I’d add another kind of mark—the ones for the camera. With handheld or steadi, operators need marks too, and the best way to do this is usually a V in the width of the lens (a wide, more obtuse V for a wide angle, and a narrow, more acute V for telephoto.)

Another one I’ve used on low budget productions without cine tape is to tie a rope to the actors…they generally hate that, but wandering around in a close up on a 50 at f1.4 is the only way to have a fighting chance.

For example:

When the talent reaches the mark I have someone off camera shoot them with a BB gun in their leg. I only pump it up once or twice so it doesn’t hurt too much (unless it’s a horror film in which case I pump it up 7-10 times so that we can see their pain). Then all you have to do is remove the pop sound of the gun and bb hitting the talents flesh in post.

I used to have a bunch of pre-ripped and tabbed tape in different colors for each actor in the scene pre-taped to my legs ready to plaster down for the various positions. Most of these A list actors didn’t even wait for me to finish or even notice me crouched at their feet and god help me if I ever tripped one over and god help me if I failed to get a mark down for a position – whats worse, getting yelled at by a big name actor, a big name director or your 1st, AC, Camera Op or DoP?

Of course, some actors go out of their way to help and others like to screw you around (like Adrian Paul from Highlander who would poke me with his sword sometimes while I was scrambling around at his feet…

Some tips on marking:

- Never use fabric camera tape on expensive varnished floors or carpet only use paper tape.
- Colored mini marker sandbags are great for outdoors. Other alternatives include sidewalk chalk for tarmac (make sure you have a brush to remove them when done) or powdered chalk for when raining.
- For grass and other soft surfaces, cut up rubber matting into T-markers and paint them with different colored nailpolish; Make a hole in the center for a golf tee to secure them in place.