Gaffer (filmmaking)

A gaffer is the chief lighting technician on a set and is the head of the electrical department.

Etymology

The term has been used for the chief electrician in films since the 1930s. The Oxford English Dictionary has a citation from 1936;[1] a 1929 book on motion picture production also uses the term.[2] Gaffer. 1580s, "elderly rustic," apparently a contraction of godfather (cf. gammer); originally "old man," it was applied from 1841 to foremen and supervisors, which sense carried over 20c. to "electrician in charge of lighting on a film set."


The gaffer is responsible for managing lighting, including associated resources such as labour, lighting instruments and electrical equipment under the direction of the director of photography

gollark: You can tell where people tend to linger in your shop, say. I'm not sure how much/how this gets associated with other data, though.
gollark: I think it's randomized per-scan, although I'm not certain.
gollark: With advancing video compression and generally cheapening storage that probably won't be the case forever.
gollark: Going back a few decades, while you probably also had "no expectation of privacy" in a public space it *also* wasn't possible to track and record the vast amounts of data we trivially can now.
gollark: Yes. It doesn't cost very much to mostly thwart this tracking, so I think it was a good move.

References

  1. Oxford English Dictionary accessed 15 May 2009
  2. Mary Eunice McCarthy, The Hands of Hollywood, 1929: 61.
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