ShotPlots

Guides · Guide 11

Flags, floppies and silks: showing grip on a plan

Lights get the attention, but grip decides what the light does. A flag cuts it, a silk softens it, a net dims it. If the plan leaves grip out, the person with the stands is guessing.

Written by Richard Jones, film producer, Australia · Updated 13 October 2026

Two fresnels pointing up the page. A flag in front of the left one blocks half its beam. A diffusion silk in front of the right one lets the beam through and spreads it wider.
Screenshot of the app canvas · flag and silk 2 lights · 1 flag · 1 diffusion silk

Three jobs: block, shape and bounce

Grip does three things to light. It blocks it, stopping it from reaching somewhere. It shapes it, changing its quality or strength on the way through. Or it bounces it, catching it and sending it back into the scene from somewhere else. Keeping those apart makes the plan easier to read.

Blocking

Flag

A solid black panel on a frame, mounted on a stand. It stops light from reaching part of the set. Use it to keep a unit off the back wall, to stop flare on the lens, or to carve a shadow edge. Sizes are usually given in feet, such as 2x3 or 4x4.

Floppy

A flag with a hinged flap that folds open or shut. It gives a flag a variable size, and it is handy where the flag has to be big in one direction and small in another.

Solid frame

A larger solid, often 6x6 or 8x8, used to block a big area, such as sun through a window or an overhead beam.

Shaping

Diffusion silk

A white fabric on a frame. Put it between a light and the actor and the light becomes softer and larger. The further the silk is from the unit, the bigger the soft source it creates.

Net

A mesh that reduces the intensity of the light without much changing its character. It is the tool for when a unit is too bright and you cannot move it or dim it.

Overhead silk and overhead solid

Large frames rigged above the set, often 12x12 or bigger. An overhead silk softens sun across the whole scene. An overhead solid shades it. They are a different order of job from a handheld flag, so show them clearly.

Bouncing

Bounce

A white board or card that does not block the light so much as catch it. Aim a unit at the board, not at the actor, and the board becomes the source: a broad, soft wash that comes back toward where the light is. On the plan the bounced light is wider and fainter than the direct beam, which is the honest picture of what a bounce does. It needs no power, and the further the light travels to the board the bigger the wash that returns.

Reflector

A silver or gold surface that behaves more like a mirror. The light leaves it as though it came from the other side of the panel, so it is harder and more directional than a bounce. It is the tool for turning a beam to one particular spot, such as a face in the shade, and it is the standard fix on a sunny exterior.

A fresnel aimed up the room at a bounce board. The beam hits the board and a wider, fainter wash comes back down the room, covering an actor to the right.
Screenshot of the app canvas · bounce board 1 light · 1 bounce · 1 actor

How to draw them

  • Draw it as its own object. A flag is not a note on a light. It has a position, a size and a facing.
  • Place it between the light and the thing it affects. The plan should show the order: unit, then grip, then subject.
  • Give it a name and a size. G1 is a 4x4 flag. The grip can count the G numbers and pull the kit.
  • Show how high it goes if that matters. A flag at head height and a flag at ceiling height do different work.

Check what the grip actually does

After drawing a flag, look at what it should block. Is the shadow where you want it? If the flag has to sit so close to the unit that it reaches into shot, you have found a problem at a desk. Better there than at the location.

Add grip to the schedule

List each grip item the way you list lights: name, type, size and a note. That makes the grip department's list from the same page as the gaffer's.

Try it

In ShotPlots a flag removes the beam behind it, and silks and nets spread the beam instead. A bounce sends a wider, fainter wash back toward the light, and a reflector acts like a mirror. Grip is its own row in the schedule. Draw one free, no account, nothing to install, or see a finished sheet and its PDF.

Related

What a gaffer needs on a lighting plot, and Three-point lighting diagram.