I’ve made approximately a quarter million stupid mistakes within the short span of my life. It sucks. You sit down to edit and realize that you forgot to turn on the mic for the interview or didn’t white balance. You get to a shoot and your batteries are already dead. Your first time working as a PA and you lose your headset. The list goes on and on and you walk away feeling like the world’s biggest chump because this one tiny error jeopardized the quality of the whole project. But behold, this plague of blunders is not the end of the world or your career, ask any media professional and they can tell you that this is just how you make your start.

My goal for this article is to show you the boneheaded mistakes I’ve as a n00b so you don’t have to repeat them (even if you do I can assure you you’ll never repeat them again) — hopefully I don’t get too preachy in the process, I’m just here to lend a hand.

Preventing Dumb Mistakes or Recovering From Them

The best way to keep yourself from goofing up hardcore is the cliched old “PREPARATION, PREPARATION, PREPARATION.” By taking extra time to get ready to work, you can catch yourself early on from any of that forgetful nonsense, you’ll notice any gear that’s missing or malfunctioning, you’ll discover that one piece you forgot to put in your camera bag, before you begin you’ll be confident and ready.

For every project try to be diligent and thorough in your pre-production process–having all the bases covered with a shot list, story board, prop list, all that good stuff and et cetera will help you realize exactly what you will need entering production and save your ass in the long run. If, like me, you find that most of your technical errors stem from forgetfulness, make yourself a checklist of every step of the process for that production stage, don’t be afraid to add even the little things like “turn on camera” if you feel like you may need it. Inspect all of your gear before you go on a shoot, and try to have it all packed up and ready to go the night before.

Once you’re done filming save your footage to your computer or external hard drive or cloud system or I don’t care what as soon as possible. The last thing you want to do is forget to save it and either run out of memory for the next day’s shoot, lose the footage, or forget it’s still on there and delete it all while reformatting your memory card (however if this last one does happen there is a few ways to recover it). Having a method of organizing footage will also save you a lot of trouble.

Common Dumb Mistakes

You’re about to see a reoccurring theme here. The most commonly repeated errors are the result filmmakers assuming they can get away with skipping steps or haphazardness preparation. Here’s a quick run down…

Lighting: “Meh, we probably won’t need lights there” YES YOU WILL. Make your life easier and just bring the basics.

“Meh, we probably won’t need lights there” YES YOU WILL. Make your life easier and just bring the basics. Audio: The best advice I can give on audio is just pay attention–to your levels, to background noise, and to your input. Also please for the love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer never use the mic built into your camera. Learn some more tips and tricks here.

The best advice I can give on audio is just pay attention–to your levels, to background noise, and to your input. Also please for the love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer never use the mic built into your camera. Learn some more tips and tricks here. Video: If you forget to white balance or you don’t get your exposure quite right you can always color correct in post but never just say “eh, it’s not too good but we’ll fix it in post” I promise it will never look as good as you think it will and your editor will hate you. Also try to be mindful of the 180 rule.

If you forget to white balance or you don’t get your exposure quite right you can always color correct in post but never just say “eh, it’s not too good but we’ll fix it in post” I promise it will never look as good as you think it will and your editor will hate you. Also try to be mindful of the 180 rule. Editing: Avoid cuts that are too long, watch for poor juxtaposition, and keep an eye out for out-of-sync audio – check out this article for more details!

When You Mess Up Anyways

Making mistakes sucks and takes a huge poop on your ego but it is the number one way to learn techniques you will not forget and to find your techniques– I cannot emphasize this enough. Frankly this is how we learn. Someone can walk you through every step of a process that is new to you, but you’ll never really understand how to do it until you learn what not to do. Failure is essential to learning. Ed Catmull, President of Pixar, has a really great chapter dedicated to this whole idea in his book Creativity, Inc.

“We need to think about failure differently. I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality).”

My last piece of advice is to record your progress. Keep a section in your notebook or a document on your computer dedicated just to reviewing what you’ve done for a recently completed projects. Write down things you did well, things you learned, and things you aim to improve on for next time so you can look back on your growth.

Do you have any rookie mistake horror stories? Or maybe some questions on what else to be careful of? Let me know in the comment section!