Extremely Remote Video Production, Tape 2

The Story so far: After a heroic depletion of the stock at the Delta Crown Room, our video dudes head for France. They have some interesting video production experiences, but none of them seem to make it into the record. Instead, we get endless mockery of the fine French people and their customs. Enough of that…let’s hassle the Germans now! But first…

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Beware the chunky local voltage! While in France we completely fried our video battery charger. I suppose we were asking for trouble, the way we left it plugged in for over an hour. It was only a blown fuse at first, but then a well-meaning French technician tried to “help.” It turns out he merely placed the French equivalent of a penny in the fuse box. Now, don’t let the fact that their currency is worthless fool you…”centime” can wreak as much havoc as an Abe Lincoln any day. Plus it has a bad attitude and it smells.

So we had to rent a battery charger at our next destination: Dusseldorf, Germany. And if you’ve ever crammed 15 mighty German volts into a cheap American knockoff of a Japanese 12 volt battery, then you have lived dangerously. The good news is you won’t need lights…the batteries will glow like a dozen sunsets.

Speaking of lights, here’s one of my dumb mistakes you can avoid. Either convert their 220v power to your 110v lights, or switch to 220v lamps…don’t do both. The result is weirdly half-powered lights and color temperatures that are more suitable for slasher movies or cheap 1970’s porn flicks than they are for corporate video.

Quick Tip: Avoid local ripoffs. After a $60 taxi ride from the Dusseldorf airport, our surly taxi driver refused to accept American Express. He was angry because, with all of our gear, we had to use his deluxe 10-seater taxi instead of the typical Euro-heap which is blow-molded around a human body. Anyway, he refused, despite the huge AmEx sticker on his windshield. So we did the only honorable thing…we ratted him out to the hotel concierge. I’ll tell you, seeing that little burgermeister barrel out of the hotel and utterly humiliate that jerk filled us with such German pride that we felt like invading Austria. So we did…but we had drinks first.