Six Mistakes That Cost Footage on Breaking Stories

The pull of a live scene is strong. A crew steps out of the car, sees activity and starts recording at once. Twenty minutes later they have plenty of material and no wide shot that explains where anything is. The edit then has no way to orient the viewer, and the package leans on a single angle repeated.

A sixty-second walk around the scene before the first record button is pressed repays itself many times over. Decide what the establishing shot will be, where the key voices are likely to stand, and which cutaway material you will need later. Tell the producer on call what you can see before you shoot it.

Callum, our lead camera operator, teaches new operators a simple order: wide, medium, close, then movement. It is not a rule for art. It is a way of guaranteeing the editor receives a complete visual sentence.

Pictures get the attention, but a package with poor sound is unusable far sooner than one with ordinary pictures. Wind, traffic and a crowd will swamp a camera microphone, and no amount of editing recovers a sentence you cannot hear. This is the most common reason a good interview never airs.

Use a proper microphone close to the speaker whenever the story allows it, and wear headphones while recording so you hear what the recording hears. If conditions are bad, move the interview somewhere quieter, even by a few metres, and record a few seconds of the room's ambient sound afterwards.

Ambient sound is a gift to the editor. It lets us smooth joins between clips and hide a cut. Without it, a package can sound patched together even when the pictures are clean.

At the end of a long shift, a card full of clips named by number is a puzzle. Who is the man in the grey coat? Which clip was shot before the statement, and which after? The editor must watch everything to answer, and on a tight deadline that time simply does not exist.

Log as you go, even roughly. A line in a notes app naming each interview, spelling the person's name and role, and marking the best moment saves enormous effort downstream. Name files consistently and keep the card order intact until everything is safely copied.

I would rather receive a rough, honest log than a beautiful shot with no context. Accuracy is one of our stated values, and it starts with knowing exactly who said what and where it was recorded.

Crews often treat filing as an afterthought, something to sort out once the shooting is over. Then a mobile signal drops, a card reader fails or a file is far larger than expected, and the footage that was captured within hours reaches the edit suite many hours later.

Plan the route to the edit before you need it. Know in advance whether you will send over a connection, hand over a card or travel back, and test the method on something small. Where possible, send the most important clips first so editing can begin while the rest uploads.

Compress sensibly and keep the original files safe. A lighter proxy lets us start cutting immediately, and the full-quality versions follow for the final finish. This small step often decides whether a story makes its slot.

Speed can quietly erode balance. A crew films one side of a dispute because those people are close and willing, then has no time to return for the other. The footage looks complete, yet the package it produces tells only part of the story.

Fairness is part of the job, not a polish added afterwards. Note, while you are on location, who you have not yet heard from, and pass that to the producer so the gap can be addressed by phone or a second visit. Capture reaction shots honestly and avoid framing that suggests a conclusion.

As an editor I can only work with what I am given. If the material is lopsided, I can flag it, but I cannot invent the missing voice. Getting it right on location is far easier than repairing it later.