The Gaff Master

Already, another year has zipped by and I've been sadly delinquent on postings. However, I got some inspiration yesterday and am going to put down a few thoughts. The inspiration came from Monica Kroeger at Medallion Industries in Chicago. Monica was trying to locate one of my favorite people and a great friend, Carmine Curto. And so thinking about Carmine, thought I'd say a few words about him and his specialty.

Carmine's specialty is "gaffing" which means Carmine is the man who makes kitchen sinks looks filthy, makes bathrooms look absolutely disgusting, who puts stains on rugs, dirt on floors, who in short, is the master of creating filth, dirt, stains and spills. In fact, Carmine was the man who helped me realize the shot of comparing cleaning methods using black light,which is the image at the top of this blog site.

Gaffing may sound like misleading advertising, or trickery, but in reality when anyone shoots a commercial it's never good enough to just have a single wine stain on carpet, one ketchup stain on a shirt, or a grass stain on shorts, because you have to be able to create that same effect again and again, from different angles to get a better "take", a better version, or the perfect result.

If we're talking about grass stains on shorts, Carmine will have 10 different pairs of shorts, with all perfectly matched grass stains, ready to go.

After all, if you're spending thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars a day shooting a commercial the last thing you want is to have an entire crew standing around waiting, while someone is trying to create a second grass stain on a pair of shorts, all because the camera jiggled during the last take and ruined it and so "gaffing" is an absolute must.

Trying to get Carmine to share his secret techniques is next to impossible, but in the end, you don't want to know his secrets, because what you really need is Carmine there...standing by with carpet, clothes, wine, tile grout and all his tricks. There is no one out there like Carmine, the gaff master.

So the next time you see that bathtub go from disgusting to perfection, those grass stains disappear, think of my pal Carmine Curto, he might of been there!

FYI, if you're in need of Carmine's talents, drop me an email, I can put you in direct touch with the master himself....believe me, I never shoot a cleaning shot with him.