Going Tapeless

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Here’s a quick guide to going tapeless.

First, you have a big decision to make: Will you use each media card only once or will you recycle them as you shoot? The first option is much safer, but it’s not always possible. For example, some proprietary card formats like Panasonic’s P2 will set you back several hundred dollars a card. However, with standard SD cards, single use is a viable option. You will likely need 30–50 cards, so it won’t be cheap, but it will be secure.

The second option, recycling your cards as you go, is the choice of most indie filmmakers at present. The best way to do this is to have one day’s worth of cards on hand—typically, about 8–10 16GB cards. With a day’s worth of cards, you won’t be forced to delete any media while you are actually shooting. By recycling as you go, you’ll save several hundred dollars, but you’ll have the added stress of deleting media from your cards after a long day of shooting, when perhaps you are tired and a bit prone to error.

Whichever option you chose, you should plan on having an on-set media workstation and a DIT (digital imaging technician) to collect the media from the camera crew, copy it onto your hard drives, organize it, and possibly rename the files. You’ll also want a backup scheme and will only want to erase the cards after you’re certain that everything is in order. Then you can put the cards back into play.

This is a job that might seem simple, and yet you want to make sure that it’s done by someone you have complete confidence in, because your film will literally be in their hands.

On-set Media Workstations

A typical on-set media workstation consists of a laptop and two backup drives. Typically, these drives will end up as part of your editing workstation, so you might as well get drives that are up to the job. You’ll need 7200RPM (or greater) drives that use a fast connection: eSATA, FireWire 400, or FireWire 800. (USB drives are cheap and prevalent, but they are just too slow for HD.) A typical feature film shoots about 30–60GB per day, and by the end of your shoot, you are likely to have about 1TB of media, so two 1TB drives should suffice for most projects.

The media workstation will need to be somewhat mobile/portable, and it will need a guaranteed power supply. Often, a small rolling cart and folding chair will do the job, but if you’re shooting exteriors without a generator, be aware that getting power to the drives can be tricky.

Media Cards and Workflow

Once the workstation is set up, the next order of business is working out the details of getting drives to and from the cameras. You should have two containers for media cards— one for cards that are empty and ready to be used by the camera crew and one for cards that are full and waiting to be ingested into the media workstation. Ziplock bags work well for this. You should clearly label these containers because there is no margin for error here. If you hand a full card to the assistant camera operator and she reformats it in the camera, thinking the media has already been transferred to the hard drives, you just lost your footage.

Traditionally, every roll of film or piece of videotape that goes into the camera is given a number by the assistant camera crew, and this number is recorded on the slate. Similarly, each media card should be given a camera roll number (Figure 10.22). This extra step of numbering will help make it clearer which cards have been used in the camera and which haven’t, in case there is any confusion on the set. Even if your project isn’t scripted, having camera roll numbers can be a helpful way of organizing media for post. It’s also a good policy not to have any folders on your drive share the same name so that you don’t accidentally copy over anything. Instead of having several folders called “A-cam,” you can name each folder by camera letter and roll number.

Figure 10.22

These SD cards were used during the shoot and given roll numbers by the assistant camera operator.

Note that the tape on these drives is positioned so as not to interfere with drive operations.

Organizing Media on the Set

Once a card is filled with media, it should be immediately loaded into the computer and the contents copied onto one of the hard drives. At this point, it’s considered a good idea to rename the raw camera files (Figure 10.23). Unless your camera lets you name files, each shot will be on the card with a name like 0001.mov, which isn’t too helpful for post. The file should be renamed to match the info on the slate so that 0001.mov becomes 54A-1.mov. Sometimes if it’s a multi-cam shoot, it’s wise to add the camera letter to the filename as well, such as

54A-1a.mov.

You should make a folder for each date that you shoot, a subfolder for each camera (if multicam), and then another subfolder for each camera roll. DSLR cameras tend to create extra thumbnail files that you can delete at this point.

236 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E

Figure 10.23

The folder on the left has the raw media files from the camera; the folder on the right has files that have been renamed according to information on the slate.

File Naming Conventions

Always name your files in a way that is compatible with the operating system and editing software used by your editing workstation. And always make sure to use the same naming conventions for all the media in your production.

After the files are renamed, they should be backed up to the second hard drive as well. This is purely a security measure, but drives are known to fail, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. Once the media is renamed and stored on two hard drives, you can delete the media from the card. Once again, we recommend being extra careful before you delete anything. Check that the files on the hard drive are working properly. If time permits, you should watch them all the way through. This isn’t always feasible, but it is the best way to know that the media is secure before you delete your camera originals.

If you follow these steps shown in Figure 10.24, your media will be organized and ready to import into your editing software when the shoot is finished.