008: Shit Happens
I really cocked up once.
The project I was working on involved shooting 24 videos over the course of one morning.
These were the circumstances:
The client wanted us to use a teleprompter for all of the videos.
We had four different people speaking interchangeably throughout the morning.
The client was intense and rushed me during the setup phase. He also wanted the scene to be reset between each take as quickly as possible.
I had decided to bring two cameras. My reasoning for this was that people can often struggle with the teleprompter, causing them to make mistakes. Rather than having to redo the same video over and over, I thought having two cameras would make it easier for each person. I was then able to cut between two versions of the shot if there was ever a mistake.
The prepared scripts were between three and four times longer than the length of videos I normally shoot. Which meant that more card space would be required.
My ‘B’ camera churns through memory cards at a rate four times quicker than my ‘A’ camera does. Which meant that 700GB of space was going to get used very quickly - I had to manage my card space carefully.
A memory card used in ‘Camera A’ could not be read by ‘Camera B’ (and vice versa). This meant I would need to put a memory card with ‘Camera A’ data into ‘Camera A’ - just so I could see what was on the card.
The client was very keen to shoot with a big window behind them. This scenario is always difficult. The reason for this is because you end up competing with the sun outside, whilst having little (or no sunlight) to light your subject. It becomes a very fine balance between how you use your lights and how you use your camera.
Finally, I was on my own. My tasks included setting up the lighting and framing for each new shot, ensuring site safety at all times, running two cameras (checking focus and exposure for each camera on every take), running a teleprompter, running sound (and checking to make sure it sounded good), checking for mistakes and deviations from the script (so that we could do another take) and coaching each speaker to be the best they could be in front of camera. Big video production companies usually employ at least five people to run all of this, but then the budget would increase accordingly.
WHAT HAPPENED?
After a couple of hours of shooting, I realised I was coming to the end of the card in ‘Camera B’. I didn’t want to start a new recording and risk the camera cutting out halfway through, so I decided to take the old card out and put a fresh one in.
I thought to myself - before formatting the card - that I’d better just double check what was on it. So, I popped the new card into ‘Camera A’ and made sure the data on the card was ready to be deleted. Yep, all good. I ejected the card from ‘Camera A’, put it into ‘Camera B’, went into the settings, hit format, pressed OK and the format began. My heart missed a beat the moment I pressed that button.
I knew instantly.
The problem was, there were two card slots in ‘Camera A’. I’d just ejected, and formatted, the wrong card.
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I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole. How could I possibly explain this to the (already) quite intense client? How could I explain that I’d lost some of the footage and we’d have to redo it? (Crumbs, this is making me wince again as I write it…)
I took a few moments and fiddled with the settings - just to make sure I really had formatted some of that mornings content. This process helped me to confirm that the data was, indeed, long gone and would never be seen again.
I took a few more moments to think of what to do - a good strategy in these kinds of situations.
Obviously, I had to own up to my mistake then and there. I had to apologise and take ownership for what had occurred. I had to do everything within my power to provide the best service for the client in that moment - even though we had to reshoot a couple of the videos again. I also had to keep composed throughout the rest of the shoot (we still had 12 videos to go and I simply couldn’t make another mistake).
THE BLAME GAME
Where did the blame lie for this?
Well, I could have blamed everything else, including:
The client for rushing me
Having scripts that were too long
The ‘B’ camera’s hunger for memory cards
My choice of two cameras, rather than one, to make it easier on the client’s team.
The fact that my (very powerful) light was not as powerful as the sun.
That the sun was out and that we didn’t have a blanket of cloud cover to reduce its intensity.
That the client really wanted to shoot against a window.
That my best camera was only a £5k camera and not a £20k camera - so the sensor wasn’t quite as good in difficult lighting conditions. (You can tell by now, the sun challenge absorbed so much of my attention that’s it’s probably why the card fiasco slipped through).
Etc, etc, etc.
The Buck Stopped With Me
The blame could have only rested with me.
I’ve always thought, if something goes wrong and you trace the cause behind the cause, it eventually leads to a decision that you’ve made at some point along the way.
For example:
I could have shown leadership and slowed down the intensity of that room to ensure that proper processes were followed.
I didn’t because of the desire to please the client.I could have formatted all the cards in advance of getting to the shoot so that I would only have clear cards to work with.
I didn’t because I had been too busy in the weeks leading up to the shoot.I could have said “no” to some of the projects I had been working on - allowing more time to ensure correct preparation before going on this shoot.
I didn’t because I didn’t want to let anybody else down.I could have listened to my gut instinct that was suggesting to me that this client possibly wasn’t the right fit for me.
I didn’t do this either, because, as a small business, you feel like you have to say yes to everything.
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Did you know, a plane rarely crashes as a result of one, isolated event? It’s usually the combination of a number of causes that come together at a single, critical moment in time. All of the factors I’ve listed in this article came to a head when I made my mistake. Take any one of them out, and I might have been OK.
Picking Through The Wreckage…
In the aftermath of a mistake, it’s important to assess what went wrong so that you can put new procedures in place. The aim is to ensure it never happens again.
Often, these procedures are quite simple. For example, I now have a rule that I never go to a shoot without formatting my cards in advance. No matter what’s going on, I always down tools to ensure every card is ready to go before it goes into the camera bag.
This seems very simple, obvious in fact. And you’re right, it is obvious, which is why I cursed my stupidity at the time. But when you’re in the thick of it, sometimes things slip through the net - and that’s part of being human.
Ultimately, we need to always be on the look out for more resilient processes. Processes that help us to design out problems before they become an issue. It’s therefore good to occasionally map out every step of your process to identify where the risks are and take practical steps to mitigate them.
But, we must also put our mistakes into the right context and judge them appropriately.
And we must do this, without unfairly, being too hard on ourselves.
MOVING ON
I saw a great meme on Instagram the other day. It was two identical photos of planet Earth, side-by-side.
On the left, the label read: “The earth before your mistake”.
On the right, it read: “The earth after your mistake”.
James
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