Reddit reviews The Grip Book

I decided to start off on the basic element all grips should learn on their first day.

Knots.

Out of everything knots are the most important thing to know. You will use them daily to keep people safe, if you fuck up a knot you can kill someone.

Half hitch

Half hitches have a variety of uses. The most common is to use to secure other knots such as clove hitch or a girth hitch.

You can also use a overhand knot at the mid point of speed rail followed by a half hitch further up the pole to lift speed rail vertically.

Clove Hitch

The key I work with most prefers to use two separate lines on each of the top corners when tying off a frame. So for this we use a clove with a half hitch to lock it off.

Girth hitch (cow hitch, larks head, and like 15 other names.)

For me the most common use for this knot is replacing the trickline in grommets on 12x and 20x.

However some people prefer to use the middle of a 100' rope to tie off a frame. That's where this hitch would come in handy. If you are day playing make sure you ask a company grip which way their key prefers their ropes.

Truckers hitch

Once you have your frame secured you can use a truckers hitch (or a bowline) to secure it to an anchor point such as a tree, bullprick, piton.


Bowline

Are also good for securing a a frame to an anchor point, or lifting some thing up by rope. This knot will not come undone when under tension and is easy to untie. This is one of the harder knots to learn but also one of the most valuable.

Highwaymans

this is a lesser known knot, it is a great midpoint knot for dropping stuff down from a roof or condor when you want to keep your rope or don't have someone to untie it for you. Word of caution, make damn sure you know which end of the rope is your release line, you do not want to accidentally release whatever you are lowering.



Coiling a rope.


For the love of all that is holy don't coil rope like this.

use the common coil method.

There are several ways to finish off the rope. I prefer this method, this way I can stack several coils on top of each other. This way I grab one set of ropes each time I grab a frame.



Additional note: there is a lot of variety in this job. What may be my Keys preferred way of doing something may not be your Keys preferred way. Always check with your company level grips for clarification when day playing.



Reading list:

The Grip Book

Grip Related Blogs:

The Hills are Burning

Dollygrippery

If your looking to get into cinematography, you should check out "Cinematography" and "Motion Picture and Video Lighting" by Blain Brown. Anything from Kris Malkiewicz is worth a read too. "The Grip Book" by Michael Uva, "Set Lighting Technician's Handbook" by Harry Box and "The Camera Assistant" by Doug Hart are all excellent books for more trade specific people.

Edit for links:

http://www.amazon.com/Cinematography-Practice-Edition-Cinematographers-Directors/dp/0240812093/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333841096&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Motion-Picture-Lighting-Second-Edition/dp/0240807634/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1333841096&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_7?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=kris+malkiewicz&sprefix=Kris+ma%2Caps%2C359&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Akris+malkiewicz&ajr=0

http://www.amazon.com/The-Grip-Book-Fourth-Edition/dp/0240812913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333841229&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Lighting-Technicians-Handbook-Fourth-Edition/dp/0240810759/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1333841229&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.com/The-Camera-Assistant-Complete-Professional/dp/0240800427/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1333841294&sr=8-4

To get the fullest overview, I'd suggest three things. Two of them are books.

The Grip Book (http://www.amazon.ca/Grip-Book-Michael-Uva/dp/0240812913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377525369&sr=8-1&keywords=the+grip+book) is pretty tight. You can read through it completely, or flip through it focusing on subjects particularly relevant to the upcoming short (grip stands, sandbagging, important knots).

The second book is The Backstage Handbook (http://www.amazon.ca/Backstage-Handbook-Illustrated-Technical-Information/dp/0911747397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377525614&sr=8-1&keywords=backstage+handbook). It's geared more towards theatrical rigging and staging, but will give you a wider range of knots and hitches to learn, as well as introducing you to rigging concepts (which can always help on set if you have a weird shot to attain and need to figure out how to rig it on the fly).

Lastly, I'd suggest you do what I did when I started out -- call up a few rental shops that deal with grip equipment and see if you can drop by and familiarize yourself with some of the equipment. If the shop is small, a round of coffees and donuts (nothing too expensive) might help grease the wheels to an equipment demo from someone. Hell, even if they give you a dark corner to fumble around with some grip stands and flags, you'll be more comfortable on set when you'll have to be gripping in front of a waiting crew.

The Uva Grip Book is usually a popular reference.

Film Lighting
I have the 1986 version of this, but apparently it has been updated. I have no idea what they have done to update this though.