The Matthews Century Stand — commonly referred to as a “C-Stand” — is an all-purpose heavy-duty stand used for positioning lighting instruments and light-control hardware, via a 5/8″ Baby Peg stud, in accordance with the industry standard. Production Students may add these stands to their equipment loan in an on-demand basis, no reservation necessary, and no access restrictions based on course-level.

While most of the F&DM Department’s lighting kits include stands (the Arri 1K kits being the exceptions), C-Stands are considerably larger and have greater range of elevation available than the more compact portable field stands included in lighting kits. In this respect, C-Stands are useful for situations that demand extreme elevation of lighting instruments.

Please note, however, that C-Stands must always be fully sandbagged to securely anchor the base of the stand. Failing to sufficiently sandbag the C-Stand is extremely unsafe, and can result in severe injury to people or property, were a fully extended C-Stand to fall over with a hot lighting instrument attached.

Some C-Stands also come with an optional Gobo Arm that mounts in place of a lighting instrument. The Gobo Arm can be used to boom out a framed flag or silk, via a special positional mounting adaptor — or to boom out a lighting instrument when used in conjunction with a clamp (such as the “Gator” Clamp or Tota-Clamp). However, in the latter instance, booming medium- to heavier-weight lighting instruments is strongly discouraged, for safety reasons. For booming heavier instruments, the dedicated-purpose Matthews Mini-Max should be used instead.

Please also note that collapsible pop-up or flexi flags, silks and reflectors are not compatible with the Gobo Arm. Instead, these light-control items must use the Westcott Reflector Stand — which are also available upon demand.