Before I get started with this blog post, I must make something clear. This post has to do purely with common sense (or I suppose a lack thereof), so if you are a fairly logical, reasonable person, stop reading here. If you are looking for a lesson in what not to, then I guess this is a pretty good place to start. The lesson here is simple and applies to many forms of multimedia journalism, not just video, which I happened to be shooting today. Always, always, always bring an extra battery. I realize that this should go without saying, but a reminder never hurts.
If you’re still with me up to this point, I’ll give a brief overview of what happened. At 6:15 a.m., I woke up and went to the Columbia Farmers’ market for yet another installment of my J2150 project. I arrived on time with a fully charged battery, or so I thought. I got the camera set up and started shooting B-roll for my short video; however, as soon as I started shooting, the first bar in the battery level indicator disappeared, leaving me with three bars and one hour of battery power. I thought this would be sufficient battery for the video, so I continued to shoot B-roll. When the camera indicated that there were 20 minutes of battery left, I turned off the camera and waited to film my interview.
So what is wrong with this situation? Well, number one, I didn’t ask for a second battery when I checked out my camera, so there’s that. Number two, I ignored the fact that the battery was quickly losing bars, and number three, I assumed that 20 minutes would leave me enough time to properly shoot the interview. Let’s see what happened.
Once it was time for the interview, I messed with the tripod, then turned the camera back on to properly line up my interview subject. A message popped up on the camera screen indicating that I needed to promptly change the battery pack. The battery icon in the top right corner flashed red. Crap. In my haste to get the interview done before time ran out, I forgot to press the record button before proceeding with the interview. Half way through the source’s second response, I realized my mistake and mentally cursed myself for being so unprofessional. I continued asking questions once I was certain that I was recording and luckily, I managed to record some good answers. Three minutes in, the screen went black and the battery conked out.
While I’ll probably still be able to make the video work, all of these problems could have been avoided if I had just asked for a spare battery. Checking the camera when you get it to make sure the battery is fully charged (which I did) isn’t enough when going to location to shoot. So next time you go out and shoot, don’t be like me and depend on one battery to get you through. Two batteries are always better than one.
Confessions of a Young Journalist 