Wittman's Laws

1. It cannot fall off the floor. This means to always place the camera on the floor where it can not fall over, get stepped on or tripped over. Do not place your camera on a chair, table or counter. One day it WILL be knocked to the ground. Many an unattended camera has gotten knocked off the tripod with disastrous results. Can you say $10,000 in lens and recorder repairs?

2. Never set equipment behind a vehicle. If you leave equipment behind your vehicle or van, there is an even chance that one day, when you are tired and in a hurry, that you will run over your gear. Always load and unload to the SIDE of your vehicle. So when that DAY finally arrives, you will be looking in your rearview mirror and notice your gear looking nice and safe on the side of the road as you drive away.

3. If you monitor your audio, you will always have it. Obviously, if audio is important to you, you should always monitor your feed from headsets. The one time that you assume that your audio is good and don’t monitor your audio is the time that the ground wire in your audio cable goes bad and you return to the studio with a great big buzz on your audio tracks or nothing at all.

4. If you don’t bring it, you will need it. Make it a habit to always bring the minimum equipment needed to complete ANY assignment. A good example of good intentions gone awry- Scott decides NOT to bring a backup light kit to shoot an exterior interview. He thinks that his flex-fill will cover any assignment. Then the rain begins to pour and the producer decides to shoot his “most important” interview inside in his office. OOPS!!!

5. Use the cost factor when pack and unpacking. Always take out the most expensive gear last (usually the camcorder) and put it back in vehicle first. That way you minimize exposure to your expensive gear.


6. Use extra long cables. If you use an extra long BNC video cable from your camera to your color monitor, you have a better chance that someone will not trip over the video cable and jerk your camera and tripod to the ground. OUCH!! Use the same mentality when plugging in your lights. If you have to stretch your A/C cable from your light head to the receptacle, then it is time to break out your stingers and extra drop cords. It will always cost less in time and money to use an extension cord then to replace a light bulb or light head. Think safety! (If you don’t, nobody else will.)

7. If it were easy, then everyone would be doing it. When you are in the middle of an ambitious undertaking that has great potential —and you are having a difficult time of it, just remember “if it were easy, then everyone would be doing it.” Basically this means that there are not great results without great amounts of work.
8. If it is too small to lose, you will lose it. If it is very important to your project, you will lose it. These new thumbdrives, SDcards and micro SDcards are getting smaller by the minute. Don’t put them where you can drop them or have them fall out of your pocket. Believe me when I say how embarrassing it will be to tell your client that we have to re-shoot the CEO interview. And his plane has already taken off. Yuck!
WITTMAN’S Favorite Work Quote:“There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.” Peter J. Laurence (1919-1990)