Posted by Mike Rivers on 09/14/06 11:38

WillStG wrote:

> There are plenty of ways to get bagged.
> The guys at the facility down the street can be using RF's on your
> frequency, or you could have ENG guys covering a story nearby using
> RF's that knock your mics down.

That wasn't the case here, and it's certainly easy to recognize. Don't
they ever solo channels before turning them on?

> Or your floor assistant can just forget to turn the mic on. Or
> he can put the wrong mic out. He can forget that there is a lavalier
> mic on the same frequency as the stick that he has left on

I've done that sort of thing myself when I was the "floor assistant" on
a festival show, but we take care of it, and we get chewed out, and
sometimes we don't get hired again. There's a natural selection
proceess at work, and by the time someone gets to working on a major
network show, one of the things that gets him there is being known for
not making mistakes. Of course there's always that "first time," but
it's usually the "last time" unless the union is really good (and it
may be).

> A hardwired mic cable can unknowingly get kicked out of the wall by a
> stagehand. Someone can bump up against the patchbay cables and bust a
> military connector. Or someone could drive the lighting genie over
> your audio snake,

They don't last. Or at least they shouldn't.

> Really experience just means you've been bagged before, and now
> know what to look out for.

Exactly - but you don't personally have to get bagged to gain from the
experience of others. I'm not saying that anyone can be immune to
accidents and mistakes, but they better they are, the less frequently
they happen.

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