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

I'm PA'ing on a shoot and happened to be sitting shotgun in a rental van driven by one of the producers. I want to show him how funny I am and this van really was a piece of crap so I start pointing out exactly how big a piece of crap it actually was. "Look at this radio," I said. "Where did they get it? K-Mart?" "Look at this visor. It's barely attached." "Look at how dirty this piece of sh*t is." Every time I would say something, the producer would sort of weakly defend it. "Well, it's not *that* dirty". Needless to say, about five minutes later I finally figured out that this wasn't a rental van. It was HIS van. I didn't say a word for the rest of the ride. And that producer didn't talk to me for the rest of the shoot.
 
c.g._eads said:
... I finally figured out that this wasn't a rental van. It was HIS van.
Click to expand...

Hahahahaha. That reminds me a spec spot we once piggy-backed onto a paying gig. The talent supplied their own wardrobe. So one girl comes up to the director in her get-up and he says, "Sorry for making you wear something so trashy," about 2 seconds before realizing that it was her dress.

Here's the spot, the girl is the one in red: http://jasonfox.net/television/PortTVSBOlives.htm
 
ok, this is my biggest **** up so far....

we were shooting a short film down in mexico. it was the first day on which evrythign went wrong... our equipment almost never made it across the border, so half the day we were waiting for it to arrive... finally it gets there and a regular scheduled day turns into a 22 hour constant madness.

I was 2nd AC. we were shooting in a little run down bar somewhere in mexico. really cool location. its late in the night and we are filming, I am busy with loading mag after mag, everybody grabs a quick bite, not me, still loading mags....

a little sweet mexican girl comes up to offer me probably food ( in spanish ), which I dont understand. as I tried to be nice to her I am still laoding a mag with a fresh 400' roll of 35mm film.

I got so distracted and ended up opening the wrong side of the mag, so the fresh 400' roll that I just loaded in the dark bag got exposed! I took a deep breath and told the 1st AC and DP, and the DP made it very clear that this will not happen again. and he was right.

turned out we still became good friends during the rest of the production
 
c.g._eads said:
Needless to say, about five minutes later I finally figured out that this wasn't a rental van. It was HIS van.
Click to expand...

That's the second version of that story on this thread (I just read the whole thing). It could become the next cautionary tale of the industry, an old gem right up there with the Henway.

JasonFox, my mom totally used to buy those olives. She still might. I don't know, I'm not a big olive eater. Good spot though.


My school had just gotten a new remote for the lift gate on the grip truck. Possibly a whole new lift gate. In any case, the remote wasn't wireless. After we'd finished loading the truck, I closed the door and raised the lift gate with the remote. Since the remote is supposed to be stored inside the truck when the door is closed, the gate snipped the remote cable neatly off while I'm stuck wondering why the damn lift gate won't work.

Of course I never forgot to use the buttons on the outside of the truck after that.
 
Dumbest thing I ever did on a shoot was asking a quasi-friend to stop by BRIEFLY while I was booming H. Klum... this guy has been wanting to get into video for a while (I mean professionally) and we occasionally have done favors for each other... anyway, asking HIM to do this was the dumbest thing I ever did.

I expressly said that he could come by BRIEFLY... like for 5 minutes or LESS since we were shooting in a public place... and people were trailing through with cameras... so I give him 3 rules.

Don't stay for more then a few minutes.

Don't get caught by security (by sticking around... they don't want youtube videos of Klum saying "f*ck" when she misses lines).

And most importantly DO NOT say you were there to film BTS or that you KNOW ME.

Naturally the dope breaks ALL THREE rules and I get nothing for my BTS... and I haven't been called back to work for that company again.

Hard lesson learned. I don't tell anybody about sh*t now.
 
davidreimers said:
ok, this is my biggest poo poo up so far....

we were shooting a short film down in mexico. it was the first day on which evrythign went wrong... our equipment almost never made it across the border, so half the day we were waiting for it to arrive... finally it gets there and a regular scheduled day turns into a 22 hour constant madness.

I was 2nd AC. we were shooting in a little run down bar somewhere in mexico. really cool location. its late in the night and we are filming, I am busy with loading mag after mag, everybody grabs a quick bite, not me, still loading mags....

a little sweet mexican girl comes up to offer me probably food ( in spanish ), which I dont understand. as I tried to be nice to her I am still laoding a mag with a fresh 400' roll of 35mm film.

I got so distracted and ended up opening the wrong side of the mag, so the fresh 400' roll that I just loaded in the dark bag got exposed! I took a deep breath and told the 1st AC and DP, and the DP made it very clear that this will not happen again. and he was right.

turned out we still became good friends during the rest of the production
Click to expand...

Similar story...

we were shooting a grey card to let the colortimer know that we wanted a cool tint tothe footage, but we forgot to do it at the begining of the day, so like, 7 rolls into the day i remind the DP ,and she tells me to just shoot it, and relabel it as "roll1" of that days footage then adjust the rest of the roll numbers..... That sounds simple, but after 19hours of a 100 degree apartment, i forgot that i "pre" labled that roll as roll 1.... so the guessing game of "wheres Roll number 8?" began till i remebred that i had relabeled it as one.... The dp laughed at me patted me on the back, and said " i would have started openign the cans to look... dont feel bad".
 
Well, if your demographic was 35 year old males who may or may not eat olives, I'd say you hit your mark.
 
Haha. Our goal was to shoot something good that wasn't a Wal-Mart spot. Our exec producer loved those olives, so we went with it. Ended up selling the spot to SB Olives, so it all worked out rather nicely. That guy was on CSI Miami a couple of years ago. Haven't seen the women anywhere.
 
I just recently had one but it fixed itself. I was shooting a product commercial and the talent was having trouble with her lines so we shot it a bunch of times. The one time she gets it perfect i forget to hit record. The ohshit moment happens in slo-mo and I'm thinking how the hell am I going to say something. Then I get ready to say lets do another take for safety and the product people chime in and say I think we want to change something there and go and change the script. Whew. Saved by the people I was wishing wasn't sitting in on the shoot. Now I say speeding to everyone even if it doesn't matter to keep me safe.
 
yea i learned the speeding lesson on "Bonehand"..... there was a couple takes where i wasnt rolling on time....
 
Ok, here's mine:

minimal setup in a smaller garage. One actress who, in the scene, is tied down and gagged. I set up a 500w open flood, and then tend to the camera, stepping over a cord. Well, actually, stepping ON a cord, pulling the flood over. Apparently, as it began to fall, the actress tried to warn me. But she couldn't really articulate what was happening, for some reason. Thinking she was just getting into character, I keep looking at my camera until I hear a crash. on my head. and suddenly I'm wearing a smith-viktor as a hat.

Such is the tale of how I learned to shave my own hair.
 
Big Mistake

Big Mistake

Here's my 2centsworth...

Last year...me and my fiance' eloped to Canada. I took the GL-2. tripod, wireless...etc. Rented the penthouse suite for a few days and the wedding in a VERY ritzy boutique hotel. There was us, a marriage commissioner, and 2 witnesses we met the day before. No one to run cam so I played groom and videographer. So I shot some b-roll, set the camera on the tripod, framed my shot, stepped into frame and got married.
"So that little red button means record !" I guess I should have pushed it...For all the years of professional video, I have never done that...Lucky for me my wife was very understanding and I was recording audio via wireless to a mp3 recorder.

Guys... If you are recording your own wedding, for God's sake, PUSH RECORD!

be well all.... : )
 
tripped a referee on the sidelines of a football game, my cable guy was texting and we were threatened with being throw off the field. I think we tripped a cheerleader too.he was pissed...
blasted triax,... we should be wireless by now. especially when cheerleaders are involved....
 
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