Today I Fucked Up

Throwaway account. Work fuck up. Just being cautious.

For the past few weeks I (25m) have been working as a cameraman on a reality cooking show. My job was to film contestants cooking as well as one on one interviews with the contestants afterwards. The interviews would usually happen once all the cooking segments for the day were done. The purpose of the interviews was to get the contestants to unpack what happened while they were cooking and also open up about who they were so that the viewers could get to know them.

Yesterday was one of the longest days on set. I was exhausted by the time we got to the interviews. Imagine a soundproof room with the contestant sitting in the middle while I'm pointing my camera in their direction. Next to me was the content director who conducted the interviews and a sound person recording the audio. The set-up was simple. Almost idiot proof. I had one job. Press record. That was it. Cut to contestant #5. A man whose dish got slaughtered by the judges, including the special guest chef. He completely broke down during his one on one interview.

It was a big moment. This guy never showed much emotion and all of his dishes had been in the top 3, until the last challenge. All of a sudden he was crying and opening up about how the mistakes he made in the cooking challenge somehow brought back painful memories of his wife leaving him after she found out he was cheating on her with their teenage son's school teacher. I was feeling for him. When we were done with him, the content director literally gave me a high five and said that was TV gold.

At that moment I noticed my camera had stopped recording. Odd. I didn't remember pressing stop. Like I said, long fucking day. I was confused, so I checked the footage. And there it was. The last clip I recorded: contestant #4. No contestant #5. That's when it sunk in. I never stopped recording because I never pressed record in the first place. This is not uncommon amongst camera operators. It happens when idiots like me forget to press the record button. I could feel my soul leaving me. Without wasting time, I informed the content director and apologized repeatedly.

The content director informed one of the production managers, who explained the situation to the creative director and the producer. Because of me, the production team had to convince contestant #5 to redo his entire interview and repeat the story of his wife leaving him. But it wasn't the same. Contestant #5 was no longer emotional or interested in talking about his past. He just wanted to call it a day like the rest of us. Eventually the content director gave up trying to get him to be sad again and decided to end the interview.

This morning I was included in an email that was sent to the entire crew. It was from the producer. Our boss. The email was a reminder to all camera operators to please make sure that our cameras were recording. I was embarrassed because I knew that email was directed at me. Everyone knew. I made the entire camera team look incompetent. I'm afraid to look the crew in the eye now and I'm pretty sure I'm not getting hired again for future seasons of this show.

TL:DR As a cameraman working on a reality tv show, I had one job - press record. I failed to do that and now an important moment that should've been on camera, is not.