i once spent twenty minutes at the end of a shoot day trying to figure out whose hdmi cable was whose.
there were four of us on set. we all had the same brand of cable. same length, same color. nobody had labeled anything. we stood there holding up cables like some kind of low-budget whodunit until someone said "i think mine has a kink near the connector" and everyone checked for kinks.
twenty minutes. for a cable.
the labeling problem on set
here's what happens on any shoot with more than one person: gear blends together. especially the small stuff.
batteries all look the same. sd cards are identical. cables are interchangeable. chargers, adapters, card readers — they're all black rectangles of slightly different sizes, and after twelve hours of shooting, nobody remembers which black rectangle belongs to them.
this isn't just annoying. it's expensive. gear that doesn't get returned to the right person gets lost. gear that gets lost gets replaced. and the cycle continues until someone either gives up or gets obsessive about labeling.
i chose obsessive.
gaffer tape is not the answer
the classic film set solution is gaffer tape. rip a piece off, write your initials on it, stick it on your stuff. everyone does this. it works until it doesn't.
the problems with gaffer tape as a labeling system:
it leaves residue. especially in warm environments or after a few days. that sticky gunk gets on your gear, on your hands, on the inside of your bag. try getting gaffer tape residue off an ssd. it's a nightmare.
it falls off. gaffer tape sticks well to flat, clean surfaces. it sticks poorly to textured plastic, mesh, fabric, and curved surfaces — which describes about 90% of the stuff you'd want to label.
it looks terrible after a day. the edges curl up, the ink smears, and whatever you wrote on it becomes unreadable. so you rip it off and apply a new piece, leaving more residue.
and writing on it is awkward. gaffer tape has a fabric texture that makes fine writing almost impossible. you end up with thick, blobby letters that look like a child wrote them. no shade to children, but i'd like to be able to read my own labels.
what i use instead
two products. CINETAPE and CINEMARKER. that's the whole system.
CINETAPE is camera tape — not gaffer tape. the difference matters. it's thinner, it tears cleaner, it sticks stronger to more surfaces, and — this is the big one — it leaves absolutely no residue when you peel it off. zero. nothing. you can stick it on a lens barrel for a week and pull it off clean.
it also comes in colors. i carry green and orange. green for "checked and ready." orange for labeling. some people use different colors for different crew members — first AC is green, second AC is orange, sound is... whatever color sound people like. the point is, the colors add a visual layer that you can spot from across the room.
CINEMARKER is a fine-tip permanent marker. permanent on the tape, that is. it writes clean lines on CINETAPE without bleeding or smearing. the tip is thin enough to actually write legibly, which sounds basic but apparently isn't if you've ever tried writing on gaffer tape with a sharpie.
my labeling system
here's what i do on every shoot:
before the shoot: i label my three POUCHes with colored CINETAPE. name, date, contents. the TPU mesh surface on the front of each POUCH grips the tape really well, so it stays put all day but peels off clean at the end. (more on how i use pouches to organise everything in what's actually in my bag.)
"SW / POWER / 14.05" on the medium pouch. "SW / CARDS+CABLES / 14.05" on the small one. "SW / AUDIO KIT / 14.05" on the large one.
on set: everything that leaves my hands gets a piece of tape on it. my ssd, my card reader, my spare batteries. initials and the date. takes two seconds per item.
for shared gear: if we're using rental gear or stuff that belongs to the production, i use a different color. orange tape means "this goes back to the rental house." green tape means "this has been checked and works." no tape means nobody's looked at it yet.
at the end of the day: peel everything off. no residue, no damage, no mystery gunk. start fresh tomorrow.
the pouch labeling trick
this is probably the most useful part of the system: using POUCHes as labeled containers for different departments or crew members.
on bigger shoots, i'll bring a stack of empty POUCHes and label them by department. sound gets a pouch. camera gets a pouch. lighting gets a pouch. each one gets filled with the small accessories for that department — adapters, spare batteries, cables, whatever. at the end of the day, you don't sort individual items. you sort pouches.
it sounds obvious, but the first time you do it you'll wonder why you ever bothered sorting a pile of loose cables into separate bags at wrap.
the uv thing
CINETAPE has a feature i didn't expect to be useful but turned out to be very useful: it's uv-reactive. under blacklight, it glows.
why does this matter? because some shoots happen in dark environments. concerts, events, nighttime exteriors, studio work with controlled lighting. in those situations, being able to spot your labeled gear under a uv flashlight is genuinely handy. it's not why i chose it as our tape, but it's a nice bonus.
a note on costs
a roll of CINETAPE costs six euros. a CINEMARKER costs fifty cents. for six fifty, you have a labeling system that'll last you dozens of shoot days.
compare that to one lost cable (fifteen euros), one lost card reader (thirty euros), or one lost battery (sixty euros). the math is pretty straightforward.
the real point
labeling isn't glamorous. it's not the kind of thing you see in behind-the-scenes reels or gear review videos. nobody's making a youtube video called "watch me put tape on my batteries."
but on a real set, with real deadlines and real budgets, the difference between a crew that labels their gear and a crew that doesn't is about an hour of wasted time per shoot day. multiplied over a whole production, that's days of time lost to "whose is this?" and "has anyone seen my...?"
label your stuff. your future self will be grateful.
the whole labeling kit for under seven euros. CINETAPE + CINEMARKER. done.
more from THE CRAP TIMES:
- what's actually in my bag — how pouches, wraps, and labels make up my daily carry system
- the solo filmmaker's packing checklist — the battery marking trick and more labeling tips for one-person crews
