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Video Horror Stories

Put an extremely complex and technical collection of gear together with an exceptionally creative and artistic talent, and you get a unique being known as The Video Producer. Because that creative eye is often busy looking at details like composition and the technical doohickeys on that gear are chirping, winding, buzzing and doing all the things technical doohickeys do, sometimes, at the most inopportune moments, that solid, competent Video Producer can feel like the absent-minded professor. Annually, fittingly at Halloween time, we've asked you to bare it all and send us your wild stories to share, and, as tradition goes, I'll lighten the mood first with my own Video Horror Story.

I shot a co-worker's wedding as my gift to the bridal couple. During the ceremony, the bride and groom lit some candles that were surrounded by a floral centerpiece and left them burning on the table. The idea was that the party would continue until the candles burned out. After the ceremony, as guests were standing in the buffet food line, I decided to periodically get a few cutaway shots of the slowly-diminishing candles, with hopes of making a time-lapse sequence.

After getting my first shot, I moved around the room to shoot some other scenes. When I returned, the candles had burned down a lot faster than they should have. As I stood over the centerpiece, to my horror, the wax of one candle tipped over, and the burning wick fell onto the floral arrangement, igniting it. At this point, the burn was manageable, but I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to blow out the candles in case it was violating some sort of tradition to this ceremonial setting. As I looked around for help, my boss, who was shooting still photos, saw what was happening and came over to assist. He wasn't as concerned about breaking the tradition as I was, and he blew on the candles, which, unfortunately, fanned the fire instead.

By now, a few guests could smell the pungent foam and plastic burning and were reacting with alarm, when my boss grabbed a soda can, dousing the fire with root beer. While outside discussing the fiasco, we saw the bride enter the room from a side door. Apparently she didn't know anything about the fire, and just gazed in shock at her once-lovely centerpiece. After I explained what happened, the groom calmly asked, "Did you get video?" NO! Even though both of us still clutched the cameras we were shooting with, neither of us thought to take a single picture of the event that was the "talk of the party."
Jennifer O'Rourke, Videomaker Managing Editor

Sunday, January 21, 2007: It was the second of two shoot days for my video short, Game of Life. I woke up at dawn to prepare and double-check the gear. All seemed to be in usual working condition. I had arrived on location along with the pair from the cast I was to videotape. We hopped into the shooting vehicle and prepared to shoot. Riding shotgun, I turned to frame my subject in the backseat, when the flip-out LCD monitor literally flipped right out. Panic quickly settled in, and the day's shoot seemed lost. Using the eyepiece viewfinder was out of the question, as I already knew it was damaged from my earlier gear check. Due to conflicting schedules, this day was the only day I was able to shoot this scene. And I did. Blind! I shot wider than usual, knowing that I could zoom in slightly in post and hoping the shot was reasonably focused. Luckily, the technique worked, and four months later, the film played in festivals in Toronto, New York and Idaho. Ironically, many members of the audiences raved about the shot compositions.
Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi, Arcilesi Films

As an advanced student at a local tech school, I had to make a short film for my final grade. I wrote a screenplay that I hated, but I had to shoot it because I had nothing else prepared. When I began shooting, I discovered that a lack of preparation with the equipment led to all sorts of problems. I forgot an audio converter. Once I got one, the microphone wouldn't work. Then I had the wrong tripod. So I had to shoot handheld with a built-in mic, like an amateurish homemade vacation video. Then, just before I'd finished shooting all of the scenes, one of my actors got his hair cut. So now I had to completely reshoot the entire project, a project I hated. But, coincidentally, before we began the reshoot, our class acquired new HD cameras, so I was able to shoot with the newer cams and get my gear together for a more polished video. It was a blessing in disguise. I still hated the project, but, in the end, it looked much better than it would have before the actor's haircut that actually saved the show.
Colin Foster, Mesa, AZ