Two of everything

[Mark Phelan]

If there is one thing that a veteran shooter knows, is the simple truth that an item will break right when it is needed and at a time when replacement is impossible. Cannot even begin to count the times we have had the discussion of how many items are necessary for a successful shoot. But the answer that is universally true, bring two of everything, at least two.

There has never been a piece of equipment made by man that has not failed at some point. So why is this basic lesson of life so ignored? Always bring spares, always bring backups. With a RED it can get pretty expensive to do so, but doing without is folly, even with the tank that is RED. Cables break or develop hidden shorts. It doesn't matter that it's a $200.00 cable, it's still broken and you're in Timbuktu. Don't blame the equipment, blame yourself for being unprepared. That's what your client will do as he fumes while you fumble for a solution.

ALL equipment fails. Wasn't Apollo 13 enough of an example? The greatest minds on the planet had quadruple systems and they still failed, almost killing the three astronauts. But we learned from those mistakes, right? Hello, Space Shuttle. It doesn't matter how smart the engineers, or how well built an item is, things break. Bring a spare. If you don't, the only person to blame is the guy in the mirror.

 

[James T Mather]

And bring two mirrors too.

 

[Asif Limbada]

Have been doing that since day one

 

[Simon Knight]

tried it with wives.... did'nt meet with approval..

SK

 

[Justin Kirchhoff]

A helicopter mount tilted down too far and snapped the mini-HD SDI cable on the R1 I supplied for the shoot 5 years ago. I never brought my spare...we ended up having to wait an hour and a half to grab another cable from a production house 70 miles away. It was a nightmare shoot.

Totally inexperience on my part. But yes, I bring at least two of everything now.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

There are budgetary limits to this of course, I can't carry two zooms when I only need one, but obviously I have options to get around equipment problems. A big difference is whether you working near a rental house versus a distant location. You take different packages when a replacement is a half hour away versus two days away...

The argument I sometimes get into with producers is when we have a two-camera package and crew and I want a third body as a back-up. The argument is whether you just go down to one camera at that point, but if you are really using the two cameras all the time, then you need a back-up body on location.

 

[Ramesh Jai]

And bring two mirrors too.

Ha ha!!!!

 

[Shervin Mandgaryan]

Noah brought 2 of each animal with him too.

Be like Noah.

 

[Louis Maddalena]

I don't bring 2 of everything, but I have a adequate back up... An example being that I might not have 2 5" touch LCDs but I do have a 7" and an EVF. So I have 3 methods of monitoring, multiple cables to attach (but another example of not having two of everything is I have 3 cables, but each of them is different length.. it gives me options but unfortunately if something were to go down I could not exactly duplicate my rig) I also have multiple means of controlling the camera. I have the 5" Touch, Side Handle, and RedMote so its kinda like I have a back up of each item, but also at the same time giving me more options.

 

[Josh Snyder]

Noah brought 2 of each animal with him too.

Be like Noah.

I have done that too and I got lucky since like with Noah, all animal species of the world lived within a walking distance from my house.

 

[PatrickFaith]

One thing I like to do with my Scarlet is use it as my spare part bucket for my Epic. So I bring both the epic and the scarlet, and if i have any problems I can quickly take off one of the epic components and replace it with one of the scarlet components (since everything is interchangeable). Also it allows me to quickly "test" parts, as i take the component from the epic and see if it works on the scarlet. This allows me to quickly debug problems in a few minutes, to see if it was a operator error(80% of the time), some firmware thing(15% of the time), cabling issue (5% of the time) or an actual hw problem (0% of the time - I have never had a full hardware failure).