(oh no)

Today was the big taping day, when the hours I've poured into pre-production for two shows is realized in one hour's worth of TV programming. The tapings went well enough, and I got ready to wrap up the shows by posting some b-roll that would have been too difficult to cut in during the live-on-tape process.

And then I made a horrifying discovery. Due to a routing error, the only audio on the record tape was from one of the three playback decks. In other words, none of the sound from our on-set discussion was captured, just the audio from one of three machines. The entire effort was for naught.

Oh no.

My co-host and the crew were already gone, so it's not as though we could regroup and reshoot everything right away. I have something every night the rest of this week, so taping the shows in the next few days is out of the question.

Oh no.

For what it's worth, I'm not angry. When my co-worker found out, he apologized profusely, but I was fine. He made an honest mistake. It happens. Would I prefer that the shows were on tape as I expected them to be? Of course. They're not. So be it.

While I have little desire to reshoot both shows, I've proposed an alternative solution. (My co-host will have an unfortunate surprise the next time he checks his e-mail, so nothing is final yet.) One show will likely hit the scrap heap for timeliness considerations. I expect to tape the other again next week. The most work went it, so saving it is of greater importance.

Ugh...