How to wind up your cables to keep them tangle-free

Whether you’re a photographer or filmmaker, chances are you’ve got plenty of cables. Not everything is wireless yet. There are long USB tethering cables, microphone cables, power cables and all sorts. Many of them might need replacing fairly regularly if you just shovel them into your bag and don’t take care of them. At best, you’ll waste a lot of time untangling a mess of knotted cables.

The guys over on The Film Look have the perfect solution, and an explanation as to why wrapping your cables properly is important. For a start, it means less wasted time on set untangling them. But it also increases the longevity of those cables so that you don’t have to replace them as often.

Keeping your cables looped properly looks a little complex at first, but once you practice it for a while, it becomes quite simple. There are, of course, ways to not wrap up your cable, too. Unless you like the mess and regularly putting in orders for new ones. So, don’t do these.

Both of these methods are bad because they stretch and stress the cable in multiple directions. This is why they don’t last as long, and why you’ll often end up with kinks. And the more kinks appear, the more quickly new ones will appear as it becomes impossible to wrap the cable correctly.

The twisting method shown in the video shows two moves working together to create tangle-free cable wraps that don’t stress the internals. Essentially, you twist slightly to make the cable naturally loop the way it wants to. Then create a “reverse loop” so the next loop goes the other way and alternate between these for each loop.

Like I said, you’ll want to practice it for a while to get the hang of it. And you’ll probably need to rewatch that bit of the video several times to really understand how the twists happen to make the loops do what they’re supposed to. But, it’ll be worth it in the long run. It’ll save you time and money.

Going with silicone coated cables instead of plastic coated ones will also help to increase longevity, too.