A community member recounted in the DVXUser.com forums1 an unfortunate incident that happened to him while shooting a wedding:
Ouch! I think it is safe to say that we have all been victim of rookie mistakes, unforeseen events, and just bad luck. No matter the situation, the challenge is in how we recover from it.“I was hired from a friend to film a wedding for the mother of the groom. She wanted video/audio of the wedding to capture the event...I've never done a wedding before but have film[ed] other things....Well I get home and the footage looks great, I felt like I did very well, until I realize that none of the audio recorded.”
The poster asked the group for advice on how to handle the situation. While a couple people suggested giving a partial refund, I agree with the majority that a full refund was in order. Here is what I would have done:
"Oh no, it's wedding time!"
I would have dived into the editing of my footage with creative gusto. Made an old-timey silent movie of it using filters, frame rate, titles, and music bed to mimic that precisely. It could turn out to be a clever, and an even more special piece! After all, the whole ceremony narrative tends toward the traditional, with the more interesting aspect of the ceremony being the visual emotion of the bride and groom. Plus, in this particular case, the bride and groom did not request or plan on his video, and likely got whatever coverage they wanted from a still photographer.
Hey, don’t forget, the winner of the 2012 Academy Awards Best Picture, “The Artist”, was a silent movie; and it was emotive, entertaining, and fantastic! Nothing was lost of the story by not having voiced dialog.
But, of course, don’t make a habit of forgetting to check your audio recording on the day. "I meant to do that" won't fly very often.
Any production horror stories you'd like to share?
1 http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?312954-The-worst-case-scenario-happened-to-me