Comfortable Shoes and Other Lessons

We wrapped Day 2 of NAB shooting and I thought I’d share some lessons already learned from the experience. These are presented in no particular order.

1. Redundancy is your friend. Always assume some important part of your kit will fail. Have a back up ready to go. We did not experience any major problems that prompted this lesson. It just seems to be a core principle of the PXC ethos and it lines up with my own POV well.
2. Three things your kit must include:
   1. A small toolkit with a flathead & phillips screwdriver, needlenose pliers and a quarter.
   2. Extra batteries of all shapes and sizes.
   3. A knife of some sort.
3. Gaffer’s tape is an amazingly useful tool; even better than duct tape.
4. When storing gear for a long time between uses, remove all batteries. A corroded battery probably cost me a good set of Bose headphones.
5. Speaking of headphones, always keep at least three sets of iPod earbuds on hand. Don’t use the iPhone earbuds with the mic as an audio monitor.
6. My Beachtek needs a slightly longer screw to connect to the Canon HF10.
7. The Zoom R16 is one sexy little mixer.
8. When you have a wide shot of a group, do not pan between the speakers. It causes artifacts when streaming and is visually distracting. Cutting from speaker to speaker is really the job of a 2- camera shoot with a producer calling the camera changes to be managed by a video switcher.
9. There is no such thing as having too many SD cards on hand.
10. Tapeless workflow is where it at!
11. The iPad is going to be a really big deal. I already knew that, but NAB has only confirmed this for me.
12. I learned how to properly wrangle cable.
13. Always have and use a pre-roll checklist.
14. While I have a few minor quibbles, the LiveU unit is a pretty amazing piece of gear.
15. Even at a show filled with broadcast and film pros, some people don’t recognize the camera and walk through your shots … no matter how hard you try to stop them.
16. 3D is really here … if we do not kill it with ill-concieved conversions.
17. Always have a spare tape/SD card in your pocket.
18. My wife is a saint.
19. The iPhone is an invaluable note-taking tool, especially with the video camera.
20. Learning how something works needn’t stifle one’s sense of wonder about the fact that it does.
21. There is no such thing as “too old”; so long as your mind remains open to new knowledge.
22. I am woefully out of shape, but the aches and pains tell me I am making progress on that front.
23. Running a camera is hard work, particularly when moving all around the show floor.
24. Thanks goodness for comfortable shoes. Think of good shoes as an investment in your mental and physical health.

So, that is it for now. I’ll have more cogent thoughts when I have more time to write.

Peace,

Doug