This was one of my early weddings, and I'm shooting video for a photographer who at that time had a lot of clients from the Mandaean community. It's not a widely known religion, though I saw a Compass episode on it once. One thing they're known for is "drinking the water". In the temples, there is a sort of baptism pool that they both wade into and drink from.


Anyway, I don't speak the language, I'm new to the job, but what I do know is there's certain moments you see in every freaking wedding highlights, and bridal party entering at the reception is one of them. All the groomsmen and bridesmaids (and usually parents) come in dancing, and the brides almost always wave their bouquets in the air. It's high-excitement, high-energy, and it's one of those key things like cutting the cake or exchanging rings or the kiss.


So, I'm all set up, I'm ready to pull focus like mad (in those days, the cameras did not have good autofocus), and then I get kind of a heavy tap on my arm. I'm amongst a loud, cheering crowd, and I figure someone touched me accidentally, so I ignore the pressure.


And then another touch, a pull this time, unmistakeable. I turn around to see who this rude person is, and the father of bride is there. He points around the room.


I'm at a loss. I don't know what he wants. I kind of shake my head and then put my eye back in my camera, assuming he's confused or speaking to the wrong person.


And of course he pulls again, this time more violently, and I can see the bride and groom at the edge of the crowd, already walking in. 


"No video," he yells, through the noise. And I realise he's pointing at large -- and empty -- projector screens, strategically placed around the venue. I realise he wants me to do something about them. He thinks I should be able to project video up there, though I've had no forewarning, and wouldn't even know how to start.


What I want to say is, "Your daughter is literally walking in right now. This is an important moment. I've got to film this." But I've got the volume of the crowd, and also a language barrier to contend with, so all I can do is shake my head and turn back to my camera again.


He huffs (I can hear him through the noise), and I salvage my shot as best I can, and that part goes fine. And, while the dancing continues, I notice him going up to my second shooter, Stefan, and now he's got the venue manager with him as well, and both of them are angrily standing over Stefan.


Stefan puts down his camera and they walk off somewhere.


I keep filming and try to keep my mind on the job. I can't abandon my post now. In my head I'm calculating that, if they get away from the noise, maybe Stefan will be able to explain that we weren't told about live projection and have no experience in it, that what he's asking isn't possible, and that we've got to keep concentrating on what we were hired for. I assume that there was some sort of communication breakdown between him and the photographer who organised the job -- that maybe he took for granted that there would be live video projection, because that's what this community is accustomed to for their large gatherings, but that the photographer wasn't told or didn't understand.


I'm calculating that there will be some angry gesturing, and then Stefan will come back. But what instead happens, after ten minutes, is I see the screens flicker.


Suddenly there's footage of the dancing displayed on them. It's a dodgy shot, blocked by bodies, so that you can't really see anything except a moving crowd, but at least it's a shot, replicated all around the room.


To give you some context: my second shooter, Stefan, is MacGyver. You have no idea. He fashions batteries from discarded laptops into a power source for his bicycle. He reversed engineered the circuitry of a washing machine to be able to control it from his computer. He built the solar system for his house from scratch. He's designed motors for drones. And he's repaired countless pieces of my camera gear that have died under the stresses of weddings.


He's a genius, and a self-taught genius.


So, he was able to hack together a solution.


Apparently, what was needed was an HDMI cable connecting a camera into a wall, and it had to be long enough so that the camera could sit on the dance floor. And we didn't have any of those things. Our DSLRs didn't do proper HDMI out. But what we did have was an old Panasonic camcorder that did "composite out" (the red, white and yellow cables), and we had a bunch of "XLR" cables, which are used for audio and have a completely different connection.


So what Stefan did was plug in a short composite cable to the camera, use a converter so that he could connect that to a line of XLR cables, and then use another converter that adapted XLR to HDMI. It was ingenious, it was dodgy (connecting a video signal into an audio cable? what?), I'd never in a million years have thought to do it, and I had no idea why he happened to have such obscure converters with him -- but it worked.


The camera sat there, unmanned, tethered and unable to be moved around the room, projecting dancing backs for the rest of the evening, but at least we no longer had father of bride and venue manager breathing down our necks.


We had a debrief with our photographer later, and he just shrugged.