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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Who should cover the costs?

P

Priit Poldmaa

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We had an incident with our camera and
I would like to hear opinions about who should cover the costs.

The facts.
Our camera was on rental for a short low budget indy movie.
On second day I got a call that camara have shut down and does not boot any more.
Sent a camer for a repair and got a bill about one third of camera's price.
Also a diagnosis:
"We suspect that some accessory has been connected to the camera which was faulty, and this has caused the damage."

What I heard.
They vere shooting in a kitchen of somebodys house and it worked OK for a hour before the camera died.
There was Panasonic Pro LCD connected and it was powered from wall.
No more connected devices.
Asked if any lights was nearby but scene was lighted outside (behind the window) only.
There was an old refigerator close to the camera.

What I think was the possible cause.
It is possible that the old refigerator had some leak.
And from the other side camera was grounded via monitor and his wall supply.
It is quite possible that the tripod had contact with refigerator's metal body.
This is most logical cause for the damage.


What do you think who should cover the repair costs:
1. Our company as Red owner
2. Our insurance company but not shure if our policy will cover the damage of this kid
3. Production company who rented the camera
4. Production company's insurance. Not sure if they had an insuarnce for this project or not.

I'm not going to show this thread to my client nor to our insurance company.
It is more like case study and to be onest I don't have even my opinion yet.

Priit Poldmaa
 
The company that rented the equipment if they had insurance then their insurance company should cover the costs. If they didn't have insurance then they should cover the cost (the client is fully responsible for the equipment once it is in their possession). Good luck getting them to do that though. You should never rent to a client that can't provide proof of insurance for the equipment they are renting. In the end if they don't have insurance you are going to be chasing after them to get the money for the repair meanwhile they will claim the equipment was faulty and that you should cover the costs, then you have to get lawyers involved etc etc etc.
 
Leaf is right, in an ideal world... But what sort of rental agreement was in place? It is unlikely that a monitor connected via an SDI connector fried the camera. Possible, but quite unlikely. What media were they recording do? And can you get more info from RED about the failure?

There's been several incidents where people have tried to connect the power cable to the drive port. Of course the connectors are different, but they are the same diameter and it's possible to make enough contact to fry the camera.

Could've been a power spike if the camera was operating off AC power, it's hard to say what caused the fault without more info. But typically if a camera fails while in the possession of anyone else, they fix it on their dime.
 
Leaf is right.. when you rent always get proof of insurance if you rent out your cam, specially if you can't keep your eyes on it.

Accidents happen all the time, and just because people tell you they did nothing, its very easy for a camera assistant or someone else to do something really bad ( takes less than a second to do ) and then try to cover it up and not tell anyone.
 
They told me that camera was running from Red Bricks and the didn't have power cable for camera.
The camera was running about an hour in this position as they set up the scene.
At some point they had to move the refigerator a bit as there was to little space for the camera.

We had some rental agreement but it is quite general and
the possible scenario is not 100% proved.
It is just my quess based on Red's diganosis and my later investigations.
Of course it is possible to drive there and check does this refigerator have leak or not.
Should I?

Priit
 
I'm not sure did the renter have insuarance or not.
Usually in our area production company has insurance on feature film.
I think it is not common to have insurance on producing commercials here.
The short film lieas somewhere in between.

I'm quite sure that when I push we will make the renter to pay.
The main question for me is: is it clearly camera missuse or force major or common camera tear and wear.
Or in other words can I be ethically shure that they HAVE to pay.

Priit
 
How the damage was done to the camera is really irrelevant, never assume that the people you're renting your equipment to have insurance. You need to see the paperwork. It would also benefit you to call the insurance company to make sure that they cover the type of damages you are concerned about.
 
I had a similar scenario happen (production company DID have insurance though): 2nd AC plugged Panasonic 17" into ET BOB hdsdi in and he gets zapped by an electrical shock while the camera proceeds to "fry" (smoke comes out, zapping sounds). HDSDI gets yanked out. Camera was battery powered.
We got a backup camera in and before connecting it to anything we switched all power sources including sounds, eliminated the 17" completely out if the picture and proceeded shooting.
Camera goes to Red, Monitor to repair man for investigation. Monitor is 100% fine. RED needs audio board replaced due to electric current entering BNC.
Explanation for the incident: The electrical outlet where the monitor was plugged in was MISWIRED. The ground was carrying an electrical charge. All BNC at the back of the monitor share a common ground. BNC carries an electrical charge. Fault: Location Electricity: Responsibility: Production Company.

In our case the repair cost was lower than the Insurance company deductible and the prodco paid out of pocket. I have a good relationship with that company and they paid up quickly but if it's an unknown company it's advisable to take a credit card deposit hold for the deductible to be safe before renting...
 
Yes, miswired electrical outlets and ground faults can cause lots of trouble.

Do not ever rent your gear to someone without insurance. If they don't have insurance, see if your insurance will let you extend coverage to your rental customers on a per-rental basis, at their expense. Some will, some won't, depends on where in the world you are, etc..

Fix your rental agreement so that next time around you are covered for this sort of thing.
 
On "Stay Cool" we had a similar experience with mis-wired electrical cables. We were doing night exteriors and the Red was on a 2575 w/ ronford sticks onto damp grass. I went to hook up the BNC to the camera - grabbed the BNC with one hand and had the other hand on the sticks. I felt the tingle of no-good, and dropped everything. I refused to hook up the monitors until we figured out what the issue was. We did ground lifters on various parts, and really confused the gaffer as to why it was happening. We had ground lifters on sound, the village, everything.

Turns out it was a mis-wired home-made dimmer. Take that out and everything was fine. No doubt it saved 2 cameras that day.
 
If I rented gear and it just stopped in the middle of the shoot, I wouldn't expect to get a repair bill unless the house could prove I was negligent. Also, most of the houses here seem to charge an extra insurance fee, which I assume would cover this anyway.

For all I know the camera just got back from an indi film in Iraq and nothing was going to stop it from dying.

I don't think the "you touched it last so must have been you" rule applies.

Absolutely, if you can go into the shoot location with an electrician and get some evidence, then they should pay 100%. Your theory may be spot on and from the sounds of it, is probably worth a couple of hours to investigate.
 
I agree with Jim on this one.

As a compulsory measure we have had a legal brain draw up a rental contract for al rentals. We also have all gear insured so if there are problems with their insurance company or their lack of coverage or for whatever reason we have it covered and then our insurance company can chase them. It is an insurance companies job to chase up the liable party if they have been negligent, and at least then you have your camera being repaired and things back to normal only costing you a little time and the excess (which is also paid by the hirer:).

For instance we recently donated our kit for a charity TVC and the LCD was damaged and needed repair. The AC can't remember any damage but it returned to us that way. As it was a 'freebie' we let it go onto our insurance and the production company picked up the excess. No hassles, and everybody was happy.
 
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