Share your DIT Horror Stories!!

[Simon Dunne]

As a data-wrangler, i had a failed Codex mag from an Arri. Many software packages couldn't read the disk properly, but i managed to BASH into the disk and take everything i needed with a little python script i had to hand. Turns out, there were 2 bad frames. One during a clapper board, the other mid take. The mid take frame could be easily rebuilt if that take was used, so no dramas. This is when it really pays to have a dedicated data wrangler on set who know what they're doing!

DIT's should focus on LUT's, live grading and making sure their monitor is balanced correctly!!!!! DON'T fix it in post :001_tt2:

 

[Kazu Okuda]

i think my horror story was when i had up to camera K. and it was all different cameras. I was also going to be involved in the editorial and the final cut ended up being a locked off shot of Cam A.

 

[Marc Wielage]

As someone who worked as a loader back when it was an actual position, I never felt that real loaders were disrespected. It was a valuable position and everyone knew you had the potential to fuck everything up. The difference between now and then is protocols. There was a way you did it and you did it exactly the same way everytime. I've never had any problems with lost data from day one with RED, partially because we instigated strict protocols. Only one person is responsible for media. Not, "Oh, I'll format that card!". No not your job. don't touch it. The ACs and the data manager have their thing and leave them be and let them do it. We usually have a piece of tape on the side of the ssd module on the side of the camera with the camera and roll # on it. As soon as that card comes out of the camera, that piece of tape goes on the card, over the pins, so you can't install it in a device without actively removing the tape. Just like the exposed film tape ran around the film can the perpendicular to the tape that held the can shut. That way you have to remove a big piece of tape that says "exposed" on it to open the can. Etc, etc.

Very wise words from Nick, and I hope more people will listen to this. The #1 thing to me is do not treat the camera media casually. This stuff is mission-critical and can devastate a project when it's accidentally wiped, edited, formatted, or otherwise destroyed.

My story is not so much a horror story, but it concerned a pilot from a couple of years back. The DIT went into a panic about 6 hours into a shoot when he discovered during a break while making a backup that a camera card (with the hero take for a very costly shot) was corrupted. We were able to painstakingly put that one shot back together, but it was nip and tuck every step of the way. It was a "oner," with no other coverage, and because the problem had only been discovered 4 hours after the shot was wrapped, the background actors and stunt people had already been sent home. About the first 20 seconds of the shot turned out to be bad, but everything after the slate was good and the final shot wound up in the finished show. And the client was very happy. This was not a case of the DIT being inept -- it was an understandable problem, because sometimes media goes bad. (Sometimes film was defective, too, in the old days.)