Grip Knots for Film:
How to Tie and Use Common Film Set Knots
On set, grips are the riggers, and though they have a slew of steel gear and equipment, an ancient yet important tool works alongside them: rope and knots.
I’m going to show you how the most common grip knots are tied and used on a film set. But also more. I’m going to show you how knots work. This way, you’ll be able to remember how to tie them because you’ll understand how they work.
One thing I love about film sets and video production is how we use cutting-edge digital technology, cameras that see at a higher resolution than our own eyes, alongside ancient practices that go back thousands of years, knot tying.
How they Work and Your Shoe Laces
Knots are tied in flexible cords, strings and ropes. On film sets, we use sash cord, size #8 and #10 cotton line wrapped around a plastic core. It’s called sash cord because it’s used to hold the lead counterweights in the wall for sash-based windows. Sometimes it’s called clothesline cord. Make sure it’s cotton.
We also use a thinner black cotton line called trick line, mainly used to hang stuff but also used as safeties for smaller lights. A safety catches a light hanging from a pipe in the grid if it were to come loose.
And 1/4” hemp for tying off objects like 20 by frames, lights mounted high on a stand and scaffolding.
There are two parts to tying a knot: the tying and the tightening.
This is a simple overhand knot, one of the most common knots in the world. You’ve tied it a million times when you’ve tied your shoes.
Here you see two “nips,” the point where the knot bites into the line below it when tightened. This point of maximum friction and pressure is where the work is done in a knot. Paying attention to where the nips are will help you remember how to tie many knots and let you know when you're tying it incorrectly.
Let’s add another overhand knot on top of this one but let's make sure each line exits the knot in the same direction as the line below it. The nips are now loops pulling on each other, making it a strong knot. You’ve dealt with it whenever the bows in your shoelaces come through by accident. So hard to untie. This is called a square knot which you’ve probably tied on packages and anywhere else you’re not sure what knots to tie.
So a shoelace knot is a square knot but you’re tying the top overhand knot with loops vs pulling the line all the way through. This creates what we call a quick release, allowing you to easily untie this square knot in your shoelaces time and again. You can use this same quick-release method in some of the knots I’ll show you as well.
Tying off Pipe with the Clove Hitch
Whether you work on film sets or not, this is a knot you want to know. It’s used to tie a line to a cylinder when you don't want that line to move. It’s a grips go-to knot to tie to pipe and the safety lines to the frames like 8, 12, and 20 bys so they don’t sail away in the wind.
Make a loop around the pipe, as if you were making an overhand knot but don’t go under the line, go around the pipe again then bring the line up on the other side of what we call the standing end of your line and go under that second loop.
It creates an X shape with two lines going under. This means when you tighten it, two loops tighten around the pipe and the nip here digs into those two lines. Those means under load, the clove hitch just gets tighter and digs into the pipe more.
If you’ve ever seen a boat dock at a pier, you’ve seen someone take its line and loop it twice over the cleat. That’s a clove hitch.
Though it’s tight, it’s always good to tie a safety, an extra overhand knot, just in case.
Though it’s a simple knot it’s so close to the overhand that it’s easy to get confused. So when you practice tying it, tie it upside, on a vertical pipe, in various directions so you get the hang of remembering if you’re looping it the right way. When done, look for the X.
Bowline
I’ll bet any amount of money you’ve heard of the bowline. It’s the king of knots and I’ll show you why.
The clove hitch is great for a tight knot around pipe, even other rope. But what do you tie if you need a loose knot on a pipe, that you can slide along it, like a safety on a light? Or what do you tie into the grommet of an 8x solid? The bowline.
Why is it great? It’s tight but can be easily untied by pulling on its nips.
Also, it minimally weakens the line. What does that mean?
Well, a knot weakens any rope. It reduces the overall strength of any line and when they fail, it’s usually at the knot. An overhand knot reduces a line’s strength from 100% down to 45-50%. Fishermen worry about tying an overhand knot by accident when they’re casting since it will weaken their line and let that big fish get away.
The bowline maintains 65-70% of the strength of the rope.
Tying Lines together with The Sheet Bend
Now watch this. If I cut the loop of the bowline so it’s two pieces of line and flip it over, it may look familiar to some of you as it’s called by a different name, the Sheet Bend.
Yep, the sheet bend, another common and helpful knot, used to tie two pieces of line together, is just a bowline. So now that you know how to tie a bowline, use the same technique to tie the sheet bend.
I didn’t have to use this knot very often but when I did, it was a life safer. You’re trying to tie off a frame or a line to light and it’s too short, so you add a line using the sheet bend to extend it. You can even use it with lines of slightly different thicknesses.
Adjusting hanging objects with The Rolling Hitch
Everything we do on set is in relation to the frame. If it’s not in frame, we don’t worry about it. If it’s in frame, we do. And at times we need to get things into frame at just the right point. The rolling hitch helps us hang items. Like the clove hitch it tightens under load but when not, it can be easily adjusted. Tying it in a single line creates an adjustable loop at the end for hanging objects in frame. Why is this important? Because everything changes on set. The DP decides to raise the camera up or a light is moved and therefore what you hung in frame needs to be adjusted as well.
It can also be tied to another rope or a pipe for the same purpose. Note, the two parts of the knot are always in the direction of the load.
Cinching down objects with The Truckers Hitch
This hitch is really a combination of a few knots. When I first learned it I freaked out, realizing how many real world uses it had, like tying off a load to the top of your car.
What you’re doing is creating a block and tackle that allows you to cinch down the object you’re tying. You make a loop in the top, here a slip knot, take your line around the object you're lashing down to, and then bring it back up and through the loop. Here you tighten the load down and pinch to hold it as you check the object you're tying down. Then tie a simple overhand knot to secure it and a safety.
Grips use this knot to tie off frames to sandbags or stakes so they don’t take off in the wind.
Grabbing corners with The Strangle Knot
Sometimes, you need to tie off fabric or plastic that doesn’t have a grommet. Here’s a simple knot to do that, the Strangle Knot. It was used to tie off sacks and bags in the olden times. It looks like a messed up clove hitch because when you bring the line around, you bring it up the same side, then go under.