What's the dumbest thing you ever did on a shoot?!

Damn that sucks Jack. How much did that crane set you back?

Here's the dumbest thing I ever did on a shoot. Well, actually it was the night before the shoot. You know those dehydratred 100% pure fruit snacks you can buy? I guess they're called fruit leathers. Well, I had about 20 of the grape ones. I couldn't quit eating them. The next morning I almost crapped my pants around 7-10 times. I lost count after a while.

I will never do that again!
 
In a related incident, Some years ago I was filling in for another camera operator and he recomended I bring lots of water as it was a long shoot. (Multiple basketball games back-to-back)

I bought too much water - but didn't realize until I'd drank it all, and there where still many minutes left in the game. :eek:

I was out of the crow's-nest before the closing buzzer was done sounding.


- Mikko
 
I was a PA on an independent feature and one time, I climbed into the driver's seat of the camera (or grip) truck as I looked for something. While I'm doing this for about 5 minutes, there's a car horn that I hear in the distance but I don't pay much attention. But, I eventually notice that everyone is looking at me. That's when I realized that my ass was pushed against the truck's horn the entire time. I was pretty embarassed.

Also...

I didn't do this, but I saw it happen.

On the same film shoot, the still photographer took a picture during a fairly elaborate take...with the flash ON. The take was ruined and the AD was furious. I thought a fight was going to break out.
 
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dvxmusic84 said:
I didn't do this, but I saw it happen.

On an independent feature, the still photographer took a picture during a fairly elaborate take...with the flash ON. The take was ruined and the AD was furious. I thought a fight was going to break out.
Click to expand...

I've always been very nervous whenever people take photos on my sets for that reason. So far they have been intelligent enough to not screw up.
 
BLUESPIDER said:
I shot a bird...and it died.
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Lol

Not film related but a good story nonetheless.

Was shooting some background stuff - B roll for a drift racing competition (in Japan). Faces in the crowd etc. Fell and dumped the camera down the stairs to save myself. :Drogar-Angry(DBG):
 
First shoot for my new boss I sit on his recently purchased GY-HD110u, I weigh 375. Ended in terror....but I am still alive now and the camera is in intensive care but is better now.
 
I think most of the mistakes spoken here I did already: the "missed shot because didn't press red button", triped on lights destroying bulb, Event coverage where suddenly everyone stands up, forgetting batteries...

Here's a unique one, tough.

This happened Last Saturday :)

We had an event happening that needed coverage and then needed to be edited in a small catchy MTV way in order to be presented to the media in a gala event on the same day. Since I did the same event last year, I was confident that everything would turn out fine. Was planning to shoot from 9am untill 14h pm. That would give me time to edit and check out the video projected on the venue. (last year that was the time) However, this time, something went wrong.

Shot from 9am till 17h PM. Press event was at 20h pm. I was still confident that I could pull out a small MTV.

Since I was shooting everything in p2 DV for editing on my Powerbook g4, capture time was not much of an issue. This was when things REALLY started to go wrong.

After connecting my external harddrive and started to import p2 (17h 30), FCP suddenly said "disk full". I asked to myself "What the? " This is a new external drive with 200+ free space! That's when I checked that was not my NEW external, but an old one with footage from my newly shot short film. Couldn't erase anything. Grabed my car and did a Schumaker worthy drive home to get the real HDD. Editing started at 18:45.

Since I had everything planned, with pre selected music, I figured it would be easy. But to my horror, it was 19:45 and I was still finishing my edit. Video presentation time was scheduled for 20h45, so I figured by 20h10 I would have the edit finished and ready to be encoded on toast. Total time of the video was about 5 minutes, nothing fancy, but upbeat and enough for the press to have a good opinion of the event.

20h10. Press conference is on its way, and our top official is giving his speech on the next room. Room full of local media and top officials. Finished the clip and figured I was right on time to burn the disc and present the video. And then... Toast was nowhere to be found.

That's when I remembered I formated my startup disk and re-installed everyhting a couple of weeks ago, due to an OSX problem. And forgot to install toast. Didn't install DVD Studio Pro. Time 20h 15 min. Panicking, thinking to myself "maybe I can connect the camera directly to the projectors- No, no component in, and sound mixer system already configured to a DVD player" . I felt screwed.

That's when I remembered there's a little thing called IDVD. Never used it, but it was my only option. Time 20h 20. Put the video on IDVD and started encoding. The process was SLOW. If the disc burning failed, I was screwed... Finished disc at 20:43 (NO JOKE!) Ran with the disc to the guy operating the DVD, and hoped that everything just went smoothly.

I survived. People clapped at the clip. Got praise from my Boss.

My hands where shaking all night that day...
 
SPZ said:
...
... Finished disc at 20:43 (NO JOKE!) Ran with the disc to the guy operating the DVD, and hoped that everything just went smoothly.

I survived. People clapped at the clip. Got praise from my Boss.

My hands where shaking all night that day...
Click to expand...

Otherwise known as cutting it a bit fine...
Well done on surviving anyway :)
 
Back in my photog days as a general assignment news hunter/gather, the biggest mistake was setting my Ikegami 47/sony beta deck camera on the ground outside my news unit while I made a call back to the station. I had finished shooting the event and was directed to my next assignment.
DUMMY ME!!!!
I drove off without picking up said camera, knocking it over with the rear tire, breaking off the lens and zoom drive.

Results:
1 confession + 1 ass chewing = 5 days suspension.

The next biggest mistake, (a collective one made by the entire evening photog's) was letting our weekend sports anchor drive our 12ft tall live van under a 10ft tall brick awning knocking off the microwave dish and transmitter. HIS mistake got US a major chewing out
JD
 
Not technically my dumb behavior, and not technically on a shoot...but some years ago I sat in a meeting and watched the fed-up director on an MGM/UA feature scream at the Executive in Charge of Feature Production that - among many other colorful things - she was a "Stupid ***** who knows nothing about film making."

The end of his tenure on the show, and the beginning of a succession of four (four!) consecutive directors. And in the end, nobody wanted their name on it (including Alan Smithee) so it wound up being released as a "Thomas Lee" film...
 
If that's the one I'm thinking of, it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but the deleted scenes made it seem like it could have been better.

And it had Three Dog Night in the trailer.
 
Yeah, that one. Not the worst movie I've ever seen, either, but heading the pack for the worst one I've had to work on...

We were all actually scratching our heads, over the use of 'Mama Told Me Not to Come," in the trailer. I mean, no one's Mama figures in the story, therefore making it impossible for her to have told anybody not to come. Although it would have been good advice, if she had.
 
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