Trounce Alley Lighting Company

The intensive studio course followed the success of another workshop we did at BCIT Film Flex program for graduating students who — prior to us — felt that they were lacking in hands on education and real world experience.

At both schools we brought in our 5-ton lighting and grip package truck for a week and helped provide the students a crash course in cinematography, Danny style…

It started with overviews of the truck, the equipment, and essential lighting principals such as: a) the inverse square rule for fall-off of light and b) the relative size of a light source as it relates to the softness of the light a.k.a. the importance of a large bounce or diffusion frame; we then built sets and put them hands-on through the process of shooting a scene.

Teaching was a very rewarding experience –The indigenous people at Capilano for example were grateful of our filmmaking wisdom and eager to apply their newfound knowledge to complete their film studies at the university. They will soon return to their native lands to become filmmakers and story tellers for future generations.

The BCIT Film Flex students began their final practicum following our workshop and worked for 30 days in the industry.

Currently Danny Nowak C.S.C and TALCO are looking for more opportunities to take the workshop on the road.

These photos were taken at the Capilano cinematography workshop.

We’ve been “off roading” with Adrian and Rugged Media — hundreds of miles on unpaved roads west of Williams Lake, BC on native lands in the Nemiah Valley.  We’ve proven that grip buckets can float. Here is a tease from Konni Lake.

The green bucket saves TALCO grips during the great flood!

One hour earlier (before the great flood)

The TALCO truck survives a logging road and spends the night on the Chilcotin Plateau near an ancient Burial Ground.

Behold, a RED Camera underslung on TALCO’s Porta Jib standard. The picture may be old, but we thought it looked neat enough to post. It’s turning into a busy summer.

The dolly belongs to Peter Reynolds and is an Italian made version of Chapman’s Peewee Dolly. It crabs and has an excellent hydraulic boom movement. Notice how we have triangulated the legs on the dolly (front wheels square at 90 degrees, back wheels parallel at 0 degrees) for a smoother dance floor style move — a trick we learned from Peter himself.

RED Cam underslung on Porta-Jib using an Italian Peewee pedestal

On the subject of old photos, here’s another one of the Italian peewee dolly in action for us.

Reynolds Peewee Dolly behind the scenes on UTAB

TALCO works with Clif Prowse to capture the arrival and installation of the Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit. We installed camera mounts for a week long time lapse documenting the event. One camera was rigged from the top of the Grant Court catwalk. The other was rigged 20′ in the air from a giant support column in the Atrium Court. We used Modern Studio mounts, an L-bracket cheeseplate, ratchet straps, and some ingenuity. Photos attached. The exhibit remains standing at Metropolis at Metrotown.

T-Rex at Metropolis at Metrotown

HVX200 with a MSE ball leveling mount

Ratchet Strap and L-Bracket Cheeseplate mount

Closeup of ratchet strap/ L-cheeseplate rig

Here’s a sneak peak of new artwork to decorate our 5-ton Lighting and Grip Combo Truck. The works are by the talented Scott Sueme and Coleman Webb of Kids At Heart Collective. Guest appearance by Arpi from Montreal.

Scott first appoached us on the set of Under the Apple Box when by chance we were filming at an elementary school in Strathcona a few weekends after the Police Shooting. SUEME and WEBB were painting a mural for the community which involved children and school a few meters away from our Truck. The rest is in the ozone….and rolling through North Vancouver, Kerrisdale, and the Country Club.

We may have a few cameos soon, can you spot us?

Trounce Alley Lighting Company mural by Scott Sueme

TALCO outside the set of Brandon Paris Band, 'Can't Hate You' featuring unofficial artwork collaboration between street artists SUEME, WEBB, and ARPI.

Noticed something new on the TALCO front page? Graphic Designer, Photographer, and Fashion Photo Retoucher Christopher Wallace from NYC has released motion graphics for Trounce Alley Lighting Company. In addition to the front splash page, he made a webpage teaser for promotion:

If you would like to place the TALCO teaser clip on your site (you can scale it to any size):
It is easy to link to from youtube.
Just copy and paste the EMBED code from over there.
Then post a comment on this thread so everyone knows. We love you!

Yesterday to our great delight, Tony Dean of RED Rad introduced us to veteran key grip — Peter Reynolds — the mastermind behind their RAD Cam. Peter showed us his light-weight aluminum fabricated towers which can suspend the rig overhead in no time to fly a camera affordably. He also offered us use of his privately owned Italian-made crab dolly to subrent on our truck! Read below for more details about his amazing hydraulic dolly. The deluxe model with beer holders is coming soon….

The Peter Reynolds Peewee Dolly can be pre-loaded on TALCO's 5-ton truck!

We’ve coined it the term, Reynolds Peewee dolly. This is a well machined Italian version of the American Peewee dolly, not to be confused with a cheap asian knock-off. In fact, this is the only one of it’s kind in Canada. Peter has done a nice job restoring it and it comes in sexy matte Black finish, with plush italian leather. That might be an exaggeration, but smoothness of the arm is not. In fact, the Italian Peewee dolly arm movement is much better then an actual Peewee crab dolly. We tried it ourselves and agreed.

Once the workhorse of Peter Reynolds fleet of grip trucks, the Italian crab dolly has been reconditioned like new to serve again. Thanks to him you don’t need to pay the standard $600/day for a hydraulic crab dolly. You can have a smooth hydraulic arm in a compact, full featured dolly; for less.

Reynold's hydraulic crab dolly soon to feature an 8-pack beer holder

For those not familiar with the hydraulic crab dolly — like everything American — they are a carefully controlled commodity which is only available by lease and never to own, by two manufacturers: Chapman-Leonard who makes the Peewee, Hustler, and Hybrid dolly, and J.L Fischer who makes the Fischer 11, Fischer 10.

These two giants control a monopoly. They only build so many units, so there is no supply, and it creates a demand. No one can own the dolly so there is no way to discount it. Even the rental house has to pay a lease to Chapman or Fischer every month for the privilege of renting the crab dolly to its customers. The design of the hydraulic crab dolly dates back to World War II. Originally manufactured to load bombs into airplanes, are these dolly’s really manufactured by Lockheed-Martin for Hollywood? It’s a conspiracy theory in the making.

Years ago an Italian company reverse engineered the Peewee dolly, rebuilt it with standardized machined parts for mass distribution, and outfitted it with a better hydraulic system. Chapman sued the shit out of them and banned sales in North America, crippling thier revenue and sending them out of business before they could establish a mass-production line and bring the hydraulic crab dolly to people like you and I.

Fortunately Peter Reynolds bought one of these units in their prime and brings the Italian crab dolly back to us now! In fact, TALCO can pre-load the Reynolds Peewee dolly on our truck today!