56):
Oh no, I mean more behind the scenes if we could have like
a camera crew following thegrips doing car rigs and stuff
like that.
But the problem nowadays, withso many NDAs, you know, nobody
wants to show anything so it'skinda hard.
Ever since social media camecame out.
Yeah, back in the day it wasokay, everybody had cameras and
nobody cared cuz you weren'tputting it anywhere.
(08:17):
But now social media's out, it'skind of hard to do that.
You know, you kinda have to shownothing regarding the shot.
Layne Marie (08:23):
Yeah, I mean it's like hopefully focusing on just
the gear and not so much seeingtalent, but totally depending on
like your NDA or whatever kindof contract you've got on a
shoot or something, I can seehow that would be super
limiting.
Usually like at least for me,like I'm not able to share
stills for a while and that sortof thing, so I'm more reliant on
(08:45):
BTS, but I usually use BTSthat's not showing a whole lot
just because I want the stillsto really be what shines later.
In regards to the IATSE strike,the industry itself I feel like
is improving.
It has been improving.
Do you have any comments on thestrike itself, and how it's
(09:08):
affected you and your company?
Greg (09:10):
The strike makes sense.
We do a lot, and we've gotten toa point where we should get, you
know, more benefits and morethings for us.
Since there's a lot that goeson, we lose a lot.
We lose a lot of time with ourfamilies.
We're always at work, you know,12-16 hours a day.
On Fridays, they tend to keep ustill like 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 in
the morning, sometimes longer.
(09:31):
So there goes our weekend.
We just need to be compensatedfor things like that.
So it makes sense that they'refighting for more.
I agree with that.
As far as the strike, andsituations like that, I think
everybody should be prepared inour industry for moments like
that.
You should always have somethingon the side where you can make
income on the side so that whenthese things come in play,
(09:51):
you're ready for it and youdon't have to worry so much and
your family's gonna be okay.
But, you know, I know there arethings like unemployment that
help a lot, so that's good.
Layne Marie (10:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm in full support as well andthere's obviously a lot more
that needs to be done, but itwas really cool to go be a part
of the IATSE strike events herein LA and just be there in
solidarity.
You know, the way that I'vealways looked at it is like; I'm
nothing without them.
So I want people to feel valuedand cared for and to have the
(10:24):
time and the money that theydeserve always.
Greg (10:27):
Yeah when I started my career, I was here in San Diego
for about I wanna say 11 yearsor something like that, and we
were all non-union so we learnedhow to do a bunch of crafts in
one.
And when I finally went to LAand I became part of the union,
I couldn't believe that I missedout on so much.
It helped me because you getbenefits and it helps your
family and you're able to putaway for retirement and there's
(10:50):
so much to it that I missed outon.
I'm so glad that I got theopportunity to get in.
Layne Marie (10:54):
Yeah, yeah.
So as far as joining the union,could you walk us through that,
what that's like for folks thatare considering joining IATSE?
You know, obviously as adirector that's not a union that
I would necessarily join myself,so I'm curious as well to hear
directly from you like what'sthat experience like and do you
(11:15):
have any recommendations?
Greg (11:17):
Yeah, well the first thing you gotta do is contact the
union cause they have a lot ofprograms to get you in as
permits.
They'll call you in and you canessentially go and work on a
union show.
And once you get 30 days workingon a union show, they allow you
to become part of the union, butyou need to pay a fee.
But it's definitely worth itbecause once you're in you can
get all these benefits.
And the one good thing that Ilove about it, is you have to go
(11:41):
through all these safety course.
And the safety courses can belong, but you go through like
driving lifts, and going throughsexual harassment classes, and
there's so much that goes intoit so that when you're on set
you know how to behave and youknow what's going on and you
know how to work so you don'tget hurt so much.
But at least you're prepared forit and that's what the union
does.
Layne Marie (12:00):
Yeah, love that.
Some training.
So tell us a little bit morespecifically about the facility
that you have and all of thegear equipment that you are in
the process of selling, renting.
I was looking at your Grip Rigswebsite, and it's super
user-friendly by the way to ourlisteners.
(12:21):
I found myself looking at thegrip gifts and you've got some
great stuff in there.
Literally for any and every typeof occasion.
I'm not even a grip and I foundmyself being like"oh yeah, these
are all tools that could come inhandy for me as well".
Greg (12:35):
Yeah, I started a page called gripsupport.com, and what
I wanted to do was bring thewhole industry together.
Because at the time I realizedthat the whole industry is all
in it on themselves.
Everybody has their own companyand they don't really get along
with everybody.
They're each trying to do theirown thing.
So I wanted to bring them alltogether into one place so grips
(12:56):
like myself can find what weneed and all the information all
in one place.
And from there it grew and itbecame popular and then I
realized"why don't I start astore?" Where everybody can buy
the same stuff, but all in onestore and it's called the Grip
Store and I started that.
It's all online and now you canget anything you want in one
place.
(13:16):
And from there we grew.
We have a shop here in SanDiego, we just acquired a small
studio, so we're about to starton getting that going here in
San Diego.
It's fun just to be able to shipthings out and get the grips
what they need.
The hard part about it is that alot of these manufacturers are
way behind and there's a lot ofback orders.
So I spend most of my day justtalking to customers and letting
(13:37):
them know that it's gonna be awhile.
And it's hard in our industry.
Most of the time people buysomething, they want it right
away.
So for the most part we do that.
But a lot of the stuff, it'shard to do.
That's what we have going onright now.
We also have rentals.
I have a five ton grip truck anda sprinter van here in town and
I love to use that.
That's what's going on rightnow.
Layne Marie (13:55):
Oh nice.
That's amazing.
What's like the most popularitem that you see rented?
or is it primarily just forpurchasing or rentals as well?
Greg (14:06):
It's both, but for rentals it's always the C stand,
sandbag, apple boxes for sure.
For sales, the most popular onesare gadgets, like little cool
things that people can buy.
Like for some reason a lot ofpeople are buying the small mini
apple box, which you can put onyour desk and a small mini C
stand, which is cool.
They're buying a lot of biggerstuff nowadays that are like
(14:29):
stabilized arms that I sell.
That you can, you know, shootcar to car and you have a
stabilized image.
We're selling a lot of that, andRickshaws.
Rickshaws are very popularbecause you can sit an operator
or a stabilized arm on thisRickshaw.
Essentially it's a platform withwheels that you can push around,
and the operator can sit on itor he can mount the camera onto
(14:50):
there and do it remotely.
But that's really what's sellinga lot right now.
It's really fun to see.
We're about to launch a fewother things, which is an
electric trike.
We've used it quite a few timeson commercials here.
You can have the operator sit onthe back with the camera, or you
can mount a remote camera to it.
It goes 20 miles an hour.
That's what I got.
Layne Marie (15:08):
Wow, what would you say the difference between that
and the rickshaw is?
Because it sounds like they'reboth platforms or seats for ops
and potentially other folks.
Greg (15:16):
Yea, one of them you have a grip pushing you around and
the other one you have'emdriving you around.
So it's good for, let's sayyou're doing a bicycle shot, you
know if somebody's riding abicycle, you wanna be able to
keep up with that speed.
You don't want a grip runningwith you, pushing you, you know?
It's easier if you run a bikejust on the left.
But it's really fun.
(15:37):
I've used it quite a few timesand it's really fun.
We did an an Olympic runner thatwas fun, of course I had to get
a headstart.
And then we did one where a dogwalking scene, they wanted to
get a front shot of a dogwalking and you know, you never
know how fast he's gonna go, soyou're just walking through the
park and the good thing is thatyou don't have to worry about
getting tired cuz you're on atrike, you're on an electric
trike.
Layne Marie (15:57):
Yeah.
I feel like I'm so accustomed tolike dollies and jibs and that
sort of thing.
So hearing about other ways forthe camera folks to move
themselves is very fun.
I'm very into grip gear, despitethat not being my department.
It is such a necessary aspect ofcreating something.
And again, like we've beentalking about today, the people
(16:19):
that work in the grip andelectric department are truly
the unsung heroes because thethe complicated technical things
that y'all pull off, I mean it'samazing.
It really is.
Greg (16:30):
Yeah, and just trying to find better ways to do things is
what's going on.
You know, trying to get thingsthat are lighter or the lights
these days are lighter and youcan get more punch out of'em,
which is cool.
Cameras are getting lighter.
I mean the rigging is still thesame but it's, it's really cool
to see all these innovationscoming out.
I wanna say like a year ago theycame out with the apple boxes
(16:50):
made out of foam and everybodythought it was gonna be weird
but it's actually great.
It weighs nothing and you canuse it the same way and it's
more comfortable and it's justas sturdy, you know?
And I didn't think you can screwinto it, but apparently you can.
I tried that and it works.
But it's things like that thatare making our industry better,
and that's why I do the thingsthat I do, and I have the store,
because every time somethingcool comes out I get to focus on
(17:12):
it and show everybody, andthat's what it's all about.
Layne Marie (17:15):
What do you feel like about gear and the
technical aspect of it draws youin so much?
I mean, you really have to havea very curious and certainly a
lot of patience in order to beable to figure out the mechanics
of that.
What do you feel like makes youso interested in it?
Greg (17:36):
You know, ever since I started buying equipment, you
buy the stuff that you needalways.
You know, the c-stand, the appleboxes, the sandbags, all the
flags, and all the stuff youneed because you know you're
gonna use that.
But where it gets cool is whenyou start thinking about all the
stuff that you don't have, thatyou could possibly use one day
and you don't know you neededit.
So it's cool to have all thoselittle gadgets, and all the
(17:57):
little arms for mounting camerason cars, and doing all kinds of
cool little things around carsor bikes or anything that you're
rigging, you just never knowwhat you're gonna do.
This industry, that's one coolthing about this industry, is
that you never know what you'regonna do.
You're always in a differentplace, always in a different
situation.
You're mounting cameras, you'recoming up with different
creative shots, and if you havethat equipment you can help the
(18:18):
production so much because notonly are you gonna save time,
you're gonna have the rightparts.
It's gonna be safer, it's somuch better.
So that's why I love having allthe right gear and all the right
parts so that we can make ithappen.
Layne Marie (18:30):
And do you yourself, when you're working on
productions Greg, you chargelike a rental fee I imagine?
Greg (18:36):
Yeah.
You charge rental for yourparts, usually you negotiate
that before.
But a cool thing is if you haveall these extra parts, you
always let them know,"hey I gotthese things in case you need
'em", you know.
Sometimes you don't have a dollyon set but you have a camera
slider, you know, a cameraslider can do so much and that's
a good rental, or you havesomething else that you need
like a rag, you know, adifferent flavor that you needed
(18:58):
that you have just in case.
There's all kinds of things, butthat's the cool part about an
industry is that they allow youto also have a business within
your industry.
So if you're a key grip you canhave your own side business
where you could rent fromyourself, unless you're working
for a studio.
If you're working for a studio,usually they take on all the
rentals and the cool thing aboutthat is that you don't have to
worry, but if they don't have itthey allow you to bring it and
(19:19):
rent it.
Layne Marie (19:20):
Awesome.
So yeah, for any potentialgrips, aspiring grips, folks in
that department, do you have anyadvice or like go-to things that
you feel like they shouldconsider purchasing and you
know, sounds like they wouldmake their money back and then
some if their kit is gettingused regularly.
Greg (19:40):
Right.
Well what I recommend if they'retrying to get in the industry,
they should first get the righttools, right?
The right wrenches, the rightparts that they need.
And then once they have allthat, they should try to get in
with somebody that's in theindustry and offer their
services.
Try to work for them even ifit's for free.
You're getting in there, you'renot really working for free cuz
you're getting paid withexperience.
But most of the time people callyou and they wanna work but you
(20:02):
don't know them and it's hard tohire somebody you don't know or
you don't know their work ethic,how it's gonna work out.
So it's best if you can get themin.
For example, somebody justcalled me yesterday, they
emailed me yesterday and theysaid:"I just moved here from New
York and I'm starting a familyhere, my wife's pregnant and I
would love to figure out how Ican get in the industry".
And the first thing I told him,I said"Hey, come on down and
(20:22):
help me unload my truck".
And he came on down, he helpedme unload my truck, I introduced
him to a gaffer and two otherelectricians.
He didn't get paid.
We bought him lunch andeverybody loved him.
Everybody got his number and I'mpretty sure that he's gonna get
hired here in town now they knowhis face, they know who he is,
they know that he knows whathe's doing and that's what it's
all about.
You gotta try to figure out howto get in there without just
(20:44):
sending an email and justthinking that that's gonna do
it.
Try to go face to face and letthem know that you're willing to
do whatever it takes to get inthere.
Because once you're in there,it's a good industry.
You get paid more than mostindustries out there and you
don't have to have muchexperience.
Like you don't have to go tocollege for it.
You learn mostly on the projectand that's what's fun about this
industry.
You want to get in there and dowhat it takes.
(21:05):
To be honest with you, nowadayswe're in a need for grips and
electrics and camera people.
Everybody seems to want to be aDP or director and there's a
lack for everything else.
So the more people the better,you know.
So bring it.
Layne Marie (21:18):
Yeah, I love hearing you say that Greg.
Especially for women,gender-nonconforming folks, and
people of color.
We really need to see more ofthose folks in the grip,
electric, and camera department.
You know, when I'm in a placewhere I'm recommending people, I
always try to push those peopleto the front.
(21:39):
But I do think I'd like to askyou, what do you think the
discrepancy is there and how dowe provide more opportunities or
maybe spread the word of thesepositions that are available to
those folks?
You know, there's gotta be somekind of way to build the bridge.
Greg (21:58):
Yeah, I honestly think people don't know much about it.
They don't hear much about it.
I don't think people know aboutgrips and lighting and all that
until they start looking intothe industry.
But most of the time people justknow acting and directing and
directors of photography, andthe rest of it just gets lost.
We need prop masters, we needwardrobe, makeup: there's so
(22:18):
much in our industry;transportation.
There's so many industries andthey just don't know.
I don't have an easy way to tellthem.
I don't know how we can get thatout there.
I know that it's needed, and wegotta figure it out.
I have thought about making akind of training program where
you can learn everything, how tobe a grip in some kind of a
program.
I've started that slowly.
But it's hard to do, you know,because you have to teach them
(22:40):
each part of every equipment,and how it can be used, and then
how to use it, and set etiquetteand, you know, how to act on
set, how to know what to do whenyou're on the set, you know,
when you see a camera going onthe ground, what are you gonna
need?
You know, there's so many stuffto it.
I wanna figure it out.
I'm with you.
Layne Marie (22:57):
Yeah, I love that.
Back when I was living inChicago, I produced a couple of
working with cameras and lensesand that sort of thing.
Training programs for women,non-binary, and people of color
to attend.
And it was like the mostfulfilling work that I've
probably ever done.
I feel like creating a safespace where people can firsthand
(23:21):
get access to the tools and beled by an expert in that field.
It is necessary and, you know,creating perhaps a sliding scale
for the ticket price because youknow, I understand these things
take time, they take money.
Probably wouldn't necessarilyneed to be led entirely by you.
(23:41):
Like it would be great if youhad other people to help you,
but no, I love that.
Keep me posted.
Greg (23:47):
Yeah, for sure.
We gotta do something like that.
You know, I've seen a lot ofdifferent types of people in the
industry.
You know, there are all kinds ofraces.
I've worked with a lot of womenthat are grips and it's always
good to see that it is foreveryone.
You just gotta know what youwanna do, and what you like, and
as long as you're happy doingwhat you gotta do, you're in a
good place.
You know, I just feel likethere's a lot of people out
(24:08):
there that think that they can'tdo something because they see a
certain, you know, race or theysee your men or women or there's
mostly men or, but it's nottrue.
You can get into anything youwant.
It's just, you just gotta wantit and everybody notices that
you want it and they get you in.
That's all what it's all about,you know?
Layne Marie (24:22):
Yeah.
Well and I do think that thisindustry, it's ultimately all
about relationships and theconnections that you have with
other folks and even, you know,my early days of PA-ing, which
I'm so grateful that that wasthe way that I came up in the
industry, like forever and everwill be so grateful that I
started like at there, you know?
(24:45):
Yeah, tt is a tough job and it'sa great job to figure out if you
really wanna do this or not!
Greg (24:51):
Yeah, well at least you get to support all the different
departments, so you get tofigure out which one you wanna
do.
Yeah.
That's a good entry level.
Layne Marie (24:59):
Exactly.
And you know, that's honestlylike if anybody asked me like
what I would recommend fortrying to get into the industry,
is I would absolutely start outPA- ing.
Because I think that is whereyou get to kind of be like a
hawk and watch everybody and beinvolved and stay alert and
(25:20):
discover if you know, do you hitit off with the grip department
and if you do maybe they cankind of start showing you some
things when you have a downtimemoment or not.
There are ways to get on setexperience while PA-ing and kind
of keeping an eye on thedepartment you yourself are
interested in.
Maybe it's more than onedepartment.
Greg (25:41):
Yeah.
I've seen so many PAs becomeother things.
Usually, all the otherdepartments, they start to see
them and they go,"oh you know,he shouldn't be a PA that's a
grip" or"he shouldn't be a PAthat's an electrician right
there".
And they start to bring you inand help you out.
It's good to see, the sad thingabout becoming a PA is that they
don't get paid enough for whatthey do.
They do everything.
They're there before everybody,and they do so much, and they
(26:04):
don't get compensated for it.
That's the sad part about that.
But hopefully it changes, youknow, with the unions and
everything else.
Layne Marie (26:12):
Absolutely.
I hope so too because they arean instrumental part of keeping
the ship moving, that's forsure.
Okay, so, Bring It On, the movieBring It On.
Is truly like one of the mosticonic movies of all time, in my
opinion.
I feel like I need to rewatch itnow, especially after getting to
(26:34):
talk to you about it today.
Tell us about your experiencewith that.
It feels like it was probably somuch fun to make.
Greg (26:42):
I was a grip on it, but you know, it was at the
beginning of my career it wasabout I wanna say like the third
job that I did, and there was akey grip called Marcus'Roo'
Flower.
He's done so much stuff now.
What he did is he got this movieand he came into town, it was
called Bring It On.
And it was so much fun to workon.
You know, there was so manycamera moves that we did and so
much stuff that I never realizedthat we could do.
(27:03):
Cause it was early in my career.
And what's funny about it, isnowadays you hear all these
people singing the songs from it.
And when we were on set theywere stuck in our head also.
So we were filming and we werelistening to these songs over
and over and they were juststuck in our head and a couple
cool things happened on thatshow.
I remember asking the key gripwhy he ordered a Technocrane,
(27:24):
and for those that don't know, aTechnocrane is a telescopic
camera where you have a cameraat the end, it's remote, and
it's on this base, and it's ableto telescope out to certain
amount of feet.
You know, at that time I was newto the whole thing, it was
actually new in our industry.
And I was asking,"why did youorder this piece of equipment
for this movie?
How do you know to order thatpiece of equipment?" And he was
(27:46):
saying that, you know, whenyou're reading the script, it
told him that they wanted a shotwhere the camera goes through
all the cheerleaders and at thevery end ends up on the top of
one of the pyramids with thecheerleader on top.
And he was thinking,"there's noother way I could think of doing
that".
And so I was like,"ah, I see.
So you visualize from the scriptwhat you need, and then you go
(28:07):
and you rent that equipment andyou get it".
So it was a key moment in myindustry where I realized, okay,
so everything that gets orderedprior is because of what you're
talking about in pre-production.
There's so much goes on inpre-production to be prepared.
So when you finally get to theset, everything's already been
ordered, everything's alreadythere.
You know what colors you'regonna use on the lights, you
know what equipment's gonna beused, you know when you're gonna
(28:29):
use it.
There's so much to do, and howmany manpower you're gonna need.
So it was a good experience.
There was one scene in Bring ItOn where they were gonna have an
ambulance coming down thestreet.
It was lit up and what happenedwas one of the electricians cut
his leg and it was bad.
He was cut, he needed to cutsome gel, and he put it in front
(28:51):
of him and another electricianhe had his knife and he cut the
gel and they were in a hurry andthey ended up slicing his leg
like quite a bit.
And so the ambulance thatactually came down the street
was actually for us and theysent him away, and he ended up
getting 80 stitches thathappened on that movie.
But there was a lot of fun stuffthat went down.
We built scaffolding to shootall the closeups on the
(29:12):
cheerleaders on the tops of thepyramids.
We did a lot of cool lighting.
It was a good experience, youknow, like when we did the
frames for outside forexteriors, you see the shadows
on the ground from the frames,and we were doing the car
washing scene and they had allthose little, it's kind of like
little triangle flags that yousee at like, you know, car
(29:33):
dealerships.
They had'em all over the placethere for that scene for some
reason it was that, that lotthat they were at.
And so the key grip out ofputting those on the edge of the
frame, so when you'd see it inthe shadows on the ground, it
would look like it was part ofwhere you were at.
Which that's what we donowadays, is we make'em look
like trees.
We'll actually put branches onthe sides of'em or we put what
we call socks on the edges offrames so that it looks like a
(29:54):
building.
Cuz you know, you don't want theaudience ever to think that
you're filming, you don't wannatake away from the story and you
know, them see something thatthey shouldn't, you want them to
be involved in that story andget into it.
So it's fun to see all thosethings and learn all those
little tricks of the trade.
Layne Marie (30:10):
When I think of Bring It On, the first scene
that comes into my head, wellthere's a couple but the very
first one because it had such animpact on me as a little girl
watching this movie, is thescene where Kirsten Dunst comes
home and puts in, I can'tremember if it's a tape or a CD,
I think it's a CD.
(30:31):
And she puts it into herboombox, and hits play, and it's
a song that he like records asong for her.
And she like just jams out onthe bed in her underwear.
And I just, I remember thatscene, you know, like I just
watched it because it was soiconic.
What was that like?
Greg (30:52):
Yeah well, most of the scenes like that, the director
and the director of photographythey've had a really good eye,
and it was fun to see all thesedifferent projects and different
scenes that we did on thatmovie.
I don't quite remember exactlywhat went down on that scene,
but I know that every scene thatwe did on that movie took time
and took a lot of effort.
And what I noticed coming fromTV world and from the
(31:16):
commercials and things like thatis that when you work on the
feature, it's much different.
You're working on televisionshows and you're doing, you
know, a lot of pages in a dayand when you go down to a
feature, you're doing like onescene a day.
So you're taking your time andyou're doing it right.
That's why when you see movies,you're really seeing the quality
of the movie because there's somuch time and effort and love
(31:39):
that goes into that scene.
And that's what's cool aboutthat.
Yeah, I remember that scene too.
I don't remember working as partof it.
You know, when you're on set,everybody can't be in there at
the same time.
Especially me, I was justfeeding the set, you know,
you're giving them the equipmentthey need and stuff like that.
Layne Marie (31:54):
Feeding the set.
I like that.
That's a good, a good way to putit.
It's a good phrase.
How do you stay healthy and welloutside of work?
Greg (32:03):
Well, I started doing a thing where I just try to eat
good stuff.
It's really hard on set, but itseems like everybody's catching
on now, right?
When you go to craft servicetable, there's more healthy
options.
It looks like they're buying atWhole Foods and stuff like that.
It's really good for you.
But I agree it, it's really hardon the film set cuz there's so
many snacks and so many thingsthat they're giving you.
(32:26):
And then you always get pizza atthe end of the day and I mean,
you have to care about yourselfand you gotta work on those
things.
You know, I started doing athing where I would just eat
things that came from the Earth,and that helped me a lot.
So, you know, nuts and fruitsand vegetables and stuff like
that.
Meats, but try to stay away fromall the other stuff and that,
(32:46):
that actually helped a lot.
You know, stay away from sodasand stick with the water or
other stuff like that.
Layne Marie (32:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It definitely can be a challengesometimes when you know you're
not quite in control of whatyou're gonna be eating.
What about like, outside ofwork, do you have any tips and
tricks for things that you'vefound that help you stay
mentally and physically and allthat good stuff?
Greg (33:10):
Well, I definitely go out for walks every day with my wife
and my child.
But we try to do cool things.
We try to go on hikes or we'llgo down to the park and walk
around and do all kinds ofthings.
But you really gotta stayphysical, and as a grip you're
always staying physical,especially if you have a rental
company.
You know, going and gettingequipment, and moving it, and
doing stuff like that.
These rickshaws are reallytaking a big toll on me cuz they
(33:33):
come in these huge cases.
So when I have to ship'em out, Ihave to open up the case, make
sure all the stuff is in there,I gotta wrap'em up, I gotta
plastic wrap'em and then, ship'em out and they're not light.
So there's a lot of things thatwe do in this industry that
keeps us going.
I don't know what you do.
Do you have any tricks that youdo?
Layne Marie (33:50):
Well, uh, I was just thinking about it while you
were saying that.
Just one thing that I've foundis I really try to focus on
being as well-oiled as I can be,particularly leading up to a
shoot.
So, you know, I do a lot ofrunning outside.
I also have like an outdoor gymthat I go to.
(34:11):
I think it's important for me tobe in the best shape that I can
be, because I'm expectingeverybody to be able to perform
at a really high level on set.
So, you know, I think it's onlyfair that I'd be right there
next to them, able to offer upthe same.
What I found is there's a lot ofmanual labor that goes into
(34:32):
working on set, and even as thedirector, it's sweat equity for
me too.
Like I don't gain anything bystanding around and not helping
when we are trying to hustle andwe've got a million more shots
that we wanna do.
So yeah, I'm gonna jump in andhelp move something.
So, you know, that's one thingfor me that I found is like I do
(34:56):
feel like a responsibility tokeep myself trained.
Greg (34:59):
Yeah, it's definitely important.
Another thing that's importantis being mentally fit.
I try to read something everyday.
Always setting goals and doingthings that you can move
forward.
That you're always one stepahead and your mind's getting
stimulated, because it's reallyeasy to become complacent and
just do the everyday thingsevery day that you're doing.
A lot of times you wanna keeplearning something new,
(35:22):
something you wouldn't haveknown, and it's so fun to find
things out and to become betterand to grow.
I love all that aspect to it.
You know, I try to wake up earlyand read and do all kinds of
things, but it's fun and I thinkthat's what keeps me going.
Layne Marie (35:37):
Yeah, reading.
Such a simple thing, but it doeshave a big impact especially,
you know, there's so manydifferent things I feel like
that you can read in order tostimulate your mind and your
work in a plethora of differentways.
And maybe you're reading a bookabout intimacy and maybe you're
(35:58):
also reading a book about thelatest equipment to be
introduced to camera, you know?
Like I have the tendency to readseveral books at once, because I
feel like I need to constantlybe exploring different things.
Now that doesn't mean I'm alwaysgreat about reading all of those
books all the time, but I dofind myself needing more than
(36:20):
just one topic to devour.
Greg (36:22):
Right, I agree, I do that too.
You know, there's also Audiblein case you're busy.
When I'm doing things, sometimesI listen to Audible, you can
pick a book, and it helps youthat way.
But it's so good to be able toknow anything.
We're really blessed now to beliving in this time where we can
find any information we needwhen we need it.
We can get anything we need asfast as we want it.
(36:43):
It's pretty amazing, and I thinkwe gotta learn to take advantage
of that and not just get so, youknow, wound up in this world and
in ourselves, and forget thatthere's so much more out there
and that we can become so muchmore.
I love seeing myself grow andother people grow and businesses
being created and you know, it'shard when I see people that've
been in the same place for along time and I wanna help them,
(37:06):
but I know that they don't knowhow and there is a way, but they
don't look for it.
They just think that what theyknow is what they know and I
really wish they would seek moreand find it cuz it's there.
Layne Marie (37:16):
Ugh.
Yeah, you're really passionateas a person.
And I remember feeling that whenwe had lunch too, and you're
incredibly passionate about thework that you do, and I'll tell
you what, that contagious.
It absolutely is contagious.
Like other people's enthusiasm,I feel like-
Greg (37:34):
I see, I see it over and over when I'm on set.
Everybody comes up to me withtheir ideas and they're always
giving me these- what they wannado and they're asking me for
advice, for anything thatthey're trying to do at the
time, which is really fun tohelp people.
To me, the best thing ever is ifyou're asking me for advice or
you want help, because that'swhat I'm all about, I'm here to
help.
That's actually the coolestthing about gripping is that
(37:56):
you're there.
You're kind of like a personthat's just helping every
department you know?
The camera wants to go higher,you figure it out.
The camera wants to go on aplatform, you figure it out.
Actor needs a platform, youknow.
You're just constantlytroubleshooting and fixing all
these problems and it's verycool.
I mean, it could be something aseasy as making a wardrobe rack
for wardrobe.
But this industry is so fun andit's so awesome to be able to
(38:18):
help everybody.
And if you ever have anyquestions or if anybody needs
anything, please reach out tome.
I'm there.
I answer every email.
I actually have a team now thathelps me; they send me the
emails that I need to read andthe ones that are just spam, but
I'm here.
Let me know.
Layne Marie (38:33):
That's great.
Yeah.
What's the best way for folks tocontact you if they're looking
for advice or recommendationsfor how they can get involved
more in the Grip and Electricdepartment specifically, or even
in general?
Greg (38:47):
Well, you can always DM me on any of the social media
platforms on@griprigs orgriprigs@gmail.com.
I'll definitely contact you backand we'll talk and we'll figure
things out.
I'll help you out.
I've helped so many people and Ilove to do so.
It's so fun to see all thepeople I've helped and they've
moved on, they've done so manybig things nowadays.
It's really cool.
That's what we should all bedoing and we can keep growing
(39:08):
and maybe they'll pass it on.
Layne Marie (39:10):
Yeah, the film industry is certainly an
industry that you can grow init, and you can grow in it in so
many different ways, and itdefinitely feels really
beautiful to have that growthwith the folks around you.
So for anyone thinking aboutbreaking in, we probably need
you.
Greg (39:27):
Yeah, we need you.
We need you more than ever rightnow, so if you're looking to get
in the industry, let us know.
Layne Marie (39:33):
Yeah we need you! Yes Greg out here selling it! I
love it.
Cool.
Well, do you have any big futureplans for yourself or for Grip
Rigs that you wanna leave uswith that we can look forward
to?
Greg (39:44):
Oh yeah.
I'm coming out with so much coolstuff.
This trike is about to launch.
I think it's gonna help so manypeople be able to get those
moving shots creatively.
I'm launching a new thing that Ihaven't really told anybody, but
it's a base that's gonna be ableto wheel your apple boxes
around.
It turns any apple box into abutt dolly so that camera
operators can use it.
I worked really hard on itbecause the hardest part about
(40:06):
it was making the wheelscompletely silent.
So these wheels are gonna besilent.
They have precision bearing inboth directions and you can put
any apple box in any directionreally fast.
The thing is, when you're onset, and you're a cameraman, and
you're about to shoot somethingand you gotta squat down, and
you gotta move left and right,it's really hard.
So you gotta figure out is theresomething out there for you?
(40:26):
And there is some things outthere for you already.
There's like three differentpeople that make these things
called butt dollies.
Those costs over$1000.
They're great pieces ofequipment, but what I think
could be more beneficial is ifyou can go up and down fast so
you can adjust the height reallyfast.
And that's not what you have inthe ones out there today.
(40:46):
So I figured if I make one foran apple box, you can flip it in
any direction and you're readyto go.
And you know the store's gettingbigger, every time that you need
a new piece of equipment oranything, it's there.
All these manufacturers arethere, and they contact me and
they let me know that they'reabout to launch something and we
put it on there and we launchit.
Like when they came up with theminiature C Stand that just
launched, we were the first onesto get it out there.
(41:08):
It's really fun to be able tohelp everybody in our industry.
And that's what I'm doing dayafter day.
So if you need anything, let meknow and we'll get it going.
Layne Marie (41:14):
Love it.
This episode of the Walkie Checkis sponsored by Camera
Ambassador, a one-stop shopcarrying everything from cameras
and lenses to grip trucks andproduction supplies.
Their equipment roster includeshigh-end brands such as ARRI,
RED, Cannon, Cook, Zeiss,O'Connor, SmallHD, Teradeck and
more.
They've also got you coveredwith specialty items such as
(41:37):
anamorphic lenses, gimbals, andgrip trucks.
Founded in 2014 by Erica Duffy,Camera Ambassador is one of
three equipment rental housesnationwide owned and operated by
a woman.
Providing excellent service withquality gear, Camera Ambassador
now carries both of the newestRED cameras, the Kimodo and
Raptor.
Learn more about CameraAmbassador scholarship
(41:57):
opportunities atcameraambassador.com.
Thanks so much for joining us onthis episode of The Walkie Check
.
Be sure to give us a like andfollow on Instagram and Facebook
@thewalkiecheck and@legacymariepictures.
Special, special thanks to ourexecutive producers Noisefloor
LTD, and we look forward to thenext episode.
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