Murphy's Law

Everything That Can Go Wrong In Video Production

[murphyslawvideo-blog]

The Worst Day

One time i didn't get any sleep before a shoot and my brain just would not work. While on location I couldn't figure out why my video was so dark (ND filter was on). Then I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any audio (channel volume was all the way down). Got that all figured out. Then i accidentally stopped recording instead of starting recording and had to do a take again. I was so embarrassed. Worst day of my professional career by far. 

Luckily it wasn’t a high-pressure shoot. Just a 2min segment for a local tv show. Although, I did get chewed out by the client for calling them twice asking how to operate a camera I’d been using for months. Nearly got fired.  

The lesson is: get plenty of sleep.

[murphyslawvideo-blog]

Roll With The Punches

We were filming a fight scene and running behind. We had a few classic cars that we were borrowing and they were supposed to be taken home by their respective owners about 45mins ago, so tensions were high. On our first take, The actor taking the knockout punch took it way too far and actually flipped head long over a car hood onto the ground.

A safety cut was called and there was a lot of concern and confusion or a bit. The director had to explain that we were going to use creative editing and that he didn’t have to take any actual dives. The actor insisted that he take actual falls “for the good of the film.” So the poor guy did it for real many more times. We offered him a yoga mat to fall on, no dice. I’ve never seen an actor do anything like that before.

The next day, I was talking to the actor about how he was feeling. He said he probably had a couple of bruised rips. He was taking shots before our shoot began to numb the pain. He gave me a couple too.

The good part about that first crazy fall, is that I (the editor) ended up using the boom audio. It sounded really great in the final cut.

The lesson here I guess is be very specific with your actors when choreographing a fight scene.

[murphyslawvideo-blog]

Let Them Eat Pie

This one is about the good funny things that can happen on a set.

We were filming in a family restaurant after they closed. The owner stuck around to help us figure out the situation with the breakers, so we didn’t blow any of them. He then headed out to the bar. He comes back a little more than an hour later, (during our snack break), really drunk. 

And he says “Pie for everyone!”

The whole crew was treated to delicious homemade pies.

it really kept up the moral for the overnight shoot.

[murphyslawvideo-blog]

WTF Clients

Not necessarily a set problem, but a client communication problem that really messed up a production.

Part one: We pitched the concept of a 1:30 web video that was later to cut down to 0:30 for broadcast. They were a first time client, so we cut them a really good deal to get return business. We spent a month or so making them a really nice video. We send the rough draft to see what they think.

They hated it. Apparently our point of contact was supposed to relay the fact that they had changed their mind about the concept a week after we met with them. That was a huge red flag, but we decided to give them the new client kindness and shoot their very simple concept IN ONE DAY. It was a very bad concept of different people in the same place repeating the same tag line for 30 seconds and it was just bad bad bad. But they loved it. ugh.  

Part two: The client wanted us to film an event for them in Niagara Falls,NY. We left Ohio at 7pm, because one of us had to work that day. We expected to arrive around 2am and the shoot started at 7am. Kinda crappy, but at least it was a little bit of sleep. Our hotel was in Buffalo,NY, just a short drive from Niagara. We get there around 2am and find that the same person who didn’t communicate with us in part one canceled our room because we arrived so late. Didn’t tell us, just did it. Now, the thing about the any hotels around Niagara Falls is that every hotel within a couple of hours are always booked up. So we asked the front desk if there was anything they could do. The woman at the front desk said that there was a dirty room, but the cleaning crew didn’t come in until 7am. We pleaded with her and she cleaned the room, despite not being trained to do so. At 3:30 we had a room. We needed two cots, they only had one. I lost the coin toss twice and slept on a pile of pillows. We got up at 6 and were exhausted the whole shoot. At least it was over at 2pm.

The lesson, don’t work with awful people like this.

[murphyslawvideo-blog]

Steady As She Goes

I was hired to run camera/sound for a new video production company’s promo video.The premise was simple, just the two owners reading their script in different locations around the city.

The very first shot was a stolen shot (great start guys) on top of the parking garage of a hospital that had a good view of the city skyline. So we got the camera all set up and the guys had their lavs. I was holding up a flexfill for better lighting and i see the tripod start to slip. I dove to save the rig. Turns out that one of the legs was not locking properly. So we spent some time tightening that leg. Just as we were about to roll, security comes up and kicks us out. 

...So that shot got cut. The lesson here is don’t steal shots and if you’re going to put a several thousand dollar rig on a tripod, make sure it’s going to hold.

[murphyslawvideo-blog]

This one is about shit rigging. Sometimes you have to improvise. 

Photo 1: I was working as a DIT and our HDDs needed power. My first job on every location was to find power, this is what my little video village looked like.

Photo 2: We had a light that needed a gel on it, but it melted any gel that we put directly on it. So one of my fellow gaffers came up with this monstrosity. 

[murphyslawvideo-blog]

Cold as Texas

in March of 2014 I was working on a short film that was shooting in central Texas. Our second shoot was to be a poolside scene. Unfortunately, this was during that second, smaller Polar Vortex and it snowed. No biggie, we just shot outside the motel room.

One that that really sucked was having to put together a 12by in the cold. it took a while, but what sucked most was that we didn’t even use it.

So to save the money, the producer had planned for us to camp most of the 8 days we were on the road. The first one was a little cold, but not bad. The next night we slept on the floor of a church rec center, not bad. But the night after, we had to camp again, and it was REALLY cold. We packed the 20 member crew into two tents so that we could reap the benefits of body heat. It was kind of weird that the producer was using my feet as a head rest all night, but hey, he said he liked it. The last night we were supposed to camp, but it was going to be with similar temperatures as the night before. The crew refused, so we blindly looked for a hotel at 3 in the morning near Tulsa,OK. We found the trashiest hotel I have ever stayed in (and that’s saying something). As the producers were renting our rooms i happened to catch a glimpse of a guy with this blinds open. He was an average looking man, wearing scrubs and shooting heroin. So we get into the smoke smelling rooms with all of our equipment and barricade the door with it. 

Other than that, it was a really successful production, one of the best I ever worked on.

The lesson for this one is for producers: Double check the weather and make sure your crew has a good night’s rest.

[murphyslawvideo-blog]

Nice try,rookies

The first student film I worked on I was a grip with almost no experience. Most of the other grips were the same. For our very first lighting set up it took us an hour and a half. The AD wasn't happy, but whatever, we were learning. While we were setting for the next shot we learned that the DIT's card reader fried all of our footage of the last set-up. He even remarked that it made a spark. We were nearly ready for the next shot. After all that work we had to do it all over again the next week. The lesson is: get a good card reader.