Game Plan: How to Get Once-In-a-Lifetime Tapings Right the First Time!

Whether you're a hobbyist or professional videographer, live shoots can make the heart beat faster, palms get sweatier, and the mind go mad. Relief in the pressure requires belief in preparation.

Be it niece Mary's wedding, Johnny's first Little League game, or the live seminar you've been hired to videotape, you had better get it right the first time.

No chance of yelling "Cut' Let's shoot that scene over" at Mary's nuptials; no chance of holding up the seminar because you forgot the mike cord. Second chances are non-existent.

Equally important is the fact that you take your craft seriously and your reputation depends on it. That's pressure!

Murphy-Proof Thyself

Murphy's infamous Law applies equally tovideographers. Simply stated: If something can go wrong at your once-in-a-lifetime taping, it will.

Most of the many ways to botch a live shoot fall into the "operator error" category. If it has never happened to you, you are either lucky, can compute the cube root of 416 in your head, or have never taped anything important.

Speaking from painful experience, I can attribute the majority of live taping disasters to the fact that I was ill-prepared for the task at hand.

I either forgot a necessary piece of equipment, failed to check its operation, or failed to think through the event sufficiently prior to taping.

In an attempt to reduce my frequency as a Murphy's Law statistic and save my reputation, I found it necessary to eliminate or reduce some of the stress associated with these perilous situations.

Quite simply, I have become-and recommend that other videomakers become-a born-again Boy Scout by heeding the solemn oath, "Be Prep…