Seeking Your Input

[Chance White]

So you are hired out for a shoot. They are renting your camera, and you are to DIT. You don't generally DIT, but you agree to. You also wind up doing a bit of ACing etc. The shoot is low budget, but you agree as your schedule permits, might as well make a little money on a fun project.

You wind up having to dump footage to someone else's laptop, and their hard drives. They don't have Redcine or Red Player on their machine, so you are unable to playback the footage and check it to make sure it's okay, but that's your only option to dump footage, so you do it. You constantly check to make sure all the data copied. Playback on camera from Redmags are fine all day, so you know the footage your camera captured was okay.

You know where this is going.

The footage is all corrupted and lost, and the hard drives you were given seem to be the problem.

What do you feel the DIT is ultimately responsible for here? Do they owe the producers a refund? What would you do if you were in the producers shoes? Aside from not having an old laptop and shitty hard drives, obviously? What would you feel liable for as the DIT?

Just curious what people's opinions are on the above scenario.

Thanks for any responses.

 

[Björn Benckert]

My opinion...
The producer is always responsible. But the result is probably that you will never be hired to do such job again. Going to a shoot without rcxp or any other way to check footage is ill prepared and quite dangerous for the production, you own reputation and your camera. No matter what the budget is you probably have a laptop, you probably have internet and you could possibly download a copy of RCXP for free the night before. Going to set and just trust they get whats needed is also being ill prepared. As you agree to be the DIT and you care for your reputation then bringing a working computer, discs and needed software is a good thing to do.
Because no matter who's fault it is it will come back to you and your camera. It does not help to blame bad drives, computer error or anything else it will still come back to you. So better be prepared and make sure what gets shot is backed up, and playable / non corrupted etc.
What kind of hard drives where used?

Not saying I have not done the same mistake myself.... Doing the DIT job might seem quite easy, and it is, until something hits the fan, then having a real experienced DIT is gold. Or atleast then the blame is not on you... To cover your self even more, make sure the client hires the DIT, not you. If not, well then it falls back on you any way...

 

[Peter Borosh]

Unfortunately Chance, The horse has bolted.

When a production insists in providing drives then it is up to you whether you the DP or the DIT that the footage is good.

If you are unsure then you should keep a copy as long as possible till they get their act together. I usually keep the days footage on the Red Drives as long as possible.

As for the money.... The camera did its job...you should get the rental fee. You, as a DIT, may have let the team down.... you may need refund your DIT rate.

This doesn't get the producers off the hook. They probably cut corners on the cost of the drives and the laptop.

 

[Evin Grant]

Keep it all! Their equipment, their loss! However I would NEVER have agreed to use their computer, it's not worth the hit to your rep.

 

[Peter Moretti]

1. Are you sure that all the footage is lost? It seems highly unlikely that every single file copy went bad is unrecoverable. Not saying it can't happen, but have you tried contacting Red to see if they might be able to recover the files?

2. Why on earth didn't you just load RedCine-X or Redplayer on their laptop? The programs are fee and not big downloads.

3. In my experience, you can get yourself into a lot more trouble saying "Yes" in this industry than saying "No." If you say "No," then you are not responsible or you have covered your ass if you are overruled and you wind up being right anyway. But if you say "Yes," you are saying that you can do something and that YOU will be responsible for it. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it's one that we all eventually get to. If you agreed to DIT, then all the functions of the DIT you are responsible for. Now if you specifically said, "I don't trust this laptop" and you were forced to use it anyway, then you'd have an out I guess. But the moral of the story is don't take on a role that you don't want to be fully responsible for.

But go back to 1., there may be hope that your files aren't truly gone.

Good luck to you!!

 

[Steve Sherrick]

You should try to build in a data audit trail. In other words, some way that you can demonstrate that data was copied correctly and to which destinations. Obviously, a visual check to go along with that will give you confidence that what the data audit says is correct. But what you have to be prepared for is when the client says that there are files missing. That's when you need to be able to show them some evidence to the contrary. I suggest having a look at some of the tools that can help you provide more thorough data management. It will save you some headaches down the line.

 

[Marc Wielage]

So you are hired out for a shoot. They are renting your camera, and you are to DIT. You don't generally DIT, but you agree to.

If you're acting as DIT, why aren't you using your own computer and drives? If I ever got in that position, I'd get the deal in writing and have them stipulate beforehand that I'm not responsible for any hardware malfunctions if I don't own it.

Consider this as a lesson learned. Renting a camera is one thing, but being a D.I.T. responsible for footage and backup is another.

Good advice from Mr. Sherrick above!

 

[Tim Bradley]

I would never do a DIT job without my own laptop with Double Data software and at least one drive of my own. That way you can be sure that you'll have one good copy of the data on a drive that you know is reliable. If the production company want to risk their copy of the data on crappy drives thats up to them. Doing the DIT role, however, its your responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen.

However no one can say where or when the data got corrupted.

 

[Chance White]

Thanks for all the responses.

I've been in contact with RED, the data seems to be gone...

I had another shoot so I wasn't able to hold on to the footage on the Redmags for more than 24 hours...

I've definitely learned a lot from this.

At this point what I've offered is to do a reshoot at no cost, plus a refund, of not only my initial fee for camera rental + DIT, but also the entire budget of the project. I would foot the bill. The issue I'm having is, others have said that seems excessive, and it's not 100% my fault, and this is already going to cause a hit to my rep, at least with these people, so it's highly unlikely they would ever hire me again. So I'm debating whether it is worth me coming out of pocket, an amount that would greatly set me back during tax time, or if I should just refund them my day rate maybe plus a little extra (what I would have been paid to DIT)

I will be much more likely to just say NO to any DIT gig for a low amount in the future, and if I ever do DIT again, I will use MY equipment, and will not clear Redmags until I double check the footage. Lesson learned there. Sometimes you just need to say no, especially on low budget stuff where they want you to wear many many hats...

 

[Tim Bradley]

Thanks for all the responses.


At this point what I've offered is to do a reshoot at no cost, plus a refund, of not only my initial fee for camera rental + DIT, but also the entire budget of the project. I would foot the bill. The issue I'm having is, others have said that seems excessive, and it's not 100% my fault, and this is already going to cause a hit to my rep, at least with these people, so it's highly unlikely they would ever hire me again. So I'm debating whether it is worth me coming out of pocket, an amount that would greatly set me back during tax time, or if I should just refund them my day rate maybe plus a little extra (what I would have been paid to DIT)
.

I think a more than fair offer is to do a reshoot and a refund of your initial fee. If they refuse this offer of a reshoot you know that they will not use you again anyway. In my terms and conditions for all shoots, it clearly states that I shall not be held responsible for equipment failure. Maybe you should have some terms and conditions written up to pass on to future clients to clear up all these situations before they arise.

I know the laws are different between the US and Australia but I would be happy to forward you a copy of my terms and conditions if you like to have a look.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Chance, these guys are right, but unless Red took a look at the physical drives they often can't really tell if it is lost. Get them to take it to a soft data recovery place (where they don't pull the drives apart charging you ten times the price and see what can be recovered and their opinion of what went wrong before spending big on hardware based recovery. The odd computer shop might specialize in this and he good at it). There should be something in many cases. But if they were bumping their drive during operation, or the write caching option on drive properties was checked (so that writes were not truly finished before the mag was taken away), then a lot can be lost, or some weird raid .... or overheating on rubbish drives. You just don't know how somebody else sets up their laptop, you always have to eject the drive from the tray icon, they might even have some super dooper drive acceleration. caching program running in the background stuffing everything up, compressing, encrypting whatever. At this stage you might have limited options to get them to look at it to make it better.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Redcine is a good way to spot check takes, even without rocket on reduced playback settings when needed or by waiting for buffer. Always insist on raid 1's at a minimum, or you need two copies on two drives, don't work any other way as a DIT ever, and bigger jobs need 3 copies contractually or 2 if one is an LTO copy. Stuff happens, drives fail, get knocked over, get lost, stolen, all kinds of stuff. I disagree that check sums were needed on the low budget job, thats just too many hats to get the shots off, spot checking is fine in a low budget situation where they probably can't afford enough mag rentals to run check sums anyway with no dedicated DIT. You can't even buy Data Doubler anymore anyway, so even if you were using check sums it probably would of been another application anyway regardless...

Using other peoples gear is fine, I do that constantly, I service bays too, shared storage, stuff of that nature. Just because its not your bay doesn't mean its bad, everything just needs some love and attention. I like to fine tune my rental machines if needed, or at least check it out to the point where I am familiar with all its specs and hardware. I have been working basically full time the past 2 years on other peoples bays, so your story doesn't sound so crazy to me, I use other peoples stuff more then my own is the truth (but that client ran outta work so I am in the process of building my own first cart finally and am getting ready to grab a new machine and ecosystem, exciting times)

that being said i've had lots of drive failures on other peoples gear AND my own, its only by using raids/off site back ups that I protect myself AND there data. so right now when I am considering my own mobile cart off rip any drive I get at minimum is going to be a Raid 1, period. I'd like a Promise Raid 5 R4 TB2 bay, but its too big to fit in a pelican 1510 I read online, so I think raid 1s will have to do for me on set. Promise J4 seems like a decent little mobile raid 1, no bus power but 4 2.5 inch bays instead of 2 like in the other OWC model I want too. I think I'll buy them both, and then another 6TB raid 1 as well, for larger jobs. Point being in the end I will have 3 raid 1's and yes it will cost a bit more but I'll always know I am covered is the goal, or at least as covered as I am going to get for an on set job using Raid 1s and not Raid 5s...

non union DITs can be had pretty cheap, and I am available and always down to help whether I am on the job or not. try red undead on the drive if you haven't...

 

[Peter Moretti]

Thanks for all the responses.

I've been in contact with RED, the data seems to be gone...

I had another shoot so I wasn't able to hold on to the footage on the Redmags for more than 24 hours...

I've definitely learned a lot from this.

At this point what I've offered is to do a reshoot at no cost, plus a refund, of not only my initial fee for camera rental + DIT, but also the entire budget of the project. I would foot the bill. The issue I'm having is, others have said that seems excessive, and it's not 100% my fault, and this is already going to cause a hit to my rep, at least with these people, so it's highly unlikely they would ever hire me again. So I'm debating whether it is worth me coming out of pocket, an amount that would greatly set me back during tax time, or if I should just refund them my day rate maybe plus a little extra (what I would have been paid to DIT)

I will be much more likely to just say NO to any DIT gig for a low amount in the future, and if I ever do DIT again, I will use MY equipment, and will not clear Redmags until I double check the footage. Lesson learned there. Sometimes you just need to say no, especially on low budget stuff where they want you to wear many many hats...

I think refunding the entire cost of the production is excessive. But perhaps you can work something else out. Like giving them a future greatly discounted rate.

I also think, like mentioned above, that it is highly unlikely that there is just nothing on the drives the footage was copied to. It would be good to actually figure out what exactly happened to the footage. As it just being all gone makes no sense. Maybe someone inadvertently erased it. Then your level of accountability for the footage being missing would be quite a bit lower.

 

[George Butterfield]

and you are to DIT. You don't generally DIT, but you agree to. What would you feel liable for as the DIT?

Did you imply to them that you knew what you were doing as DIT? Did you know what you were doing? What do you feel liable for? Did you say I'm not liable for anything that might go wrong because you don't have adequate equip? Why didn't you download RedcineX? It's pretty obvious what the DIT is responsible for. The DIT is responsible for DIT.