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I just remembered this incident from years ago when I worked for a company that did video work for conferences and such. We would often do work for a Tele-evangelist who held week long "healing" conferences in a very large church building. Please let us NOT take this into the fratching areas because this post is NOT about religion. I am not religious but a job is a job.
Many times during these meetings, I would be the camera guy on stage dressed in black and trying to be inconspicuous while filming the closeups of the main speakers and such. If you have ever seen any concerts, you will notice that guy on stage with a camera, not noticeable at all most of the time if we are good. Our company would basically live stream the video onto big projection screens on either side of the stage as well as recording everything on site to sell DVDs to people as they left. [/End BG]
This one conference we did was huge, 10,000 people, hugely popular speakers, etc. so we were all hyped up and doing our thing. Well the last night of the conference, the main speaker is doing his thing and I am up on stage with my camera being inconspicuous as per normal. Of course, the one camera I had that night was the battery operated camera. 3 guesses as to which batteries were not charged properly and the first 2 guesses dont count. Right in the middle of the big close up on screen where the speaker was going to make some big point, my camera turns off and the big screen shows Blue. BSOD. At this point my BTMF (brain to mouth filter) fails horribly, my stage whisper was "OH SH**". Of course, the main speaker turns around, points right at me, and says to the entire crowd "That guy just swore on stage" and then proceeds to turn it into a point for his speech. At that point I wanted to make like an Ostrich and bury my head in the sand. I have never had a customer (and yes he was a customer as the company was paying us) call me out so badly before. I am pretty sure the only reason I havent remembered it since is because my brain did not want to remember.
That was and still is my most favorite job of all time and I could tell you great stories of 15 hr days, lugging hundreds of pounds of gear up 5 flights of stairs to the rafters of some of these places but we will leave it at that for now.
Many times during these meetings, I would be the camera guy on stage dressed in black and trying to be inconspicuous while filming the closeups of the main speakers and such. If you have ever seen any concerts, you will notice that guy on stage with a camera, not noticeable at all most of the time if we are good. Our company would basically live stream the video onto big projection screens on either side of the stage as well as recording everything on site to sell DVDs to people as they left. [/End BG]
This one conference we did was huge, 10,000 people, hugely popular speakers, etc. so we were all hyped up and doing our thing. Well the last night of the conference, the main speaker is doing his thing and I am up on stage with my camera being inconspicuous as per normal. Of course, the one camera I had that night was the battery operated camera. 3 guesses as to which batteries were not charged properly and the first 2 guesses dont count. Right in the middle of the big close up on screen where the speaker was going to make some big point, my camera turns off and the big screen shows Blue. BSOD. At this point my BTMF (brain to mouth filter) fails horribly, my stage whisper was "OH SH**". Of course, the main speaker turns around, points right at me, and says to the entire crowd "That guy just swore on stage" and then proceeds to turn it into a point for his speech. At that point I wanted to make like an Ostrich and bury my head in the sand. I have never had a customer (and yes he was a customer as the company was paying us) call me out so badly before. I am pretty sure the only reason I havent remembered it since is because my brain did not want to remember.
That was and still is my most favorite job of all time and I could tell you great stories of 15 hr days, lugging hundreds of pounds of gear up 5 flights of stairs to the rafters of some of these places but we will leave it at that for now.
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