Not much room for amateurism

Would you like to hear a story of how I turned a supposed-to-be an hour VO patrol into a five-hour mayhem? Not so much that I can be proud of.

I was on a VO patrol working on a story about the city of Columbia getting new buses next summer. I thought it was going to be really quick. Just do an interview with a city official and get B-roll of buses coming in and out from the station. Shouldn't take that long, right? Wrong.

I ended up having to go back 3x to the bus station just to get B-roll of the buses.

The first time, I shot the video, while worrying how to fix it being overexposed. It was such a gloomy day that day and the sky was almost white. And that's pretty much what I can see in my video. Everything is just white and way too bright. What I forgot was to hit the ND filter up a notch a little bit to create "virtual shade" and make the videos darker. I was thinking of calling my producer to ask what to do with it while I was still on the field. But of course, I didn't have either her phone number and the station's phone number with me at that time. I have my business cards with the station's number in them, but they're in my wallet and I happened to not have my wallet with me. Just my luck. So I came back to the station with all these videos looking like it's winter in Alaska. The producer sent me out on a second mission to shoot some more. This time by making sure I know how to use the ND filter correctly.

Before I went out, I took out the memory cards out of the camera and imported my interview clip. Then I put the cards back in. What I didn't realize was that I was putting the cards in upside down. So, the next time I was out in the field, the camera wouldn't record because it wouldn't read the memory cards.

Back at the station, I had to face the not-so-happy news director who told me the rules of TV equipment, "never force anything in," he said. I was both worried and a little dissapointed in myself.

Then the third time I went out to shoot, everything luckily went alright.

The moral of the story: always have the producer's phone number with you and be gentle when it comes to equipments.