Quick! Something particularly exciting has happened! And, for some reason, there's a reporter on the scene, complete with cameraman! At a particularly exciting moment, the reporter has got to turn to the camera and say something to the effect of "Are We Getting This" The answer is usually yes, but it's anyone's guess as to whether the camera will survive the episode.
There is always the possibility that the "reporter" type person will see the entire event happen and conclude before they can ask this important question. In these cases, the question becomes more like: "Did we/you get that?" "Did somebody record that?" They may even beg: "Please tell me somebody got that on video." The results are generally similar.
It also applies to regular bystanders who seek to record the incident for social media views; very easy since The New '10s as almost everyone carries a cellphone with a camera. In that case, and if the event is humiliating for the characters, then it leads to Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!
When the situation is particularly perilous, then the people trying to videotape it are either Intrepid Reporters or Social Media Before Reason hounds.
Might prompt Film the Hand and Turn Off the Camera reactions from the characters involved. Contrast You Just Ruined the Shot, when a hero intervenes in a crime or accident only to learn it was just filming a scene for a movie.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- Digimon Adventure 02: During the Christmas Episode, some rogue Digimon crash a music contest that Matt's competing in. As the younger Digidestined race to take down the dark tower that's mysteriously manifested in the real world, a reporter whether his film crew is successfully capturing the incident.
- Dragon Ball:
- Dragon Ball: In the very first tournament arc, the announcer actually asks Krillin and Jackie Chun to redo one part of their fight at a slower pace because they were going so fast nobody could see it. Chun consents, as it's for television, but asserts that this he won't do it again, so they'd better pay attention.
- Penguin Revolution: Ryo and his rival Narazaki get into a fight on the set of the sentai show they're filming. Since the episode being filmed calls for their characters to fight, the director of the episode immediately demands that the cameras start rolling.
- Pokémon: The Series: In the English dub, the reporter commented that Team Rocket was making a dramatic exit through the roof—then she turned to the camera and said gleefully "Just like our ratings will!"
Comic Books
- Cartoon Network Block Party #53: In "No Pain, No Game", Billy auditions for an extreme Japanese game show. He has Mandy record his actions with a video camera, none of which gets on tape because Mandy (perhaps deliberately) left the lens cap on.
- Onslaught: It's used to tragic effect as longtime X-Men character Trish Tilby's video report appears to show the X-Men betraying and murdering the Fantastic Four and Avengers.
- The Transformers: Robots in Disguise: In Vol. 2, issue #54, Cybertronian reporter Circuit asks his cameraman Longtooth if he's catching footage of Optimus Prime summoning Metrotitan from the Earth's ground.
Circuit: Longtooth, old buddy...tell me you got that on camera.
Fan Works
- Feralnette AU: Deconstructed with Alya, whose desire to capture all the exciting footage she can for her Ladyblog causes her to unintentionally get in Ladybug's way. This only gets worse after Ladybug calls her out on her Skewed Priorities and declares that she's blacklisting her blog until she can get her head on straight. Alya dramatically misunderstands the point her idol was trying to make and grows even more reckless.
- Alya also shocks Felix by filming his hypothesizing over why White Knight's attack didn't work on Marc without asking for permission, declaring that he'd unwittingly provided a good recap for her viewers.
- Marinette calls her out on this mentality during Birds of a Feather, when Alya gives her grief for protecting an innocent bystander from an akuma:
Marinette: Sure, let's have this conversation now. So it's fine when you, the blogger, run off to follow dangerous akuma for social media, but if I run off to try and help people, it's time for me to be lectured?
- Terra Incognita: While filming a segment about the more negative reactions people are having to monster emerging from the underground, a reporter gets startled by Hal zipping by on a rocket-powered bike. Upon recovering from the shock, he immediately states "Ian, tell me you got that."
Films — Animation
- Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: After Buzz finishes his Patrick Stewart Speech, Zurg makes sure it has been captured on camera so that he can laugh at it later.
- Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow: The movie director keeps yelling "Keep filming, keep filming!" every time someone attacks the princess/actress Team 7 is protecting.
Films — Live-Action
- Die Hard:
- Die Hard: A reporter asks his cameraman this twice. First after a massive explosion inside Nakatomi Plaza, and then sarcastically after being punched in the face by Holly Gennero.
- Die Hard 2: Inverted when the cameraman, seeing Holly and John finally getting together and starting to kiss, remarks that he is getting it to the news reporter. She then covers the camera, deliberately ruining the shot.
- Lifepod: When Parker has to have his leg amputated, he insists that Clara record it on her video camera because he wants others to know what he endured. Later when the footage is reviewed, someone notices that the supposedly blind member of their group dodged a splint that came flying in his direction while Parker was thrashing about.
- Pearl Harbor: While the Japanese are attacking the titular location, one of the characters is filming the planes coming in with a camera yelling "This is great footage!" Too bad, he gets shot for his trouble, on camera.
- [REC] 2: A priest follows a SWAT team through an apartment building that is constantly ordering a cameraman to film various things they encounter.
Literature
- Able Team #8 "Army of Devils: A crew for a radical left-wing news station pull up at a building that Able Team is raiding. Their producer tells the sound guy to record the gunfire so they can loop and dub it to "make it sound like World War 3". Just then there's an eruption of automatic fire, causing the sound guy to comment: "Won't have to overdub that!"
- Uglies:: In Extras, the main character, Aya, is constantly asking her hovercam, Moggle, "Are you getting this?"
Live-Action TV
- Sanctuary (2007): A reporter witnesses several nasty things, is duly horrified, and then, as soon as she can speak again, asks "Did we get that?".
- Saturday Night Live:
- A Running Gag on the recurring "Boston Teens" skit involved someone making an innuendo, at which point Sully (one of the teens in question) would turn to the camera and say, "Tommy (the unseen teen holding the recorder), please tell me you got that!"
- In one of the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches, Alex Trebek has this response to a Final Jeopardy! response that could actually be interpreted as correct. ("Where are you?" "Indoors.")
- The Suite Life on Deck: In "Can You Dig It?", Baily is possessed by an ancient princess. She attacks Zack while he's being interviewed by a local reporter for discovering an ancient artifact. The reporter's response? To record it because it's a way better story than what she had in store.
Reporter: Get this! This will be better than my story on the coconut that looked like Estabon Francesco!
Webcomics
- The Whiteboard: Daryl manages to take down Doc using one of Doc's special paint grenades. Red asks if anybody got it on video.
Bandit had 2 GoPros and an iPhone.
- Schlock Mercenary has this show up ("Are you getting all this?" "Are you kidding?"); When you have a crisis where a character earns the name "Longshoreman Of The Apocalypse", you had better hope someone is filming.
A lone figure stands unbuffeted at the edge of the hole. In the shadow of the mighty ship, and at the heart of the Maelstrom.
He is The Longshoreman Of The Apocalypse, and at his command this apocalypse is drawn to a crushing end.
...He is going to make the news.
Western Animation
- Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines: In "Lens A Hand," Dick Dastardly has Muttley take photos of the Squadron in action to prove to the General that they're not just collecting flight pay. Muttley gets everything—mistakes and all.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: Defied in "Snake Hunt". TV archaeologist Wesley Rank encounters a gigantic snake but is more concerned with getting out alive and in possession of the snake talisman it's guarding. Rank's camera operator remains calm and shines the camera's spotlight into the snake's eyes to blind it.
Rank: Crikey, I didn't tell you to film that!
Cameraman: Hello, I'm blinding it! Snakes don't have eyelids! - Miraculous Ladybug: Alya Césaire is the living embodiment of this trope. Since she's running an amateur news blog, Alya is reporter and camerawoman at the same time, so she doesn't spell the trope out but has a knee-jerk reaction of go recording Akuma attacks. It's often at the cost of personal safety, even if she learns to be less reckless with time. In "The Pharaoh", she approaches the Monster of the Week to interview him for her viewer's sake. She's also very willing to continue her livestream and excitedly comments on the facts even as she's being kidnapped by the Akuma to be sacrificed.
- Young Justice: In "Targets", Cheshire attempts to assassinate Lex Luthor with an RPG, but is foiled by Red Arrow, reporter Cat Grant desperately asks her cameraman if he got the shot.
