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

c.g._eads said:
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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:grin: Now that one is funny!

Aram Bauman said:
Yay! Does this mean I'm a good story teller? ;)
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Not untill we see the movie.



Kohli, that's scary man!


- Mikko
 
Wow, you guys make me feel... smart.

I have screwed up plenty:

1. I was shooting a pastor that was going to end his
sermon with a very emotional skit/visual. I started
to realize that he was going a *little* long.

Bummer, tape change required. No problem, I'll do it
now at non critical spot that we can fix in post.

Sudden horror - the *only* tape I have with me is the
one in the camera... I took some nice stills, but people
were already placing orders for the DVD before we left
the building.


2. This isn't video, might not be a screwup as much as a
disaster. I was shooting stills (group portraits) for a family
reunion (not mine). I had 3.5 hours of sleep from doing post
on a t-ball video presentation the night before. I drank three
Starbucks doubleshots (should have had a No-Fear instead).

When I got to the client's site, I got my first hints that the
experience might be sub-optimal. *Nobody* was dressed
for portraits - I don't think it had even been mentioned to
them.

About 95 degrees, trying to keep the sweat out of my
eyes, a bunch of dogs running around, crying kids,
mothers screaming at their kids to smile...

To top it off, I was shooting on aperture priority because
I was trying to keep a grip my DOF. The light was going
away (outdoors in the evening) and I was concentrating
so much on trying to catch the groups in a good pose that
I didn't realize my shutter speed was getting slooowww.

90% of the shots were *extremely* soft. The sharp shots
I handled straight, the soft shots I did some "artistic" (ugh)
treatments on and the client was happy.

However, I spent all evening threatening to sell every camera
I own (I don't take failure well).
 
I've got a really good one for you. And after I tell you I'll have to kill you!! Maybe. And I don't really think this is all my fault either. In fact, I take no blame! haha

We were doing a shoot for a very big engineering college (that will remain nameless) and it was one of my first video shoots out of college (I had done some indies). We setup and shoot this million + dollar piece of equipment with some student working with it. All went well and we wrapped up and moved to the next location. The next day I learn that one of the lights we had setup was too close to the window of this thing and it melted the protective film that is inbetween the layers of glass. Rendering the machine useless. I was so nervous that I was going to get black listed!! haha, I was young! There was a big battle between the schools insurance company and ours as to who was at fault and should pay. Seeing that no one that was in the room while we were there told us about it. We just figured it was tinted glass.

Anyway, nothing like a million dollar cost to start off your career.

Now I have to go erase my profile!!
 
I had a shoot three hours away, so I charged up all of my batts to make sure I had plenty of power for the day...I was gonna be out in the middle of a wetland. So, I pull in to the parking lot and realize that my batteries are still at home charging. Fortunately, I still had half power on the little battery...but it cut my day short.
 
tankgirl said:
I've got a really good one for you. And after I tell you I'll have to kill you!! Maybe. And I don't really think this is all my fault either. In fact, I take no blame! haha

We were doing a shoot for a very big engineering college (that will remain nameless) and it was one of my first video shoots out of college (I had done some indies). We setup and shoot this million + dollar piece of equipment with some student working with it. All went well and we wrapped up and moved to the next location. The next day I learn that one of the lights we had setup was too close to the window of this thing and it melted the protective film that is inbetween the layers of glass. Rendering the machine useless. I was so nervous that I was going to get black listed!! haha, I was young! There was a big battle between the schools insurance company and ours as to who was at fault and should pay. Seeing that no one that was in the room while we were there told us about it. We just figured it was tinted glass.

Anyway, nothing like a million dollar cost to start off your career.

Now I have to go erase my profile!!
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That was you? Oh ****. Your name is mentioned everytime someone talks about that.
 
Back in my 2nd year of college, I was helping my friend on a night shoot. When he was scouting the location, he found an outlet that we could use, but it ended up being the wrong type (the prongs were sideways – – instead of vertical | | ). So we searched around and found a bus stop that had the proper outlet, but it was kind of far away. We ended up using about 500-800ft of cheap extension cable to a 650W light, so we were far from seeing the outlet. The light was little dimmer and oranger than I remember it supposed to be, but whatever, it worked. After about a half hour though, the light got dimmer and dimmer, and it suddenly went out. We thought someone had tripped over it or unplugged it, so we went back to the bus stop and it was smoking! Oops. Turns out when you run that much cheap cable, it adds resistance, which boosts the amperage, which overheats the cable, which sets plastic things to smoking or on fire. Fortunately, it didn't cause any real damage - no fire - just a lot of acrid smoke.
 
Aram Bauman said:
That was you? Oh ****. Your name is mentioned everytime someone talks about that.
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I hope not! I felt seriously bad about it. But the company hired me full time! So it worked out. And we still do a lot of work for the U.
 
10 years ago I was a PA on this independent film. It was the first movie I ever worked on and we were about an hour into the shooting day. The Director yells out "We need a half apple now!". I thought to myself - here's a good way for me to impress the Director and crew on how fast I am at getting things. I arrive 30 seconds later from craft services and handed a half apple to the Director. All of a sudden the whole crew bursts into laughter. Sigh....it could've been worst...good thing he didn't ask for a pancake.
 
well for me it was when I was directing a a full feature and I had sex with one of the actresses right before we started shooting, it was the worst thing I could ever do because it brought the whole project down and lots of problems for everyone. but if I had to wager things I would have to say it was worth it. stupid but worth it.
 
While working as a set decorator/propmaker/driver on a low-budget dinosaur comedy movie, got careless driving the department 22-footer and backed it into a car - my own car - parked across the street. Boy, was the insurance company ever confused...earlier that week, I was accused by the UPM of having almost 'run him off the road/trying to kill him' while I was in the truck and he was in his car on the freeway driving into work (secret applause from the rest of the crew...)

Tried to make a curved cut in 3/4" plywood using a circular blade in a table saw...turns out when a table saw kicks the piece back at you, it does so with great force, and right about exactly at groin-level...

On 'seaquest DSV' spec'd a way-too-small hatch on the big decompression chamber part of a set...and one of the the *ahem* generously-proportioned executive producers got stuck in it for an hour, and had to be freed by Emergency Services, in the middle of walking a bunch of NBC execs through the sets...

Shot an entire complete set of fairly complex opening and closing credits on an old Oxberry animation stand for someone else's movie, sent the film to the lab, had an awful suspicion which, when checked, turned out to be true: that I'd left the non-variable shutter plate in the full "in" position the whole time, and had therefore actually put nuthin' on film...

Working in the commercial division at a major LA VFX house, spent my first week inadvertently saving older versions of files over newer ones, and not noticing that everyone else was scratching their heads and complaining and wondering where their files had gone...

Working at another VFX house, sent a two-page *****-letter via e-mail to my opposite number at another house, slamming the lousy amateurish crap-work his team was sending over, that my team then had to spend hours and hours fixing...when he took those concerns to the managers, they demanded to know where the complaints came from...then their boss got on the phone with my boss and, well, I ended up liking my new job much better, anyway...

Failed to notice that the scene-selector knob on my 100A had been bumped, and - last year - shot about half of a short drama project in 24PA, and the other half in 60i...

...that's enough, for now.
 
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"What's the dumbest thing you ever did on a shoot?!"

Missed the person i was aiming at ;o)


(sorry, just my christmas humour coming out)
 
shot part of a commercial in 24pa, part in 24p. ( by accident) at the Post house, the mixed footage confused the AVid machine and we had to recapture an hours wrth of footage, to FCP then render out to 24pa, then reimport to the Avid. At 850$ an hour, my little boo boo cost the production 1200$......

But they rehired me anyway so.... Sa'll Good.
 
eignacio said:
10 years ago I was a PA on this independent film. It was the first movie I ever worked on and we were about an hour into the shooting day. The Director yells out "We need a half apple now!". I thought to myself - here's a good way for me to impress the Director and crew on how fast I am at getting things. I arrive 30 seconds later from craft services and handed a half apple to the Director. All of a sudden the whole crew bursts into laughter. Sigh....it could've been worst...good thing he didn't ask for a pancake.
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LMAO. From the moment you first learn about apple boxes I think everyone imagines this sort of mistake must happen. Great to hear it really did happen at least once.

Good to see this thread revived. I suspect some of the DVXusers are holding out on us with their stories.

Cheers
 
I suspect some of the DVXusers are holding out on us with their stories.
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Ok, here's one.

This didn't really happen at a big shoot or anything but this happened about three times before I caught on. I was loading my Arri 16S with '100 of film on a daylight spool. So, I loaded the camera with film and shot it, took it to the lab. They told me that there was no image on the film. I thought, well, I'll try it again. So I got some more film and loaded it again, sent to the lab and got a call the next morning, they told me the same thing. I go there to pick it up and realized that I had been loading it base side out, the emulsion never saw the light of day(literally) :) That was a $50 mistake.
 
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