Long-distance call from Florida stage to Los Angeles motion-graphics department: You know that animation you sent, with all the fill characters in the moving banner that were set to your background color? Well, we opened it in a different color palette and the invisible stuff you wrote about the executive producer wasn't invisible any more. It was on the main bridge display screens. While he was leading a tour.
What's the dumbest thing you ever did on a shoot?!
- Thread starter bustak
- Start date
HorseFilms
Look ma no hands
Oops?:shocked:
grinner
Carbonite Member
I failed to hide my emotions when interviewing George Bush Jr.
Dude was like the mayor on South Park, kept messing up, then would be all like "you ready!?" as if I was the one who bagged the 36th take. The 37th time he asked me if I was ready "dude, I havn't even stopped rollin'." slipped out followed by a long Napoleon Dynomite sigh.
Dude was like the mayor on South Park, kept messing up, then would be all like "you ready!?" as if I was the one who bagged the 36th take. The 37th time he asked me if I was ready "dude, I havn't even stopped rollin'." slipped out followed by a long Napoleon Dynomite sigh.
Douglas Thigpen
Well-known member
Set an audio recorder in 'ready to record' mode, but not hitting the record button again to actually start it... while it was responsible for recording the audio from the sound board as well as ambient from a mic array at a concert...
Mattykins
Cute Member
A few instances of cameras impacting actors' heads.
I ran a camera rig, and myself into a door once last year. It was one of those industrial type doors, where there are two of them on a frame. We opened one with a sandbag so I could get the rig through the door and not collide into anything. And evidently we decided to use the handicap automatic door opener to open the second door. Even more interesting, the automatic door opener only opened one of the two doors on the frame. I ran myself straight into the unopened door. Camera was just fine. My body cushioned the blow.
Had a buddy of mine set up a bolex on a tripod that he set up next to a small lake. He had already loaded the film, walked away without checking if the tripod plate was locked down. The bloex falls off the tripod, down the rocky embankment hitting every big rock there was, and finally wound up in the lake. He fished it out, dried it out, and somehow the camera survived.
I'll come up with some other crap.
I ran a camera rig, and myself into a door once last year. It was one of those industrial type doors, where there are two of them on a frame. We opened one with a sandbag so I could get the rig through the door and not collide into anything. And evidently we decided to use the handicap automatic door opener to open the second door. Even more interesting, the automatic door opener only opened one of the two doors on the frame. I ran myself straight into the unopened door. Camera was just fine. My body cushioned the blow.
Had a buddy of mine set up a bolex on a tripod that he set up next to a small lake. He had already loaded the film, walked away without checking if the tripod plate was locked down. The bloex falls off the tripod, down the rocky embankment hitting every big rock there was, and finally wound up in the lake. He fished it out, dried it out, and somehow the camera survived.
I'll come up with some other crap.
JasonFox
Internet Sensation
Ha! That's why you shoot 2.35 and edit it 4:3.
hoarp001
Veteran
I was stadicam operator on a pro film shoot for a short called Tea and Biscuits. Waiting for my shots, sat watching the cafe scene and I see a plate of buscuits on the table, so, me being me, I slowly started to eat them. Little did I realise that these were prop biscuits, and were being eaten by the actors in the scene, and every takey replenished the actors table with buscuits from the pile I was eating. Eventualy, I polished them off and they had to send a runner to tesco to buy more jammy dodgers.
Oops.
Oops.
David W. Jones
Veteran
Not on a shoot but….
While working at a radio station years back in LA, I had just finished the days commercial production and had the reel in my hand when someone came into the production room to ask me a question. As we jabbered away I put the reel on the bulk eraser and erased everything.
While working at a radio station years back in LA, I had just finished the days commercial production and had the reel in my hand when someone came into the production room to ask me a question. As we jabbered away I put the reel on the bulk eraser and erased everything.
Ah, an oldie but goodie (both thread and anecdotes)...
Back in 2010 I was working local network news... equipment in general was usually in questionable repair, and it was emphasized to me to ALWAYS take the camera (huge old SPC700's) off the tripod if I stepped away, even for a second. I took the advice to heart and promptly forgot. After setting up an interview shot down on the rocky bank of a river, I plugged in the mic's XLR and started walking the mic over to the interviewee. I saw her glance over my shoulder with a look of horror, and yes... the tripod clip had decided it had had enough of this world and disconnected, dumping the camera forward unceremoniously onto an inconveniently pointy rock. Snapped the lens in half, snapped the lens mount, snapped the EVF mount, shattered the EVF. First week on the job. Awesome.
In 2009, Did some work for David Oneal, a consummate fraudster (sometimes goes by an alias, David Shanahan, for God's sake... made a good coin or two selling Disney media under 'Extinct Attractions Club' label, while having no licensing agreement with Disney whatsoever). Didn't know this at the time, of course. Shot two days at a remote location and mailed a hard drive I'd purchased (back before they were dirt cheap) to a mailbox store address with no advance payment. Still awaiting remuneration, not expecting any. Did manage to sell the footage as stock for nearly as much as I'd been owed, so not an altogether horrible outcome. He wanted to connect with me on LinkedIn earlier this year
Back in 2010 I was working local network news... equipment in general was usually in questionable repair, and it was emphasized to me to ALWAYS take the camera (huge old SPC700's) off the tripod if I stepped away, even for a second. I took the advice to heart and promptly forgot. After setting up an interview shot down on the rocky bank of a river, I plugged in the mic's XLR and started walking the mic over to the interviewee. I saw her glance over my shoulder with a look of horror, and yes... the tripod clip had decided it had had enough of this world and disconnected, dumping the camera forward unceremoniously onto an inconveniently pointy rock. Snapped the lens in half, snapped the lens mount, snapped the EVF mount, shattered the EVF. First week on the job. Awesome.
In 2009, Did some work for David Oneal, a consummate fraudster (sometimes goes by an alias, David Shanahan, for God's sake... made a good coin or two selling Disney media under 'Extinct Attractions Club' label, while having no licensing agreement with Disney whatsoever). Didn't know this at the time, of course. Shot two days at a remote location and mailed a hard drive I'd purchased (back before they were dirt cheap) to a mailbox store address with no advance payment. Still awaiting remuneration, not expecting any. Did manage to sell the footage as stock for nearly as much as I'd been owed, so not an altogether horrible outcome. He wanted to connect with me on LinkedIn earlier this year
paulears
Veteran
Dumbest thing? Book an English Stately home, with original oak panelled rooms for a three day shoot of an educational lecture programme - and discover the neat very long and thin grass lawn on the property next door was actually a runway, and the owner had a Spitfire from WW2. He spent three days making our lives a misery. In the end we used a scanner and an earpiece to get advance notice of when he was getting close.
Was shooting a bouquet toss at a wedding and after it was over I pressed stop then looked down at the LCD and noticed that recording had began. So I had actually stopped recording for the toss! First time I've ever done this. Luckily I had two other cameras going so it worked out fine.
I was out of state so I had someone shoot an event and I stressed over and over how important audio was. So he checked the levels on the recorder and with headphones and then failed to ever take the recorder off record/pause. Never realized it until I later asked where the audio was.
Same guy recorded an interview with the built-in camera mic instead of the XLR LAV mic or the backup Line-In mic I gave him. I love dealing with audio problems.
I was out of state so I had someone shoot an event and I stressed over and over how important audio was. So he checked the levels on the recorder and with headphones and then failed to ever take the recorder off record/pause. Never realized it until I later asked where the audio was.
Same guy recorded an interview with the built-in camera mic instead of the XLR LAV mic or the backup Line-In mic I gave him. I love dealing with audio problems.
David W. Richardson
Chapelgrove Films
This was not my mistake directly -- it was done by someone I recommended to shoot a wedding.
It was a friend of mine getting married, but I was unable to be there. I knew a guy who could do the shooting, but she was really concerned that the audio be good. (She shoots weddings herself.) So I loaned her a Zoom H1 with a wired lapel mic, to mic the officiant with -- just for insurance.
Now the guy I recommended to do the shoot -- his main job on shoots is sound, and he considers himself quite the pro at sound capture. Brags about it all the time. When he shows up at the shoot, my friend tells him she is planning to mic the officiant with the Zoom and lapel mic. He convinced her not to bother with that. He was a sound pro, so he would handle all the sound capture. Against her better judgement, my friend went along with this.
Guess what? She got a wedding video with NO SOUND at all. He didn't even bother to turn on the mics on his cameras. The sound recorder that he did use, the SD card it recorded on was defective. Since he didn't have the 'safety' of the backup sound from my Zoom, he was screwed.
And my friend was NOT happy.
Moral of the story -- Never, EVER, turn down any offer of a backup system for sound. Ever.
Oh....I should mention that this wasn't the first time this 'sound pro' had had the exact same problem. He recorded audio for a performance by a local band, for a video they were shooting. Once again, defective SD card.
It was a friend of mine getting married, but I was unable to be there. I knew a guy who could do the shooting, but she was really concerned that the audio be good. (She shoots weddings herself.) So I loaned her a Zoom H1 with a wired lapel mic, to mic the officiant with -- just for insurance.
Now the guy I recommended to do the shoot -- his main job on shoots is sound, and he considers himself quite the pro at sound capture. Brags about it all the time. When he shows up at the shoot, my friend tells him she is planning to mic the officiant with the Zoom and lapel mic. He convinced her not to bother with that. He was a sound pro, so he would handle all the sound capture. Against her better judgement, my friend went along with this.
Guess what? She got a wedding video with NO SOUND at all. He didn't even bother to turn on the mics on his cameras. The sound recorder that he did use, the SD card it recorded on was defective. Since he didn't have the 'safety' of the backup sound from my Zoom, he was screwed.
And my friend was NOT happy.
Moral of the story -- Never, EVER, turn down any offer of a backup system for sound. Ever.
Oh....I should mention that this wasn't the first time this 'sound pro' had had the exact same problem. He recorded audio for a performance by a local band, for a video they were shooting. Once again, defective SD card.
David W. Richardson
Chapelgrove Films
Another story...
I wrote and produced a 30-minute short film for a local charity. I hired a DP with a Canon XL-1. (Tells you how long ago this was.) Shot on MiniDV tapes. It was a 3-day shoot. Part of the agreed duties for the DP was to edit the film.
Weeks went by, and I heard nothing from the DP. He lived in Atlanta, so I couldn't just drop by his house. I tried to call him, but always got voicemail and no reply. I was starting to get nervous.
Luckily -- VERY luckily -- I had made backup copies of the tapes before I sent them home with him. So I edited the film myself and delivered it. When I finally heard from the DP, he admitted he had ERASED the tapes and used them on another film project!
As bad as that was, what he did later was even worse. He did the exact same thing on a FEATURE project he was hired to direct, shoot and edit -- never did the editing, erased the tapes and used them on something else. I had warned the producer of that film and told her what he did to me, so she was ready. She, too, made backups and wound up editing it herself.
Some people really don't need to be in this business.
I wrote and produced a 30-minute short film for a local charity. I hired a DP with a Canon XL-1. (Tells you how long ago this was.) Shot on MiniDV tapes. It was a 3-day shoot. Part of the agreed duties for the DP was to edit the film.
Weeks went by, and I heard nothing from the DP. He lived in Atlanta, so I couldn't just drop by his house. I tried to call him, but always got voicemail and no reply. I was starting to get nervous.
Luckily -- VERY luckily -- I had made backup copies of the tapes before I sent them home with him. So I edited the film myself and delivered it. When I finally heard from the DP, he admitted he had ERASED the tapes and used them on another film project!
As bad as that was, what he did later was even worse. He did the exact same thing on a FEATURE project he was hired to direct, shoot and edit -- never did the editing, erased the tapes and used them on something else. I had warned the producer of that film and told her what he did to me, so she was ready. She, too, made backups and wound up editing it herself.
Some people really don't need to be in this business.
mainstreetprod
Veteran
Good reason to A) only buy name brand SD cards and B) never buy SD cards off Ebay, only from a trusted source , as they could be "name brand" fakes. Also a good reason to consider camera system that uses pro cards, such as P2 or XQD, as SD cards were never originally designed for critical, high bitrate uses.