My Yellow Box
People often ask, “What’s in the yellow box?” So here is the list in painful detail:
First there is the box itself. It is a Hardigg Storm iM2750 case. It has been on the road and in the air since March of 2003. I built in custom dividers made out of an aluminum frame and RFP board (think commercial kitchen wall). It is divided into 4 sections. To the left I keep all of the cables under my various pouches and work pouch. Next is a 1″ slot that I keep a test DVD, BetaSP and DVCAM tapes with test patterns on them and usually blank CDs, DVDs, and blank DVCAM and BetaSP tapes. From there are two tackle boxes with audio and video connectors and my Q-Box. Lastly is a section for my “office supply case” wireless remote and lens cleaning kit.
My tool pouch is a Lindcraft Jumbo AC pouch from my film days. It now contains a Coast Red/White LED flashlight, ink pen, grease pencil (for remarking road cases), sharpie, AC tester (that is probably as old as I am), 16′ tape measure (replaced by the 5m tape when I am overseas), gloves, Greenlee 10-in-1 screwdriver, notebook and a cheat sheet for some of the various projectors and lens combinations I use. There is also a tape roll that contains green, yellow and white cloth tape and black paper tape. Lastly is a custom screwdriver / nut driver that fits the screws and socket nuts for sub-D connectors. (Thanks to my father for the construction.) Not pictured is my SOG multitool. It has a lifetime warranty that I have used many times. They repair it quickly and send it right back. They even sharpen the knife and clean it for you.
I bought a few Husky tool bags from Home Depot a while back. One carries small tools that you will see later. The RCA bag contains 2 ea. 6-RCA stereo M-M cables, 2 ea. RCA M- 1/8″TRS male, 2 ea. 3′ RCA M-M. The XLR bag carries my crab, 2 ea. 1/4″ TRS Male to XLR female (To insert high level line level sources such as Beta decks into the audio board. I get tired of arguing with the sound guys about this one for boards that don’t have a -20 pad but a higher level 1/4″ input vs. the mic to -20dB XLR input.) The BNC bag contains several 1′ BNC jumpers for the back of Beta decks for self referencing, time code and other applications.
I found some nice mesh bags that I keep some of my other geek toys in. The light blue bag contains a green and a red laser pointer and some spare AAA batteries for them. The orange bag contains various computer cables: 6′ Serial extension, a 4 port USB hub, a M-M and F-F 9pin gender changers, null modem and a changeable 4/6 pin Firewire cable. The dark blue bag contains a Linksys wireless router and a couple of 6′ Cat 5 cables.
This is the video adapter box. It contains quantities of: VGA gender changers, BNC barrels, BNC-RCA, 75ohm terminators, raw BNC and F connectors, a variety of other BNC type adapters. It also has several DVI, VGA, HDMI and macbook adapters. Three CAT 5 jumpers, a couple of ground lift adapters and some misc power adapter tips. I also keep a stock of 4mm projector lens mounting screws. (The kind you CAN’T find at Home Depot.)
The audio box contains various adapters and “Y”s. It also has a small bubble level, some 1/8″ splicing tape, electrical tape (3M 88+ not that dime store crap.) I also keep extra batteries for the D’San cue lights because they can be hard to find as well. I have started keeping some XLR female to RCA female adapters since a lot of the new DVCAM decks only have RCA inputs but XLR male outputs. Go figure.
My audio “crab”. This thing continues to save my rear end and I use it on just about every show. This things is nothing more then 2 XLR males, 2 XLR females and a 1/4″ TRS male in parallel. So it can be a M-M adapter, F-F adapter, F-MM or M-FF “Y” cable or a 1/4 to XLR adapter. These are very easy to make and I recommend that everyone have one.
Two of my favorite pieces of test gear. A Q-Box tone generator and speaker. Helps to zero all of your recorders when the audio guy still hasn’t set up his FOH console. The Calibar on the right is a NTSC pattern generator. Something like 16 patterns in that little stick. A real life saver when you are trying to test cables before they are flown.
Some small tools I carry in one of the pouches. I recommend the dime store micro screwdriver set. It seems like these are never returned when they are borrowed or the get broken easily. I had a set of Xelite screwdrivers but they were lost in no time flat. At the bottom are two “can’t live without” drivers. One is for the allen head screws for projector lenses and the other is a long reach BNC tool.
I have a lens cleaning kit from my camera days. It contains some Kodak lens cleaner, lens tissue, a small piece of lint / oil free chamois in a perf’d film can (to allow it to dry), and a couple of lens pens. The case is from a 4×6 Tiffen 85 filter that I broke. Lesson learned believe me. It is the most expensive case I have ever had to buy.
My office supply box. Just extra pens, sharpies, some slip ties, repair tags (that never seem to get noticed), labels, a timer / clock and my Motorola earpiece mic.
Not shown are various VGA and DVI cables, a XLR mic cable and a few other cables. A cheap multimeter (follows the same reasoning as the screwdrivers). Lastly, my beloved Senheiser HMD410 production intercom headset. If you have to wear a headset on a regular basis, do yourself the favor and invest in some of these.
The box weighs in at 59.5 lbs or 49.5 lbs depending on which airline I am flying.
Update: 7/12/2009
About a year ago I upgraded to the divider system sold by Hardigg. This is a padded soft divider system with lots of velcro to keep the dividers in place. Moving to this system I gained quite a bit more space. I have thinned down the amount of cables that I travel with since I do more TD’ing now then video. I have found quite a bit of soft bags and cases to store small cables and computer gadgets. I still use the tackle boxes to contain the adapters.
One of the things that I have come to appreciate is the use of a second monitor. The top tray that came with the system will hold a LCD monitor just perfectly. With the pairing down of cables, I am able to afford the weight of the LCD and still keep under 70lbs.
