May 11, 2009
It can be incredibly monotonous to sort through raw footage, especially if the director of photography has failed to properly prep and label the tapes. Imagine sitting at your work station trying to organize footage that has broken time code, mismatched labels (or worse yet, no labels at all), or labels with incredbily vague information (like “Tape 1.”) Any good cinematographer should always think of the editor when prepping for a shoot. It will make post-production a much more efficient process. Here are some important tips to remember:
- Pack Each Tape - When you unwrap a brand new tape, fast-forward all the way to the end, then rewind all the way to the beginning. This method of “packing” the tape is much like an athlete stretching before an event. It will help prevent drop-out and digital artifacting.
- Stripe Each Tape - Pop the tape into the camera and roll about 15-30 seconds of color bars and 1KHz audio tone. This will help the editor calibrate his/her equipment before capturing the footage.
- Label Each Tape - It’s amazing how often people simply forget to label the tape, or they neglect to put enough information on the label. Always label both the case and the tape itself. On the label I like to write the client’s name, the project name (and a project number, if applicable), the date, and the tape number.
- Preset the Timecode - Set the “hours” mark of your timecode to correspond with the tape number. Tape #1 should be, “1:00:00:00,” Tape #2 should be, “2:00:00:00,” and so on. That way, when the editor is looking at the footage in studio, he/she can tell instantly from which tape a particular scene came. Also, if someone ignores tip #3, an editor will know instantly what number tape he/she has in the deck.
Video Production is a collaborative process and a professional courtesy is always appreciated.
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