Friday, November 09, 2007

brads

Ok another scintillating topic - brads. The industry standard brad of choice for scriptwriters all over the globe is the ACCO brad.

I actually prefer the wider headed silver brads that used to be fairly easy to purchase in many UK stationers but they are difficult to get hold of here. I arrived with a large box but after they were all consumed I resorted to re-using them and even prizing them off other people's scripts (ha ha!). After a while they can rust and the washers go astray or they get too bendy or break. Here in Cape Town I've hunted high and low for them - to no avail.
So I started using butterfly pins which are almost identical to the industry brads - gold and two pronged but there are no washers to accompany them. It doesn't bode well (for a critique) if someone stabs their fingers trying to extract a script from an envelope.

Purely for home (or temporary use) there are treasury tags. I've always found these to be highly impractical and have never, ever sent off a script fixed with treasury tags. I've never used those curly ring bindings either.

My latest binding of choice is the 'file fastener'. These metal knife things bend through the punched holes and then slide into a clasp for safety. I know that these are also a 'no no' in industry circles but at least they look neat and are easy to remove - though they can also prove lethal for readers. They're also readily available.

So what do you use?

5 comments:

potdoll said...

I use ACCO to send stuff off and I re-use those brass two pronged things to read my own stuff - one in the top left hand corner so I can flick through easier. I prefer to read a script that way. Often if I'm reading a script that has been mailed rather than emailed, I take the ACCO off and re-punch a brass. Then I keep the ACCO for myself. That feels a little immoral but it shouldn't. Should it?

Near by said...

Ha ha Pot - I think it is immoral but not if the best bit of a script is the brad...

potdoll said...

shit i feel guilty now.

VW said...

How very funny to encounter a post about brads. I received a stack of student research papers today - half of them staple - less. It had me gnashing my teeth.

Brads . . . !

Anonymous said...

Hi vw! hope the work is going well...

Yes lately I've decided to blog about the small, unimportant things in life...