DV tape messed up with wedding footage
 

I skipped through 8 of the 9 tapes from the wedding video, and was reasonably happy....until I got to the last tape.
I pushed play and up came the picture of death, as in no picture, except a few blocky sections with a hint of the picture that should be there. No audio either. The whole tape is like it.

Thoughts?
Should I just grab my bottle of Stolichnaya and go cry under my desk until it all goes away?

was it JVC?

Have you played it back in more than one device yet? Could be dirty playback heads. Scanning through so many tapes could have gotten the heads dirty.

It was a Fujifilm tape, same as the others.
I played it back on 2 different cameras (ZR40 and XL1) and it is the same on both.

Stoli seems appropriate...this actually happened to me once while shooting a wedding...the tape was definetely gone...the only thing that saved me was the fact that there was another guy there taping the wedding just for himself...i got in contact with him and ended up using HIS footage to finish the project...a little color correction and some post image stabilization and they managed to cut together OK

at least it was better than having a chunk of the wedding missing!

Suggestion: Just do like Michael Moore did in "Bowling for Columbine" and animate that part of the ceremony.

Call some of the post houses in town and find out if any of them have a DV deck that has Dynamic tracking (DT). If they do, get them to make a copy of your tape for you. I'm thinking (hoping) it is just a tracking problem (tape path alignment, head alignment). The other possibility is one or both of the record heads got dirty. In which case you SOL.

If in fact you are SOL, yes, start with the Stoli, then move to something more powerful, arsenic comes to mind. :)
Actually, you should still be able to get a really good edit from what you've got except for the ending shots. I'm of course assuming you got the important stuff, people making fools of themselves jumping for some flowers, going for the garter, dances, smashing the cake into each others faces, etc, etc. Depending on what might be missing, start the recap, maybe use some stills in there and you can always put a disclaimer in; you know something to the effect of, "Due to technical difficulties the goodbye wave will not be seen tonight" or some thing like that. If you can't get the tape salvaged as was suggested, make sure you let the couple know, so nothing comes up later. Of course since it was a freebie, you can always tell them, "look, you get what you pay for, you paid nothing, and I couldn't afford another tape"
Of course, your better half (she got you into this in the 1st place, right?!) will probably not speak to you again but...hey arsenic is beginning to sound pretty good.
I'm half kidding around but I know how you feel, I've been there, I actually lost a tape once, like you, it was the last but for the most part I was able to deal with it and so did the couple.
Try to get it duped, if not do the best you can.
Good Luck
Don

Well, until I sort through all of the footage, I may not be F-ed. To this point, I have just been getting the tapes in order, and not wathing them straight through. We were shooting all the important events of the reception with two cameras. Keith was shooting wide shots and I was shooting close-ups for b-roll footage, and more importantly, good sound. I think the tape came from Keith's camera (I hope I hope), so that mine with the sound is preserved.
Will let you know tomorrow.

PS, I gave my ZR40 to my woman to shoot the bride preparation, since it was mostly girls in states of undress. She can't say nuthin 'bout nuthin as her tape contained 15 minutes of great footage and 45 minutes of people's feet. :) Which is fine, I just wanted some footage for a montage anyway.

Are you going to be selling that ZR40 footage?

Frank, I'd better not. They know where I live.

Besides, knowing my luck, it would all be of naked feet. :)

I remember watching my friend Case prepare for a Wedding shoot, he tested each tape for a few seconds before numbering and repacking them, I can see the sence in that after this post.
Peter

Hey,
feet can be fun (for some people) and whats wrong with a bunch of pretty young girls in various stages of dress? Ahhh, I'm dreaming again. I actually hire my daughter (she's 32 and very very creative) to do the footage of the girls getting ready, I guess even though I'm old they prefer to have a female. Fine by me, who needs a bunch of giddy nervous girls just before the wedding anyway?! (who am I kidding :)
As for the challenge you faced I really do hope that Keiths tape will cover you, but it does prove the point I've tried to make all along. Live events like weddings and mitzvahs which can not be reproduced in whole or in part can be the hardest thing to shoot. The pressure of getting it right can be enormous and I've known some folks who have quit because of that. (There are other reasons I'm sure). The point is when I hear "Gee, I'm going to buy this great camera and get into the wedding biz" I cringe just a little because some folks just don't have a clue as to what they're getting themselves into. I've done my share of weddings and events and I have to say that for the most part they were at least OK, some were great fun and some were enough to make me want to kill someone, but by and large it's a great way for some people to make a living. Not everyone, but that's alright, if everyone was doing weddings who'd be doing the TV commericals?
Remember; Hours of boredom, moments of terror!
Don

The feet things reminds me of the old big VHS camcorder days. A friend of mine's daughter was getting married and he wanted me to shoot the wedding with his clunker, so I did. Also, another friend of his had yet another big clunker of a VHS camcorder...He also shot the wedding...but he screwed up...turned the camera off when he thought he was turning it on. So, he missed about everything he thought he was shooting. However...the good part is, he (thought) he turned the camera off, got tired of carrying it around, and sat it on the floor right under the table where the punchbowl was. So, there was this camera running for nearly 2 hours, shooting feet. And the really good part was the sound...everybody talking about everybody else, etc. You can imagine the conversations...things like a shot of a woman's feet in high heels, next to a shot of a guy's shoes...guy tapping foot, woman's voice, "...she's such a bitch..." It was fantastic! We intercut the foot/conversation shots throughout the wedding. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Hey Bill,
That's sounds like something I might even pay to see!