gaffer - Gaffers in the motion picture industry, Gaffer as an old man or foreman

The chief electrician in a film or television production crew, working closely with the lighting director. The charge-hand electrician working directly under the gaffer is known as the best boy.

(Discuss)

A gaffer in the motion picture industry is the head of the electrical department, responsible for the execution (and sometimes the design) of the lighting plan for a production.

Gaffers in the motion picture industry

Sometimes the gaffer is credited as Chief Lighting Technician (CLT). In television the term Lighting Director is often used, but sometimes the Technical Director (T.D.) will light the studio set.

Experienced gaffers can coordinate the entire job of lighting, given knowledge of the time of day and conditions to be portrayed, managing resources as broad as electrical generators, lights, cable, and manpower. They can re-create the flicker of lights in a subway car, the motion of light inside a turning airplane, or the passage of night into day.

Usually, the gaffer works for and reports to the director of photography (the DP or DOP). The DP is responsible for the overall lighting design, but he or she may give a little or a lot of latitude to the gaffer on these matters, depending on their working relationship. The gaffer works with the key grip, who is in charge of some of the equipment related to the lighting.

Many gaffers are expected to own a truck complete with most basic lighting equipment and then rent extra lighting equipment as needed. There are, however, a few hypothoses:

Early studios were "available light" only, so there were articulated mirrored panels in the roof of the studio buildings that could be pushed from the floor by long "gaff" poles to bounce the sunlight to where it was needed on the set. Once electric lighting instruments became the standard equipment, the light operators were known as electricians while the older, more experienced lighting technicians were still known as gaffers.

Also posited: early films used mostly natural light, which stagehands controlled with large tent cloths using long poles called gaffs (stagehands were often beached sailors or stevedores, and a gaff is a type of boom on a sailing ship), or a pole with a hook on the end to assist in bringing nets or large fish aboard.

Gaffer as an old man or foreman

In colloquial British English gaffer means a foreman, and is used as a synonym for "boss".

The term is also sometimes used colloquially to refer to an old man, an elderly rustic, and can be used as a prefix to the name (as in Gaffer Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings).

In 16th Century English, the term "gaffer" denoted a man who was the head of any organized group of labourers.