Things happen. A hard drive crashes. A battery dies. A viewfinder decides to fail at that one moment of moments - but you're a videographer, it's in your heart and it's in your blood to save the shot. So, like the knight who fell from his trusty steed while proudly galloping to battle - you brush yourself off and get back in the game, ready to battle yet again. Here are our offerings this year of our annual stories of terrifying mistakes, and the motivation to avoid them, written by the professionals you've been reading in Videomaker all year, and as tradition, I'll start with a story of my own.

Prison Break

The Assignment was twofold: Get some shots of an Open House ribbon cutting ceremony at a prison for that evening's news, but make sure to get some extra footage for future stories.

State prison authorities invited local townsfolk to tour the brand-spanking new prison in our viewing area to assure them of its safety and explain the revenue-abilities for the town. I needed to get a few shots of average citizens on the tour, but I also had to get shots that didn't have townsfolk in the scene for the file footage. Not as easy as it sounded, it turned out. The tour was going to flow throughout most of the different sections of the facility: dining area, medical area, recreation area, cell blocks, etc. All but one of the cell blocks were still vacant, and we obviously weren't going to tour the occupied area.

Ours was the last tour of the day and as the tour guides shuffled us in tight groups from area to area, I captured the obligatory shots of tourists on parade, but I kept pausing as the last tourist filed out to get shots of each section without any people in the scene. The guides tried to hustle me along at first, but realized what I was doing so allowed me to quickly grab my shots. And I mean quickly: wide shot - focus, frame, shoot, count 1,2,3... 8 next - medium shot - focus, frame, etc. I tried to shoot off three quick shots in each room within the 30 seconds allowed.

Finally, we reached the dining room in the late afternoon and light was spilling in from tall windows that were shielded with bars near the ceiling. The light through the bars spilled stripes across the empty seats, tables and floor throughout the room, visually speaking 'prison' in a way no words could. A photographer's dream. I wanted to capture it just right, encompassing the seats, tables, walls, and especially those incredible stripes that told a tale of imprisonment and loneliness. The only problem was I couldn't get the best angle from eye level due to the height of the windows so, I kneeled down behind a counter and shot up from below-the-knee height. Shot one: Focus, frame, shoot, 1,2,3... I was concentrating on the shot so well, I didn't notice it got very quiet. Too quiet. Shot two: Focus, frame, 1, 2,3...When I stood up, I realized I was alone. The tour guide lost visual contact with me as the last tourist exited the room, and had assumed I filed out with the others. Hoping to catch up, I ran out a nearby door, only to find I was outside in a long-narrow circular fenced-in grassy area. The chain-link fence was 20-feet high and topped with razor wire. I reached back for the door, but it was locked. Of course - this is a prison, all doors lock automatically.

Trying not to panic, I suddenly heard voices and followed the circular path to find the tour group, but the grassy area let out into a wide exercise yard - full of prisoners! One by one they noticed me, and each one froze in shock. No one spoke a word. We all stood there until a guard saw me and shouted at me not to move - and then - pandemonium. Guards raced towards me, other guards raced into the yard herding the prisoners to a far wall, and I was left with a lot of explaining to do! The weekend shift. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, always a surprise.
- Jennifer O'Rourke

Another Prison Lockdown

The client called with an assignment and says to arrive two hours early and allow one hour for pre-production and two hours after break-down in addition to eight hours of shooting. We wondered why so much time only to learn the project was in a maximum security prison. The four hours was for security checks, which includes a complete accounting of each piece of equipment. We were required to bring a print-out of each piece of gear that they would use as a checklist.

On entering the facility we placed all the cameras, lens caps, light stands, batteries, cables and everything we took into the facility on the floor, and they matched each piece of equipment to the checklist. A lot of people signed the list and they kept it to match with the gear when we left the facility.

After eight hours of shooting and endless security check points, we arrived at the last check point where they had our gearlist, and after laying everything out on the floor again, one black 8-foot extension cord came up missing. I asked what happens now and after 20 minutes on the phone we're told they have 1/2 an hour to locate it or they "initiate complete lock down" which involves everyone remaining at their designated position for as "long as it takes" until the cord is found. Luckily, not too long later, an employee noticed a piece of Velcro on a cord in the hospital that she had never seen before and called it in. Turns out that someone on the shoot mistakenly plugged the cord in then left it behind.

I could go on for several pages on this one because a "lock down" in a maximum security is huge and could have involved hundreds of additional emergency staff. There was an unbelievable amount of people involved in this ordeal. Throughout the shoot day, we were all over the place so that cord could have been anywhere. I couldn't believe it when they told us they found the cord, just in the nick of time. We were wearing bright yellow security alarms with big red buttons during the shoot just in case something went wrong. It was the weirdest shoot I have ever done.
- by Terry O'Rourke

Battery Charger Blow-out

Christmas day 1989 - Walter Cronkite reported the execution by firing squad of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauescu. For reasons I didn't understand, they executed his wife too. Within a week I was on my way to Romania. A church in Sacramento collected funds to send food and medicine to affiliated churches in Romania. As a TV news photojournalist, I offered to go and document the deliveries.

Knowing I'd be in country for a week, I checked the power input on my Anton Bauer quad charger and it read: 100-250, 50-60. I called Anton and double-checked what that meant and I was told the charger was bullet proof and would work anywhere in the world. Off I went from San Francisco with my Betacam, charger and four brick batteries to Austria non-stop. Our party arrived in Vienna on Saturday morning and we had a few hours before setting off on a lengthy drive to Transylvania. I decided to top off the batteries so I plugged in the charger and it instantly blew up and caught fire! Most of western Europe closes for the weekend at noon sharp leaving only gas stations and some restaurants open. What to do? Fortunately the charger blew out at about 11:30 in the morning, and I learned there was a hardware store just around the corner. I ran to the store, which was in the process of closing, but they let me in and I bought a standard car-lighter plug, some wire, and crimp connectors. I detached one side of the charger that has two battery receivers and spliced the cable wires to the lighter plug. By doing so, whenever the car was running, I had two batteries "on charge". I was never short of power and, luckily, the car charged the batteries.

On my return to Sacramento, we cut the footage into a five part series that aired on KOVR-TV. My experience in Romania was "magical". The Romanians were just delightful.

A curious side note was Romanian television was running Warner Bros. cartoons that were interrupted periodically by live coverage of some executions by firing squad, then it was back to Bugs Bunny - now that's what I call diverse programming. I often think what would I have done if I just didn't bother to top off the batteries until getting into Romania, or if I hadn't found a hardware store minutes before they closed. The rest wouldn't be history and I would have a horror nightmare to live with the rest of my life. To Anton Bauer's credit, they replaced the charger that blew out.
- by Gary Tomsic