Toby Gorman Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 Hi all, I have a little conundrum I was hoping somebody could help with... Just finished a low budget indie weekend shoot. We had two 2.5k HMI's amongst other things. We couldn?t use them both at the same time because the locations electricity was not as robust as it originally seemed, but both heads were used at different times, and both were fine. We have just been contacted by the rental house who are claiming that one of the bulbs is blown, and they want to charge us for it. We never noticed either of them blowing, and I am wondering whether this could have happened in transit. The kit was picked up from the location by a driver from the rental house, so I assume that if it was broken at this point that the responsibility would not be ours. So question is, would there be tell tale signs if the bulb was damaged through transit rather than blowing onset, such as lack of burn marks etc? Anybody else had this problem, and if so, how did you deal with it? Many thanks, Toby Gorman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert duke Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 I have run across rental houses doing things like this. Your best bet is to go to the rental house and talk to them in person. Ask to see the lamp. explain your situation. Meanwhile price out a replacement lamp online so you have a real price to haggle to in the event of a deadlock. unless you can prove (very unlikely) that you didn't blow the lamp/break the lamp you may need to just pony up and pay. Just remember this next time you deal with rentals. The low bidder on rentals sometimes is the low because there are hidden costs, some may not even be legit. I had a rental company charge for lights that werent even ordered, gels we never had, rags we never opened, damaged items we never loaded onto the truck. It is a PR nightmare for the rental house. Houses try not to have these things happen, but some bad apples try to stick it to low budgets. The lamp could have blown as you lowered the light turned off. It could have happened carrying a not fully cooled lamp to the truck. with out verification there is no proof of anything. It is one of the little things you do checking things back in. As you hand the light over to the rental house open it up and look at the lamp. Time consuming but covers your astrik. All part of the best boy's job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Bowerbank Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 There's rarely time for it, but it would be a good idea in the future to run through the list with the company's driver as things are being loaded back into the truck to make sure everything's accounted for and little details like "bulbs intact" are put in writing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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