THe HVX- it takes a licking and keeps on ticking!

mainstreetprod

mainstreetprod

Veteran
Watch as my HVX takes a 4 foot fall when I walk over to the talent in an interview and my foot snags on an audio cable. Fortunately it landed on the side opposite the open LCD. The only damage was to the connector on the XLR cable. The camera kept shooting during the whole thing, never missing a beat!
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The interview was with the lead actress in our feature under production, "Flowers for Fannie". A satellite network requested that we put together some 5 minute behind the scenes interviews to use as filler on their new channel, so the prospects for the movie actually being seen look promising. Here is the sneak trailer:

 
That's one thing I love about the HVX - the thing is damn near indestructible.

P2 cards may still be expensive as all hell, and I doubt we will ever see a reasonably priced card reader, but I'm convinced that I will probably die before my camera does.
 
I had a nasty drop when somebody did´nt like to be filmed on the street, HVX was dead! It fell on the back, dented the battery and the little remote control window at the left bottom was smashed. Sent it to repair: nothing broken, the boards had come loose and had to be pushed back in place! So I agree: undestructible.
 
The glory of smallish cameras like this is that less weight meets the floor when they topple. Years ago, I was shooting news with a SPX800 ENG camera that fell in a similar way, a similar distance. The results were neither pretty nor inexpensive.
 
Al MacLeod said:
Perhaps when you get a little more life experience, say, having an expensive item_not_survive a fall, you will understand.
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Unless I have had a few expensive items not survive a fall. I also had a reputation in my high school film class for dropping cameras (it was exaggerated). Painful experiences they were. Not butterfinger experiences but worth learning from. :)

I also own an HVX that has taken I believe 3 or 4 falls in the 3 years I owned it, one lens first off of a improperly balanced stabilizer that wasn't properly locked in place, another in particular when the camera was fairly new, tipping over while on sticks into sand (gravity and not placed firmly on the ground) during a shoot without a spare.

I'm glad the camera is still working but I am not proud of the falls. Cameras are like babies.

I am also glad your camera is still working Mainstreet! I have had similar experiences. I used to keep my head phones on and walked away from the camera unknownly. Lost my first video camera (Sony Digital8) that way. On a tripod, lens first right into the concrete!

Always be aware of your surroundings and it won't happen to you again. One of the first rules of being on a film set, and perhaps you already know.
 
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Most of my reel is HVX footage. We took that damn camera into death valley for 5 days. We were climbing up a mountain when my camera guy fell about 15 feet with the camera in his hand and no effects of the way it functioned. I was jumping on a trampoline with the camera and hit myself in the top of my skull with the body of the camera. We shot in the rain, and in sand storms. We tied it to the top of an RV and drove 50mph through Muir Woods. We abused the heck out of that thing and we never had a single problem other than sometime the lens would jiggle from the sand in the focus ring. Beast of a camera.
 
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