Apple boxes are wooden boxes or crates of varying sizes with holes on each end used chiefly in film production. These boxes are specialized pieces of equipment belonging to the grip department, and should not be confused with simple crates, other boxes, or boxes for apples.
As one of the most ubiquitous and useful pieces of equipment on a film set, apple boxes are used for anything that needs to be propped up or supported temporarily. They can be used to prop up furniture and light stands, for leveling camera dolly track, or to provide temporary seats, workbenches, or stepladders.
Often the need arises to make an actor appear taller, either because of their height, or to fit with the composition of a particular shot. In this use apple boxes are jokingly referred to as "man makers".
Apple boxes were originally used for storage. They would have a forward opening in the box and it could be used as a double storage device for small necessary things.
Full apple (also referred to as just an "apple box") 20"×12"×8"
Half apple 20"×12"×4"
Quarter apple 20"×12"×2"
Pancake (eighth apple) 20"×12"×1"
Nesting apple boxes fit the three smaller sizes into the full apple (which does not have the standard midway internal support crossbeam). To accommodate the smaller internal dimensions, the half, quarter and pancake are only 18 1/2" long × 10" wide.
Half length "mini" apple boxes are now manufactured.
Mini apple box 10"×12"×8"
Mini half 10"×12"×4"
Mini quarter 10"×12"×2"
Mini pancake/eighth 10"×12"×1"
Apple box sizes vary somewhat depending on manufacturer, but all sizes are designed to be fractions of the "full apple" size. Thus two half apples exactly equal the size of a full apple, two quarters equals one half, and two pancakes equal one quarter. This modular design is often critically important as many applications require mixes of sizes.
Often when a grip is placing an apple box others are lifting something heavy to put on top of it, thus arose the need for terms describing what position the apple box should be placed in (i.e., which side of the apple box should be placed face-down). It is rare that these terms are used for anything other than the "full apple" size.
Regional variations exist for the colloquial names of these positions. These include 1/2/3, New York/Chicago/LA, and Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens. [2]
Basso blocks are a stacking variant of conventional apple boxes. [3] Their design gives the same elevation ability of Apples, but takes 66% less storage space. A full set of Basso Blocks is equivalent to twelve 1/2 Apples. A set of 1/2 Basso Blocks is equivalent to twenty-four 1/4 Apples. [4]
Elephant blocks are a three legged stable update to Basso Blocks that allow 1" elevation increments. [5]
DV refers to a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, DV was strongly associated with the transition from analog to digital desktop video production, and also with several enduring "prosumer" camera designs such as the Sony VX-1000. DV is sometimes referred to as MiniDV, which was the most popular tape format using a DV codec during this time.
Sokoban is a puzzle video game in which the player pushes boxes around in a warehouse, trying to get them to storage locations. The game was designed in 1981 by Hiroyuki Imabayashi, and first published in December 1982.
Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices.
In the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, grips are camera support equipment technicians in the filmmaking and video production industries. They constitute their own department on a film set and are directed by a key grip. Grips have two main functions: The first is to work closely with the camera department to provide camera support, especially if the camera is mounted to a dolly, crane, or in an unusual position, such as the top of a ladder. Some grips may specialize in operating camera dollies or camera cranes. The second function is to work closely with the electrical department to create lighting set-ups necessary for a shot under the direction of the director of photography.
Grips' responsibility is to build and maintain all the equipment that supports cameras. This equipment, which includes tripods, dollies, tracks, jibs, cranes, and static rigs, is constructed of delicate yet heavy duty parts requiring a high level of experience to operate and move. Every scene in a feature film is shot using one or more cameras, each mounted on highly complex, extremely expensive, heavy duty equipment. Grips assemble this equipment according to meticulous specifications and push, pull, mount or hang it from a variety of settings. The equipment can be as basic as a tripod standing on a studio floor, to hazardous operations such as mounting a camera on a 100 ft crane, or hanging it from a helicopter swooping above a mountain range.
Good Grips perform a crucial role in ensuring that the artifice of film is maintained, and that camera moves are as seamless as possible. Grips are usually requested by the DoP or the camera operator. Although the work is physically demanding and the hours are long, the work can be very rewarding. Many Grips work on both commercials and features.
Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage.
A keg is a small barrel.
Dirt track racing is a form of motorsport held on clay or dirt surfaced oval race tracks often used for thoroughbred horse racing. Dirt track racing started in the United States before World War I and became widespread during the 1920s and 1930s using both automobiles and motorcycles. Two different types of race cars dominate — open wheel racers in the Northeast and West and stock cars in the Midwest and South. While open wheel race cars are purpose-built racing vehicles, stock cars can be either purpose-built race cars or street vehicles that have been modified to varying degrees. There are hundreds of local and regional racetracks throughout the nation. The sport is also popular in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
A chess set consists of a chessboard and white and black chess pieces for playing chess. There are sixteen pieces of each color: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. Extra pieces may be provided for use in promotion, most commonly one extra queen per color. Chess boxes, chess clocks, and chess tables are common pieces of chess equipment used alongside chess sets. Chess sets are made in a wide variety of styles, sometimes for ornamental rather than practical purposes. For tournament play, the Staunton chess set is preferred and, in some cases, required.
In film production, a C-stand is primarily used to position light modifiers, such as silks, nets, or flags, in front of light sources. The stand is constructed of metal and consists of a collapsible base, two riser columns, and a baby pin on top. In addition, a C-stand typically includes a gobo head and a gobo arm, also known as a grip head and grip arm, which provide the ability to articulate a light modifier without moving the stand itself. The legs of C stands are designed to be nested, so many stands can be placed around a light source.
Milk crates are square or rectangular interlocking boxes that are used to transport milk and other products from dairies to retail establishments.
Material handling equipment (MHE) is mechanical equipment used for the movement, storage, control, and protection of materials, goods and products throughout the process of manufacturing, distribution, consumption, and disposal. The different types of equipment can be classified into four major categories: transport equipment, positioning equipment, unit load formation equipment, and storage equipment.
This timeline of binary prefixes lists events in the history of the evolution, development, and use of units of measure which are germane to the definition of the binary prefixes by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 1998, used primarily with units of information such as the bit and the byte.
Audio connectors and video connectors are electrical or optical connectors for carrying audio or video signals. Audio interfaces or video interfaces define physical parameters and interpretation of signals. For digital audio and digital video, this can be thought of as defining the physical layer, data link layer, and most or all of the application layer. For analog audio and analog video these functions are all represented in a single signal specification like NTSC or the direct speaker-driving signal of analog audio.
A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of international shipping trade, "container" or "shipping container" is virtually synonymous with "intermodal freight container", a container designed to be moved from one mode of transport to another without unloading and reloading.
The graphics display resolution is the width and height dimension of an electronic visual display device, measured in pixels. This information is used for electronic devices such as a computer monitor. Certain combinations of width and height are standardized and typically given a name and an initialism that is descriptive of its dimensions. A graphics display resolution can be used in tandem with the size of the graphics display to calculate pixel density. An increase in the pixel density often correlates with a decrease in the size of individual pixels on a display.
Exalogic is a computer appliance made by Oracle Corporation, commercially available since 2010. It is a cluster of x86-64-servers running Oracle Linux or Solaris preinstalled.
The iPad Pro is a premium model of Apple's iPad tablet computer. It runs iPadOS, a tablet-optimized version of the iOS operating system.
A yoga brick or yoga block is a smooth block of wood or of firm but comfortable material, such as hard foam rubber or cork, used as a prop in yoga as exercise.
Mac Studio is a small-form-factor workstation designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc. It is one of four desktop computers in the Mac lineup, sitting above the consumer-range Mac Mini and iMac, and positioned below the Mac Pro. It is configurable with either the M1 Max or M1 Ultra system on a chip.