Benjamin Carter

Opening a yoga studio or refreshing your class lineup? We have spent the last three months testing mats, blocks, straps, and storage solutions to find the best gear for yoga and fitness studios. Our team compared 24 products and narrowed the list to 12 essentials that hold up to daily class use. Whether you teach … Read more

Running a cooking channel in means more than sharp recipes and a friendly voice. The right gear decides whether your pasta shot looks restaurant-grade or muddy, whether your narration survives the blender, and whether that perfect overhead chop stays steady for ten minutes straight. I have spent years filming recipes in cramped kitchens, dim studio … Read more

Finding the best phantom power supplies for filmmakers changed how I run audio on set. A condenser shotgun mic needs clean 48V to capture usable dialogue, and the wrong supply introduces hum, hiss, or worse — no signal at all when the director is waiting. I tested ten standalone phantom power supplies over six weeks, … Read more

When we wrapped our last short film in a converted warehouse, the sound mixer kept shaking his head. The dialogue was intelligible in the cans, but the room tone spiked every time the HVAC cycled on. That single shoot is why I started carrying a sound level meter on every video set I work on. … Read more

If you only have room for one answer: the NEEWER 3 Wheels Wireless Camera Dolly is the best mini slider for tabletop video we tested. It rides on three rubber wheels, has a 6.6 lb payload, and ships with a remote that gives you three speed settings – so a single product push-in, parallax, or … Read more

Short filmmakers ask me one question more than any other: do I actually need a motorized pan-tilt head to make my time-lapses look cinematic? After three months shooting skyline transitions, interview B-roll, and one ambitious holy-grail sunset with the ten heads in this guide, the honest answer is yes, but only if you pick the … Read more

A ratchet strap is a polyester webbing tie-down with a ratcheting buckle, and on a film set it is the grip department’s go-to tool for keeping cameras, lighting, dollies, and props exactly where the blocking needs them. Over the past several short films and indie commercial shoots, our crew has used ratchet straps to lash … Read more

Unsecured light stands and C-stands are one of the most common safety risks on a film set. Our team has watched a 40-inch boom arm tip a stand sideways in the middle of a take, sending a small light crashing into a tabletop and ruining two hours of work. The fix is simple, cheap, and … Read more

A microphone shock mount is a suspension cradle that isolates a studio microphone from vibrations, handling noise, and mechanical disturbances transmitted through a mic stand or boom arm, typically using elastic bands or Rycote’s patented Lyre system. The best shock mounts for studio microphones in cover everything from budget universal clamps to name-brand OEM mounts, … Read more

Shooting a short film on a single 16mm camera with a Sennheiser MKH 416 boom is exactly the scenario that makes filmmakers lose sleep about audio. One unexpected car horn, a door slam, or an actor who suddenly shouts can ruin a take forever in 24-bit land. We have spent the last three months testing … Read more