A space for camera assistants to discuss, ask questions, and share knowledge (and horror stories).
Condensation is a bitch. These were spherical Lomos. Old Russian lenses. Luckily water didn't get inside the glass elements, so we wiped them down and let them dry and went on with our day.
Man if water had gotten in....that would not have been cheap
DP dun fucked up. First thing I thought after the shock of seeing this when I opened the lens case in the morning, was "Thank god that's not my fault." Would've been a painful mistake (and this was a short film so who knows if they had good insurance)
Shit if that was vital to the project, could have set them back for a LONG while
Yeah they got lucky. The producers/director/DP were all from New York and came out to Los Angeles to get crew and film this, so they were kinda out of there element. This shoot was 5 overnights in a row, and one night we were filming on an active bridge/road in LA. They assumed that the weather was always nice in California so didn't check ahead or prepare, and suddenly we had a lightning/thunder storm starting in the distance. We had a giant Condor crane with lights up over the bridge, and as the lighting strikes got closer the Gaffer got spooked and brought the condor down. Within an hour, it was pouring rain and they didn't have any pop-up tents so we had to rush to throw all the gear in different cars and get out of the rain. We wrapped early that night (early on an overnight means 4AM instead of 6AM).
I found out later that a woman and her dog died that night in LA from being struck by lightning. Shit can go wrong very quickly, especially when you're not working with professionals.