dumbest thing you've done on a shoot?

smkoch

smkoch

Well-known member
This could be a funny and educating thread?...

I don't mind going first, One of the dumbest moments I had was when I was shooting this music video for someone and during one of the sections' I forget to turn on my mic, Although it wasn't needed for sound It sure would have been easier to sink the damn video up...... My wife went to me, At least you didn't leave the lens cap on.... :shocked:
 
i was 2nd camera on a little fox pilot one time. just as we were about to start shooting i excuse my self to go to the bathroom. HAHAHAHA...the dir was like ok lets all wait for rich while he takes a piss...or something like that...i did feel kinda bad about it for a bit...hehehehe

wuteva
 
was shooting my friends band at a cafe last year
... forgot to press the record button until I tried watching the playback at the intermission, and voila... not footage :(
only got paid half the money hehe
 
i asked how do you put down gaffer tape! hehehe. i prenounced fresnel lights (freszz nail). hehe. but i made up for all of that. we were in one scene, and the boom mic had a shawdow on the talent chest. i was gonna yell CUT! but i told the line producer, and he prasied me! hehe. i should have yelled CUT, to make myself look very dumb!
 
yesterday.... taping a standup show. comic made me laug so hard i let go of the tripod arm so i wouldnt shake the cam, the not tight enough teflon tensioners on the head led to the camera doing a swift nosedive leading to a loud crash on the tape as the mic hit the tripod legs and taped the floor for a second. Granted i havent been doing this long, so i im still learning.

Moral: make sure your cam is properly balanced and not nose heavy if youre gonna keep the tripod head very loose.
 
I was shooting some b-roll for a college promo video in Chicago. . I needed to move the 1K/softbox setup in closer for a shot. I didn't see the ceiling fan. I hear an awful sound, similar to that of something getting caught in bicycle spokes. It was embarrassing as hell, but it didn't do any damage to the fan or the softbox, so it could have been worse. Photoflex softboxes are tough, I guess.:embarasse
 
I pushed the dolly right off the track during a take. The sudden, jarring bump at the end of the move coupled with an annoyed stare from the camera operator were priceless.
 
My first field shoot, I brought 90 minutes BetaSP tapes with me. The shoot was at night and the temp was below freezing. Yeah, the camera only took 30 minute BetaSP tapes (the physical size of the tape I brought was 2x too big for the tape drive). Luckily, I was only a few blocks from the studio and I had my cell phone.
 
I sat in a certain home improvement guru's chair (unmarked, indistinguishable from 6 other chairs in the room), which apparently was not looked kindly upon.
 
Dropped a camera in a lake once!:undecided

Amazing thing is that the engineer at the TV station I worked for at the time was able to get it working again.
This was a long time ago - old RCA TK710 camera connected to a 3/4" deck with an umbilical cord. Boat tipped and the camera slipped of my shoulder. I grabbed the cable and yanked it out of the water "almost" immediately.
Brought it back to our engineer and he took it apart, cleaned all the boards out with alcohol and let them dry over night. Put it back together the next day and I shot with it again.
About a year later the same camera took a major hit on the sidelines of a New Orleans Saints football game when I was leveled, broke my collarbone, and the camera lens.:lipsrseal
It was still working 4 years later when I left the TV station for another job!
 
One time we just moved location to a pub restaurant and we were all set up and started doing a 360 degrees wheelchair shot around a dinning table, with actors talking, clinking glasses and eating. After the third take camera said he was happy, director said he was happy, I check my shotgun mic and it was off. Then all I heard was "you're kidding... can't be serious... what? awhh... c'mon...". I think I went all red, switched the mic on, and we did it in two more takes.

Oops.
 
Operated the DVX on a BTS for a music video. Left the mic channels on external XLR inputs... no sound, of course.

The second dumbest thing was when someone asked me a question I didn't have an answer for, I said "let me find out", opened my laptop and logged on to DVXuser.com :grin: . It might have been the smartest thing, though, so I dunno.
 
First music video I worked on (it was also one of the first non-run-n-gun type shoots I did also) I was doing camera for this important pan following the singer walking up a flight of stairs. I was the only camera op for this shot.

So, we block out the move a few times, working on my timing and what not. Go to start rolling, I get all setup for the shot (zoomed, focused on the right place, etc). We go to record the slate, and I totally move the camera to frame that instead of making him move the slate to where I needed it. Big commotion ensues. Stop rolling tape. Have to get setup again, etc.

At least I know better now!

~Andrew
 
This is a fun thread! XCheck- I like your second story.:thumbsup:

We were shooting a scene in the blistering hot sun, and I had an actor who's shirt was blowing out like crazy. We didn't have a Scrim Jim, or anything similar, so I go pull a sliding screen door off it's track and put it on a C-stand. First mistake, didn't have the sand bags next to me, so it falls over ALMOST hitting my monitor when I leave to grab the bags. Come back, set it up, start shooting.

The wind then picks up like crazy and blows the thing so hard the metal of the frame bends and it starts falling/ swinging/ rotating in the gobo head. Chaos ensues, I've broken a screen door, and we have to change the angle.

Moral of the story:
Screen doors may look like scrims, but they arent.
 
x2mag68-
I did the same thing at a wedding once. Oops!

The other dumb thing I did once, was to use the wrong mic for a concert. I used a lav mic on a opera singer - BAD IDEA. Her voice was so powerful that all of the audio was distorted. But I couldn't tell until I reviewed the footage because I couldn't hear the audio from the camera due to her loud voice!

Moral: Place several mic's around the room to pic up a single opera singer. Pref. a shootgun mic.
 
The very first day of my shoot, I shot all my footage for the scene I was working on in interlace mode..


on a Canon XL1s... of course this was before I knew that the XL1s only had fake progressive.. so I re-shot the scene the next day of shooting... in the crummy interpolated mode.

so really.. it didn't work out for either way...lol.... suffice it to say, I now know a heck of a lot about cameras and standards and what to do when shooting..


oh ya... and I didn't white balance once during the entire shoot... live and learn i guess..

heh
 
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