That 8 AM edit session in Denver that went sideways

Last month I booked a rush wedding film for a couple in Denver, 3 hours of ceremony and reception footage, and I promised delivery in 10 days. Their coordinator kept texting me new must-have shots, so I was rewriting my timeline at 8 AM on a Saturday, which is fine, but then my external drive started clicking halfway through the export. I lost about 2 hours of color grading because my backup was from last Tuesday, and I had to redo skin tones on the entire first dance from memory. The client never knew, but I ate $150 in late fees to a stock music site for a track extension I had to pull last minute. Has anyone else had a drive fail right in the middle of a tight turnaround, and what do you actually keep on your desk for quick recovery?

2 comments

2 Comments

finley_roberts2710d ago

Man, that clicking sound is basically the horror movie soundtrack for editors. My buddy Jake had the exact same thing happen mid-edit on a wedding he was rushing for a Saturday. He heard the drive start ticking and just sat there staring at it for like a full minute before he even moved, hoping it was a fluke. He had a backup from two days prior but lost a whole evening of cutting the highlight reel, so he had to redo all the transitions from scratch before the couple woke up. Now he keeps a cheap 1TB SSD in his glovebox, not even in his bag, and he swears by the 3-2-1 thing but only after it bit him once.

corap6110d ago

So you mentioned your backup was from last Tuesday, and honestly that is the exact mistake I made too before I learned my lesson. I now keep three copies of any project I am actively editing, one on the internal drive, one on a tiny portable SSD that lives in my camera bag, and one on a cloud folder that syncs overnight. The cloud one has saved me more times than I want to admit, because it grabs the file even if I forget to manually back up. And for quick recovery, I always keep a spare external drive in my desk drawer that is already formatted and tested, so I can swap it in without thinking. It costs about sixty bucks and it is the best insurance I have for those panic moments. The clicking sound is the worst, I swear every editor knows that feeling in their stomach when they hear it.