Near Catastophy!

[Richard Ragon]

I had a very very close call on Saturday.  The kind of close call that gets people fired.

You know how they say that after 12 hours of working on the set, people get stupid, and sometimes make stupid mistakes.  Well I'm no exception thats for sure.

I'm working on a Reality TV show as the Senior Mixer.  In our crew we have a Jr. Mixer (Mike) and a sound assisant.  We're recording over 18 wireless mics to 4 recorders.  2 PD6's, 1 702T, and 1 744T.  The PD6's are simply recording ISOs, and the Sound Deivces are recording ISO's with 2 master mix tracks.  Each week the editor hands us a master hard drive to put all the audio onto.

Friday when we got the hard drive from the editors that we're suppose to dump the audio files too.  They gave it too us without a power cord.  No body could find it, so I just copied all the audio from all 4 recorders to my laptop hard drive, and closed up with "we'll copy it over tomorrow... it was late".

Saturday came around and we were pressed for time to pack up and get on the road, we got the equipment loaded up and moving and we spent the longest day we ever had, rolling for some near 12 hours using over 32 sides of the DVD-RAMs. I had to even open up more DVD-RAM blank disc, and make copies of the Flash cards in an effort to try to keep up.

We had to stay much later that night dumping all those disc to my laptop, and to make matters worse we were short another laptop for a while too. After getting many more files copied to my laptop, it started to run out of space.  I usually erase the day before files to make room, because I've already copied over the files to the master audio hard drive.  Well.. I deleted ALL of Fridays work. EVERYTHING, and it took me about 5 minutes to just realize that I hadn't copied all those files over to the master yet.  Talk about a sinking feeling in my stomach. I just about went out to my truck and cried.  All I can think about was trying to explain to the production teams.  You don't recover from this kind of thing on Reality TV shows.

Anyways.. I calmed down.. and remembered that we don't format those RAM disc every day. We start at disc 1 on Friday, but go till we run out for the week.  So, all the files were still there for the ISOs.  But the flash drive master mixes get erased daily... However, I remembered that I forgot to erase my flash drive Saturday.. And, because I ran out, I moved onto other flash drives.  Good Gaud, how lucky was that to have not followed procedure that day for formating the flash drives.  However, Mike formated his drives.. So we were looking at the Master mixes gone for Mikes stuff.. However, I remembered that the 744T has a hard drive recording at the same time.. Sure enough, I looked in the hard drive on the 744T and there they were, Mikes masters!!!

Holly c%*&, I was able to recover every single file.  It took some time capturing all those files back to the hard drives, but I did it.

Total time for the work day?  22 hours!

A very very close call indeed!!

-Richard

[John Blankenship]

Wow, what a roller coaster ride of emotions you must have had!    What a great feeling it is, though, when you realize that - despite everything - you're gonna be just fine.  You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and try to chase away the feeling of just how bad it could have been... then drink in the feeling that's everything's okay -- really, it's okay... it's okay... whew.

John B.

[mikewest]

Had a wonderful close call on a short film 2 years ago.

We were doing nite shoots outside a hospital till 4.00 in the morning.

Tha last nite on wrap I happily pressed the power down button on my Portadrive,

then aimed at the "yes I want to power down" button.

I was tired, sleepy and glad the nite was over!.

The machine did not turn off, I looked down and the front panel said:

"FORMATTING DRIVE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well what do you say to anyone at 4.00 am?

I phoned my son in Tokyo ( a software engineer) and told him the problem.

After a search for some software which I downloaded, I connected the HHB

to my laptop and 5 hours later all the files were recovered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just love the digital age!!

Regards

mike

www.mikewestgatesound.co.nz

[ericwallace]

On one of my first mixing jobs I had a similiar scare. At the end of the day handed in the DVD from the 702 and brought the CF card home to backup on my computer. When I got back I wanted to listen to a take during the day only to find that none of the files would play. They were all corrupted. Needless to say I was a wreck the entire night and basically got no sleep while I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on and if could I recover the files. Things seemed bad.

The next day I went to work and thankfully the director still had the DVD in her bag. Turns out that the DVD was fine but I had accidentally pulled the CF card before it was done being closed. Suffice it to say that I don't take the recorder turning off in time for granted anymore.

[Bash]

Many drives dont in fact actually wipe the files off when you format them. In fact they simply write that those areas on the drive are available to be written over again. So - the only way to reliably wipe a drive (and there may well be security applications where this might be most important) is to write a load of zeros across the whole drive.

I have a program at home, with which I have retrieved entire drives before, and yet on first investigation they show as being completely blank!

Glad that you clawed your way out of the hole though.

Kindest regards,

Simon B

[Chas Gordon]

Unfortunatly, I too know that sinking feeling your discribed. Nasty isn't it.

My head just hurts from reading that, I can't imagine what your's felt like. But then the relief of finding the answer. It's a brave new world with all this media wrangling that is needed. Almost a full time job really... almost. No budget for that one probably.

[Marc Wielage]

After getting many more files copied to my laptop, it started to run out of space.  I usually erase the day before files to make room, because I've already copied over the files to the master audio hard drive.  Well.. I deleted ALL of Fridays work. EVERYTHING, and it took me about 5 minutes to just realize that I hadn't copied all those files over to the master yet.  Talk about a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Was this on a Mac, Richard? If so, let me recommend an indispensable tool: Data Rescue II.

This little program has saved my butt on several occasions. I've even been able to recover some Windows drives in some cases. Unerase is a snap -- you get the files back in just a few minutes. I've been there before: you're operating in full exhaustion mode, and you inadvertently drag the wrong folder to the trash, empty the trash through force of habit, and then slap your forehead and go, "arrrrgh."

Another good utility is Tech Tool Pro, which is about the same price, under a hundred bucks. Having used both, I'd give the edge to Data Rescue II, but both do unerase very easily.

In worst-case scenarios -- like a huge OS crash that takes out the drive and corrupts it to the point where it can't be read -- it takes roughly 12 hours to recover 500GB' of material. But in a couple of cases, I'd rather do that than painstakingly reconstruct or redo the material. Simple unerase only takes a few minutes.

Big drives are cheap now -- my advice would be to put in a bigger drive in your laptop ASAP. I've seen them go for as little as $99 right now.

[Richard Ragon]

Unfortunately, I too know that sinking feeling your described. Nasty isn't it.

My head just hurts from reading that, I can't imagine what your's felt like. But then the relief of finding the answer. It's a brave new world with all this media wrangling that is needed. Almost a full time job really... almost. No budget for that one probably.

Yes.. a horrible sinking feeling it is too..  And, another mixer on this same shoot was fired in the first week for loosing all his audio.   I would have joined him on the unemployment line.

The show is low low budget, but I have a overtime clause... and since the show made a calculated move to eliminate a production day, and go way way overtime on purpose.. The way that I'm looking at it is that I'm entitled to the overtime.  If they wouldn't have tried too shoot for 18 hours, I wouldn't have made the mistake.

Marc,

I downloaded and did Data Rescue II, but it didn't work.  It basically found NOTHING. Found it kind of a sham too, as it supposedly found a bunch of generic files that it had listed it found.. obviously made up file names.

I have a very large external drive for my laptop too.  I'm dumping everything on to it as a second production backup drive.  Were generating near 30+ gigs of sound files a day!  There's only so much you can do.

-Richard

[Scott Smith]

Welcome to the wonderful world of digital, where one wrong move made in exhaustion can mean the total loss of a days work. In the bad old days of analog, usually the worst that would happen is you might accidentally erase a take. Losing a whole days work was almost impossible (unless you were working next to a bulk eraser)

I've had a couple of similar experiences-none of them catastrophic, but enough to make my stomach flip a couple of times. And yes, it always seems to happen at the end of a day which has been way too long.

The bigger question is-why should we bear the responsibility for mistakes like this while the producers push for longer and longer days?

--Scott

[Philip Perkins]

Yes.. a horrible sinking feeling it is too..  And, another mixer on this same shoot was fired in the first week for loosing all his audio.   I would have joined him on the unemployment line.

The show is low low budget, but I have a overtime clause... and since the show made a calculated move to eliminate a production day, and go way way overtime on purpose.. The way that I'm looking at it is that I'm entitled to the overtime.  If they wouldn't have tried too shoot for 18 hours, I wouldn't have made the mistake.

Marc,

I downloaded and did Data Rescue II, but it didn't work.  It basically found NOTHING. Found it kind of a sham too, as it supposedly found a bunch of generic files that it had listed it found.. obviously made up file names.

I have a very large external drive for my laptop too.  I'm dumping everything on to it as a second production backup drive.  Were generating near 30+ gigs of sound files a day!  There's only so much you can do.

-Richard

DR isn't a sham, but it can only do so much.  What I found with it when I tried to recover a lot of archived DAW projects from a dying hard drive was that it could find files that it understood (live wavs) but doesn't know what to call them and particularly doesn't understand their relationship, TC or anything else. 

Gotta say it--THIS KIND OF THING IS WHY I ROLL BACKUPS: I admit that sooner or later I will do something dumb, and I have to cover the production for that eventuality.

Philip Perkins

[Sergio Sanmiguel]

Welcome to the wonderful world of digital, where one wrong move made in exhaustion can mean the total loss of a days work. In the bad old days of analog, usually the worst that would happen is you might accidentally erase a take. Losing a whole days work was almost impossible (unless you were working next to a bulk eraser)

Not so sure about that... I remember a guy erasing a D2 "digital" master by mistake (fired on the spot). Maybe is more appropriate to say "welcome to the NON Linear Age"

BTW Richard, I'm really happy for you for been able to stop & think. There's always a way out of trouble...

[chris_bollard]

I'm coming to end of a long Reality TV show - 3 weeks to go; not that I'm counting. This year the show is even bigger. For 1st 6 weeks we had 5 sound recordists - four 744 and one 788. 20 contestants, family coming in and out, host and a couple more. I think we were 8 weeks in when we had filled up the 1TB backup drive.

In the Digital Media Age you can't have too many backups, at least until the show has gone to air. Post no longer treats rushes as a one-off can't be replaced item. Too easy to call up and ask for another copy.

On this show we record to both HDD and CF. The CF goes with the camra tapes at the end of the day. The recorder HDD is copied to backup HDD. If needed DVDs can be struck from the backup drive. Luckily we have an extremely capable assistant who takes care of all of this for us. God help us if we were trying to stay on top of this after doing our usual 12 to 15 hour days.

Hearing your story gave me that sinking feeling on the stomach. That's why I backup then i backup again (or is that archive?) and keep it until its all gone to air and there can be no recriminations. HDD storage is cheep, especially to keep you clients happy.

   

[Izen Ears]

  Wow, I would have cried too, glad that the hours paid off and it ended well.

  That is the *worst* feeling!  I remember once on my first union movie we did a whole complicated take and at the end the PD6 hadn't rolled.  I had hit the record tab, but I wasn't at the home screen or something and it hadn't rolled, and I hadn't noticed because I was so busy mixing.  And of course the director said "Great! Moving on!"  I immediately yelled I didn't get that last take, it wasn't there on the machine.  Thankfully I noticed in time, and we did another take that was fine.  Of course I looked like a Schmoe but it was better than have them find out later.

  Thankfully, that hasn't happened in quite a while.  I have the Deva set to only display 'disk' timecode, so when I look up at the clap to log the t.c. numbers, I will see if they're moving or not and never ever miss a clap!

  One more quick story you might find funny -

  So I'm looking at the files and comparing them to my sound notes.  I immediately noticed I had put the clap's timecode for two additional takes, but the takes weren't there!  I panicked as the stone landed hard in my stomach.  I frantically searched, started totally losing it in front of my new utility guy.  Then I realized I had written the timecode for the B-cam tail stix in the wrong place, and made it look like there were two extra takes.  Whew!  It took me like 2 hours to calm down, I was SO seriously disturbed that I couldn't calm down.

  Dan Izen

P.S. I hate tail stix, I heard labs do too, anyone know if this is true and why?

[Philip Perkins]

Re Tail stix and telecine:  No they don't like them much, even less if it is a film telecine.  Twice over the film instead of once, have to spool ahead to see what is going on, then go back, breaks up the rhythm of the operator, ditto for syncing in an edit system.  Everyone deals, while wishing for head slates.

Philip Perkins

[studiomprd]

" Twice over the film instead of once, "

Three times!

[t.elder]

Production managers dislike tail slates slightly more than telecine houses because telecine houses often charge additional labor for them when used in excess, especially since there are always a few times when the camera cuts before the take is end slated.  The other bad thing about them is they do increase the risk of scratching the film, since it has to roll through it more than once.  There are times when they are the only practical way to slate the take, but I worked with a director once who liked doing them because he felt is was better for the actors.  The production manager on that film complained to me that telecine was adding additional charges and asked if I could speak to the director about it.  Talk about passing the literal buck...

I did have a scare once after the first time I used a 744T, but it happily turned out to be the editor's inexperience with it and the files were all there.  Another production (using a FR-2) once tried to blame me for losing a CF card after the last day of shooting but I gave them specific information on who I handed the card to at the end of the night and told them good luck with finding it.

Tim

[Guest Ken Mantlo]

Why be so concerned with tail sticks?  It's 99.99% of the time the cameras call, not ours.

[Jeff Wexler]

Why be so concerned with tail sticks?  It's 99.99% of the time the cameras call, not ours.

And 99% of the time they shouldn't be doing it! I don't make a big deal out of it until someone like an ill-informed UPM comes to ME saying that telecine is asking if we can do anything about it ... it is the WE part that I have trouble with but I can certainly talk to the director, camera people, and see if there is something that can be done ... like DON'T DO IT.

-  Jeff Wexler

[Mark LeBlanc]

First big show I did, company asked for all my files, backups and everything. Turned them in, multiple copies of DVD etc then cleaned off my drives as per their request.  Got a call a month later, they lost the DVD's from the last day of the shoot.. I heard later that they fired the office staff a week after show wrap and the files never reached Post.. Lucky for them, the last day is mostly screams..

OOPS!!

ML

[Guest Ken Mantlo]

And 99% of the time they shouldn't be doing it! I don't make a big deal out of it until someone like an ill-informed UPM comes to ME saying that telecine is asking if we can do anything about it ... it is the WE part that I have trouble with but I can certainly talk to the director, camera people, and see if there is something that can be done ... like DON'T DO IT.

-  Jeff Wexler

Why not just say to the UPM, "I don't make the call on tail sticks, talk to the camera dept, they're the ones doing it."

[Marc Wielage]

Three times!

The senator is right. Once to cue all the way to the end of the scene to find the clap and TC numbers; second pass to rewind the film back to the head; third pass to actually record the shot down to tape. Two more times the chances for extra dirt and scratches.

Billy Friedkin is infamous for requiring all shots have tail slates. On a feature I did for him a few years ago, we just built extra time into the session to do so, and all was well. It probably added an hour per session (an extra 1-2 minutes per shot), so it's not the end of the world. He was very happy with the dailies, and that's all that matters.

If I get to visit the set for a dailies project, I will warn the DP or 1st assistant, "hey, if you can give us just a brief flash of TC numbers at the head -- no clap required -- it will speed up the dailies process by 10%. It's much better for us than tail sticks." As long as the numbers are good, we'll watch lip sync like a hawk, and 99% of the time, it's perfect. The clap merely confirms that the numbers were good.

I figure tail stix are only really warranted under three conditions:

1) very small kids (babies)

2) wild animals (unpredictable and frightened of sharp sounds)

3) stunts & explosions

Everything else is just B.S., as far as I'm concerned. But we grin and bear it. Post people are paid by the hour.

--Marc W.