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

On my last shoot, I ended up sleeping with 2 of my actresses ( I know unprofessional but you can't say no, right?) and I kept taking the condoms that we were using as props. The rest of the crew kept wondering who was taking the condoms from the set.

I just played the furious director and gave them money to buy more.
 
Dumbest thing?

Dumbest thing?

Cineaste said:
On my last shoot, I ended up sleeping with 2 of my actresses ( I know unprofessional but you can't say no, right?) and I kept taking the condoms that we were using as props. The rest of the crew kept wondering who was taking the condoms from the set.

I just played the furious director and gave them money to buy more.
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I think the original poster said something about "learning from other's mistakes"
You sir, however, are an inspiration to us all!
 
Some good ones in here.

One of my most painfull to date was similar to Brandon's experience, but without the happy ending.
Setting up to shoot a road race with an XL1, *ducks* I flick the audio over to the external inputs from the mic to stripe the first minute. Of course I fergot to switch back to the mic for the shoot and ended up with an hour of great footage of silet race & interviews. We didn't bother trying to salvage that one.

- Mikko ... blames the XL1 for not having a proper BARS & TONE switch.
 
I had a host of problems before, during and after shooting my film. But one of the stupid things I did, was not communicate properly to my DP, as well, neither myself nor my costume designer noticed that our actress had the wrong wardrobe on.

We were really rushed with this shot, and it didn't turn out at all how I wanted it.

this is the original:
2.jpg


I eventually realize the mistake and also explained to my DP the shot I wanted in much clearer way. Thus we ended up with my favourite shot in the film. (looks better in motion):
1.jpg


I have done so many stupid things... like leaving headphones at home... getting to my house and realizing they were actually on set in the first place.. oy..
 
Oh wow, I remember another horribly stupid thing I did once. I was working on my first short... a couple years ago, and we went out to the location in the forest, about 30 min. from my house... well, come to find out, I had left the XLR cords at home! I had my friend drive back to get them... but it was FREEZING at the location, so me and the three actors, were standing and stomping trying to keep warm in the 40 degree weather, with wind... that was bad, LOL! And, I had like an hour of battery left on the camera, for a real long scene.
 
Back in the day when I used to P.A on music videos and commercials, my PM asked me to pick up a gennie truck and bring it to set for the next days shoot. I picked the truck up and when I got to set, I parked it behind one of the crews jeep cherokee and went inside to see what was happening. When I got back outside, a transport was parked across from the jeep which was a problem seeing that it was a one lane street and was quite icy seeing this was in the middle of January. I started off slowly and carefully made my way between the two vehicles. Just as I was almost clear, my back tire slipped on the ice and I started to slide towards the Jeep. The metal step plate on the side of my truck ripped through the driver side door of the jeep and continued until it hooked onto its bumber and tore it off. Did I mention it also slashed the tire of the jeep as well. Man was I f**ked. I had just met the owner of the Jeep who was the carpenter on set and now five minutes later I had to tell him that I destroyed his car. Surprisingly enough he was cool about it.

I win.
 
I was shooting this basketball game and had a tripod on top of a balcony where the joggers run in the gym. I went to move the camera and the head fell forward hitting the railing and popping the camera off the plate sending it into the crowd below. I don't know how the hell I did it but i was able to reach through the second bar near the bottom and pin the camera between my foot and the bottom of the railing. I stood there for what seemed like an hour trying to figure out what to do next and do I scream to let people know theres a camera possibly on the way to hitting them in the head. I took the tripod and carefully hooked the leg latch around the leather part long enough to grab it. Whew, that was a close call and it was my own camera. I guess it pays to be a Ninja.
 
Brandon Rice said:
Well. During the Smuggler's Ransom shoot on the third day, I made a BIG mistake.

We had finished shooting some dialogue stuff, and everyone broke for dinner, but I went and grabbed a few shots we didn't need sound on. Anyway, I figured why not just get sound from the camera mic, it never hurts, right? Well, I switched it over to camera mic. and shot the stuff. Then I went and had dinner. We came back after the break to do the most emotionally intense scene of the film, and I FORGOT TO SWITCH IT BACK OVER TO THE EXTERNAL MIC!!!!! I realized as we were setting up for the next scene what had happened. I knew we were running behind and if we wanted to finish that night we could have any interuptions, so I chose not to let my co-director, Daniel know what had happened. That having been said, I felt terrible the rest of the night, and finally the next morning I called Daniel and let him know what had happened. He was not happy, nor was the actor. Well, it all turned out ok, because we went back the next shoot and redid the scene, and it turned out BETTER than the night before...

But, that's my biggest blunder as of late....
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Why didnt you just loop the sound it takes like 5 minutes and you dont have to bother with redressing a set or costume or lighting or even camera, just use the mic. Ive done this...... Guilty.


any way, at least you didnt forget to bring tape..... Guilty as charged. And this was for horror fest. That was a bad day.... especailly because miraculously, no store in the area had and DV tapes left. we had to reuse the ends of other tapes that MArk (desperatecomfort) had lying around.
 
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TimurCivan said:
Why didnt you just loop the sound it takes like 5 minutes and you dont have to bother with redressing a set or costume or lighting or even camera, just use the mic. Ive done this...... Guilty.
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With this scene, we could not do that. We would have NEVER captured the emotion of the scene with looping it...
 
I was shooting this basketball game and had a tripod on top of a balcony where the joggers run in the gym. I went to move the camera and the head fell forward hitting the railing and popping the camera off the plate sending it into the crowd below. I don't know how the hell I did it but i was able to reach through the second bar near the bottom and pin the camera between my foot and the bottom of the railing. I stood there for what seemed like an hour trying to figure out what to do next and do I scream to let people know theres a camera possibly on the way to hitting them in the head. I took the tripod and carefully hooked the leg latch around the leather part long enough to grab it. Whew, that was a close call and it was my own camera. I guess it pays to be a Ninja.
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That whole story created a very vivid image in my head. When I finished I was actually breathing kind of heavy.
 
was editing on some rotoscoping that takes a while and had 2 copies of the one i just finished editng and the one i'm working on and then accidently deleted it and had to do it all over again.
 
bballplaya283 said:
That whole story created a very vivid image in my head. When I finished I was actually breathing kind of heavy.
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Ya that's pretty f**ked up. You win.:thumbup:
 
I PA'd on this set a year ago and I forgot that they said not to walk out of this door. Dude sent me to run and grab a lense and I thought it was the staircase. I was talking backward and I walked out of the door and fell twenty-seven feet into some bars and wood.

I didn't realize what happened, so I was okay. Mind over matter.
 
Mine was very simple and stupid. Early on in my career I was talking to this guy who I thought was just a looky-loo and start to SLIGHTLY complain about the efficiency of the production. Found out later it was the producer. For some reason I have not worked for that guy again.

Have kept my opinions to myself and my wife ever since (she often gets an earfull). Even saying something that could be twisted by an opportunistic PA could be career suicide.

Cheers
 
Kholi said:
I PA'd on this set a year ago and I forgot that they said not to walk out of this door. Dude sent me to run and grab a lense and I thought it was the staircase. I was talking backward and I walked out of the door and fell twenty-seven feet into some bars and wood.

I didn't realize what happened, so I was okay. Mind over matter.
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ROFL! Dude, that' hillarious and insane :grin: :thumbsup:
 
Not mine but in the spirit of sharing mistakes to help others avoid them. A friend was on a shoot where the gaffer was driving the rented grip truck into a parking garage...sign above door said it was about half a foot short of the trucks clearance. Driver did not know the truck's height.

Apparently the truck's shocks were compressed when he first passed the door so it didn't become a problem until the truck was halfway under. I guess about half of the production day was blown getting truck moved and all the back and forth calls to insurance companies, etc.

Lesson: the truck's height is usually posted between the sunvisors...learn it, live it :grin:
 
wabbit, similar story

I was in the rental van riding shotgun with the producer and crew. Producer was driving. I try to turn on the radio but it's kind of ratty. So I start going off on this radio and how ratty it is. But because I think I'm hilarious and on a roll, I don't stop there. I start tearing apart the entire van, talking about how low-rent it is. I must have gone on for fifteen minutes. We eventually get to the location and I don't know exactly when I realized it, but I knew right away I was screwed. The "rental van" wasn't a rental at all. It was the producer's.

Oops.
 
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