End slating

[Thom Steinhoff]

In the thread about "Just hit Delete" in the workflow area, End slating was brought up and Stuart said...


Explain ?

I thought I'd give it a try but realized the thread was old and since it was a hijack topic anyway, I'd just move it where it belongs and start a new one!

Stuart,

Since I don't feel like working this afternoon, I thought I would give the slating explanation a try as I've been designing software interfaces for 20 years or so--and I find it fun.

I will preface this with saying that I have never seen a Viper or Dalsa or even a Varicam camera interface (take this for what it's worth), but I just sort of make it up as I go along.

I started with a looking at the renders of your back panel and assumed 5 on top and 3 on the side were all I have to work with. Since I don't know if it is color or not (most likely yes) I decided to make it work in B/W first as color will just enhance it.

This shows a rough idea of what I was thinking for end slating. It's a bit rough, but you'll get the idea.

In my scenario, a single shot has been completed...

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/rocketbaby/scenetake.jpg

The Slate would be Scene, Take, Quality of take, and a user code. Also notice a bunch of meta data. Not sure how you plan to set some meta data, but this would be set in the menus as it wouldn't change much take to take. Notice that the top buttons would correct the scene/quality/user and the left buttons would reverse a clip, play the current clip or move to the next clip to adjust the scene information to get ready for the next take.

I would assume the quality button would be:

Good, Bad, Best, Technical, Blooper, etc. and would cycle.

The circle with a square is a way to say "Stopped". If it was playing back it would be a play triangle and if it was recording it would be a blinking circle.

The Prev Button would step you back to the previous clip to play it back or mark it for deletion.

Hitting the alt key...

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/rocketbaby/permerase.jpg

would allow you to reverse the direction of the buttons on the top or Delete this clip perminantly if it is the last clip on the chain. If you selected it, it would give you a "Are you sure?" dialog before deleting it.

If you had cycled back to a previous clip and tried to delete the clip with the same "alt-Erase" it gives you a different option...

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/rocketbaby/notlast.jpg

Allowing you to flag the clip to be deleted (Assuming Red Cine or someone else would take care of the deletion, but not actually delete it.

Since this is just marking it, if you alt-delete again--it should allow you to "Unmark this clip for deletion"

If you want to move to the next clip and get the metadata ready for it, it would look something like this:

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/rocketbaby/nextclip.jpg

Best Regards,

Thom

[Jaime Vallés]

Very impressive, Thom! Wow, this would really help speed things up in the editing room. Bye bye "Log and Capture"... Can't say I'm going to miss you!

[feb31films]

Thom,

Glad you plucked this out into its own thread. I was reading the other thread and came across your query and thought to myself "That's a really good question!", but the thread moved on...

Whether or not "clip deletion" actually makes it into the Red camera, the ability to tailslate is a HUGE benefit for post production and I really hope it finds its way into the camera sooner than later. Like Mike Curtis, my bread and butter is in editing and post production, but I also do a fair amount of shooting. Digital tailslating is one of those tools that really showcases the advantages of a digital workflow. In addition to the speed increase on the set (no more waiting for a PA to change the clapboard and place somewhere in frame where its actually in focus) to the gains in the edit suite: pure pristine slate located exactly at the end of the clip with no need for shuttling through tape trying to catch a glimpse of that clapper.

Your mockups are very thorough and clean. Nice job!!!

[Joel Kaye]

Digital Slates were definitely mentioned as a feature request months ago. Fincher used it on Zodiak and said it was a big time saver so I would have thought the RED team would have taken the idea seriously. NAB will tell.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Thom,

This is very impressive.. You know you gotta love this about what we all do here. We not only give advice, feedback, and requests here, but we actually assist in idea development! This camera has truely been designed in part by the people that use it.

Kudos to you sir

Jay

[Ken Willinger]

Very cool, it would be a great addition. Now we would also need a way for the PA to input the info via bluetooth from a PDA, so the DP doesn't have to deal with it after every take!

[Thom Steinhoff]

...you gotta love this about what we all do here. We not only give advice, feedback, and requests here, but we actually assist in idea development! This camera has truely been designed in part by the people that use it.

What keeps us all coming back here to RedUser is the chance to participate in something that is going to change the world by offering a bit of out own experience or a seed of an idea that we all develop into something that may eventually be worthy of including in the camera.

Our individual experience combined with their openness, receptiveness to ideas and their collaborative spirit is what is going to make this camera so amazing.

Though it may be too late to get some of these ideas into Red 1.0--all of us, the RedUser design team, have started gathering requirements for Red 1.1!

[Stuart English]

Thank you VERY much for that feedback Thom. This is the kind of thing that makes this board (and I also acknowledge DVINFO) a great resource to the RED team.

[Thom Steinhoff]

Glad to be of service!

So, now back to the original question, Stuart: do we have any chance of getting this kind of slating and clip deleting in Red One either now or down the road? :)

[Casey Green]

Good thread. Here are some additional Abbreviations that might be useful on a digital end slate:

VFX - Visual FX Shot
MOS - Minus Optical Sound / Mit Out Sound (No Sound)
WLD - Sound Only (Wild Track - if only using the onboard storage for your sound recording)
DFN - Day for Night
GD - Good
NG - No Good
CRL - Circle Take (Director's preferred take(s) chosen to "Print")
FS - False Start
PU - Pick Up
IST- Insert Shot

[Jeff Brue]

As far as ideas on the smart slate...might want to check that S2 doesn't have that patented. It definatly a feature from S2 that day in day out makes my life a hell of a lot easier, and I'd love to see it on the red.

Some additional ideas though about attached meta data from my experiance with the S2 workflow.

It should have two timecode fields: Time of Day and User Set timecode.
It should have automatic advancement of fields
All of this information can and should be encoded into attached redcode raw files and then be made available to quicktimes, DPX, and OMF's in red cine.
Also should each shot should have a global unique identifier (ie 16 digit alpha numeric that would run out in 10-20 years) specific to camera shot on for automatic retrieval for final conform and editing.

I have a ton of others but I have to get back to work.


Jeff Brue
Technical Director
Digital Film Company

[tj williams]

Thom thanks for taking the time to demonstrate a really well thought out approach to clip management. I hope the RED team's implementation of clip management includes tail slate and delete as well thought out as yours. TAil slating wil be really special for those times when the dog sits up and tilts its head.... and you roll and try to catch it, with a dat recording on the bark....

[LighthouseMEdia]

Omgosh Freaking Genius Guys!!!!!!!!!!!!
I Would Looooovvvvee To Have This Capability...
Firmware Update Jim?????

:)

[Thom Steinhoff]

Glad everyone likes it.

Just got to thinking I didn't factor in audio here. So I thought I would give that a try. Also, I thought of a better place to put "Meta" so you could change it on old clips while it is still in the camera (in case you screwed up)

So, in the main window I would add A1, A2 above the timecode to show that Audio 1 and 2 were recorded. Didn't redraw it as it is easy to imagine

So here is the new Alt menu to expose audio...

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/rocketbaby/newalt.jpg

Meta I haven't played with yet. But audio I thought could be like

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/rocketbaby/audio.jpg

Where the levels would play back if you played it or you could switch to live to see the current levels. Also, I would think if you are messing with the volume on the sides, the meters should come up and then go away after 2 seconds of not messing with them. As you can see in this example, only A1 & A2 were recorded. The top buttons would be to mute audio on playback (in case you aren't sure where the humm is coming from) or turn off audio in the live to not record on certain chanels.

I'm sure Red already has all of this, but it is fun to play!

Thom

[Thom Steinhoff]

Good thread. Here are some additional Abbreviations that might be useful on a digital end slate:

VFX - Visual FX Shot
MOS - Minus Optical Sound / Mit Out Sound (No Sound)
WLD - Sound Only (Wild Track - if only using the onboard storage for your sound recording)
DFN - Day for Night
GD - Good
NG - No Good
CRL - Circle Take (Director's preferred take(s) chosen to "Print")
FS - False Start
PU - Pick Up
IST- Insert Shot

I was going to play with this and incorporate, the difficult thing with these is that they are not mutually exclusive. For example you could have a False start on a Visual FX shot that is shooting Day for Night.

Some of these may be better suited for META that hopefully could be set remotely anyway (via PDA or laptop)

[Casey Green]

...the difficult thing with these is that they are not mutually exclusive. For example you could have a False start on a Visual FX shot that is shooting Day for Night.


exactly - I thought the same thing, however, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to allow for easy access to quickly enable/disable multiple attributes... perhaps something like:

[+] VFX
[-] MOS
[-] WLD
[+] DFN
[+] GD
[-] NG
[+] CRL
[-] FS
[-] PU
[-] IST

Possibly a sub-menu that can cycle through the categories quickly while another button toggles the mode.

[Dominic Jones]

Great thread...

I think, with regards to abbreviations for the slate, that they risk getting too complicated a system to be really useful. Maybe they could be simplified down by splitting them up into groups?

For instance, some of those abbreviations are tags that you would want to put on a single clip - e.g. GD,NG,CRL,FS and probably WLD.

Others would describe a session of shooting, or decent sized part thereof - for instance VFX,MOS,PU,DFN - if you're doing one Day for Night shot, you're probably doing more...

Just a thought - the idea of an on/off toggle list you have to negotiate multiple times after each take seems a little cumbersome if you're having to moving fast!

[Gunleik Groven]

As I am in the middle of a rather messy Log and capture session, I feel like I could start to pray...

But that'd be out of charracter -;)

Sp I just salute this thread instead.

Well, back to work!

Gunleik

[Phil Becque]

I really like this idea - it would have saved me a ton of time - even in my limited experience. I'm sure the RED team will get impliment this before too long.

Excellent !!

Thanks Thom!!

[Zakaree Sandberg]

editing would be a breeze..

[Greg Voevodsky]

Editing a breeze?! LOL... just as easy as production. ;-)

Love the idea. More time for editing, less time for logging.

By the way, can't this tail slate then become a front slate - like the -default- name of the clip?

Scene-1.T2.Good

[Thom Steinhoff]

By the way, can't this tail slate then become a front slate - like the -default- name of the clip?

That was the idea of the "Next" button on the lower left of image 1. You could go to the next clip (in this case the "to be recorded" clip and change the front slate for everything but the commentary (good, NG, etc)

That is pictured in one of the other pictures (can't see it at the moment) where it moves to take 2 but the length is 0:00.

Once the clip stops, you could change any of those values again, as well as set the commentary on the clip.

By the way, since doing the initial drawings, I have thought to rename the User button to be "Notes" and have things like "VFX, MOS, WILD" part of the cycled options as long as they can be discreatly set.

[Jeff Brue]

Big question though would be how you'd enter all that data. Perhaps a red(ized) data entry device ?

[Thom Steinhoff]

Scene, quality and notes would be incrementing/stepping by the buttons. Take would be auto incrementing. Timecode, camera number and detaliled shooting date/time are pretty straight forward.

The difficult stuff comes with show, director, etc.

One way would be a slow way like game consoles and home cameras enter text--one letter at a time. This may be okay as they won't change too often.

Many have mentioned a wireless pda link. While I would prefer a wireless link to a macbook that could also save thumbnails on the mac as well as prelogging the days shots maybe even against storyboards I could see how people would like a pda link.

Since it does have a usb port and I would bet the camera internally runs linux, it should be easy to get a keyboard working.

Many options, but, even without the long fields such as show title--i think scene, quallity and take would have great value.

Thom

[Casey Green]

By the way, since doing the initial drawings, I have thought to rename the User button to be "Notes" and have things like "VFX, MOS, WILD" part of the cycled options as long as they can be discreatly set.

Cool. I was pretty sure there could be a simple way to incorporate the idea, thanks.



Since it does have a usb port and I would bet the camera internally runs linux, it should be easy to get a keyboard working.
Thom

With the USB port, why not add compatibility for a USB Blue Tooth "stick". Just plug-in the jump-drive-sized Blue Tooth receiver, write a tiny custom app for Mac, PC, PDA, Cell phone, etc... and you've got a quick and easy way to have a Camera Assistant (or anyone) wirelessly log your clips...

(just better password protect it)

[Thom Steinhoff]

With the USB port, why not add compatibility for a USB Blue Tooth "stick". Just plug-in the jump-drive-sized Blue Tooth receiver, write a tiny custom app for Mac, PC, PDA, Cell phone, etc... and you've got a quick and easy way to have a Camera Assistant (or anyone) wirelessly log your clips...

(just better password protect it)

That sounds like a great idea.

USB Sneaker Net

Another option, for syncing many cameras would be to be able to write the camera configuration (including the meta data) to a USB memory stick and go to the next camera and loading the configuration. Sort of a PA sneaker net.

DAISY CHAIN CAMERAS

Also, since the camera have USB in and out, it would be cool if you could connect them together USB Standard to USB Mini, in a chain. Then, they could sync their DateTime Timecode (discussed previously in this thread which I thought was a good idea--essentially haveing date and time with full 00:00:00:00 detail) as well as setting all of the meta data to from the first camera in the chain and stepping the Camera tag A,B,C,D...

While you are at it, it would be a good time to sync color profiles if you happen to be shooting RGB.

[Jeff Brue]

Well as far as data entry of such meta data....for the record on a shoot it is a full time job. However I really do like the idea of a wireless data capturer station for all of that info.

[GlennChan]

Some questions...

1- Would it just be easier to sort things out in post? The editor has to look at all the footage anyways, and make his/her own notes.

And the person doing the logging doesn't have to sit around on set. If you move it to post, the person doing the logging is always writing or looking at footage, and not waiting around.

2- A pen and paper system (or email) could be used to convey things like takes the director likes, it could integrate with audio notes, etc.

What advantage does digital slating have over pen and paper?

[Adrian T.]

What advantage does digital slating have over pen and paper?

Fewer errors and faster workflow.

[Chris Kenny]

Bluetooth metadata input and all the rest of it would be nice, but here's a really simple idea that could probably be implemented with almost no work.

After each take, just have the camera pop up a sequential ID number. The operator would read it off. Whoever is keeping notes would write down the number, along with notes about the take (scene/shot, good/bad, etc.). This number would show up in the file name of the clip for that take on the digital mag.

This would allow for a wide variety of metadata handling techniques, ranging from writing down the ID number and notes about the take on a sheet of paper, to inputting the ID number and metadata into a program on a laptop, to be automatically attached to the appropriate files (by matching up the ID numbers) after footage was downloaded.

With the laptop approach, you wouldn't even usually have to manually input the number, as the program could just increment it automatically after every take.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Fewer errors and faster workflow.

Fewer errors? I would say that's more an operator dependency. As for faster workflow, pen/paper can be pretty darn fast if you take a bit of time to set up some sheets before hand. I'd definitely give digital a try... However, such slating seems more like a great task done on PDA or notebook computer rather than right on the camera. A WiFi SD card could theoretically be used with the RED One and that could give access to metadata for each shot that can be dealt with instantly on a PDA or similar device. Rather than having the camera operator do it or having someone else in his way doing it on camera.

[Jaime Vallés]

Something that would be great is if REDCINE could output a Text file of all the metadata in the end slates so I could print it on regular paper for reference. Call it a "Log book" feature. I can't tell you how many times that saved my butt in post. When shooting our feature on MiniDV, we were very careful to do a clapboard with slate before every shot, but also wrote down every scene, take, description, best & good & bad status on paper, along with audio info, dates, timecode, etc. We ended up with a huge binder with all the information on paper. Being able to have that as reference, regardless of the immediacy of the digital slate, would be a very welcome adddition to the workflow.

Would something like this be possible? Does anything I wrote even make sense?

[Adrian T.]

After each take, just have the camera pop up a sequential ID number. The operator would read it off. Whoever is keeping notes would write down the number, along with notes about the take (scene/shot, good/bad, etc.). This number would show up in the file name of the clip for that take on the digital mag.

That's just one more number to keep track of. And you'd have to enter an initial value anyway so that you don't have overlapping ID ranges in multi cam shoots.

I think it should be no biggy to enter the scene number in the camera. And after that it will count the takes by its own.

[Harry Clark]

Glenn Chann is right.
There's already usually someone taking careful notes: the Script Supervisor. And they're often quite good at it, multitasking, following the script, listening to dialogue, watching the monitor, taking camera notes. But automation (lens data info via Arri LDS or Cooke i, anyone?) and digitization of metadata would no doubt be amazing compared to paper notes.
External input, whether via wireless or USB, would be great. On anything other than an talking head interview, the DP and AC are too busy to twiddle knobs and step through windows inputting metadata. So a keyboard seems appropriate here. A bit clunky I guess if we're busy programming speed ramps and changing lenses, running and gunning, etc.
But a script super, armed with a laptop (running Scriptor or one of the other programs) that uploaded shot info into metadata within each clip, via Bluetooth, would be a terrific marriage of technology and craft.
Cheers,
Harry

[Harry Clark]

Just remembered:
I have done a few jobs with ARRI's in-camera slating module, that exposes slate info on the first 20 frames of film each time you roll the camera. Really bizzare looking in dailies, but very cool...
It's inputted via a Palm-type devide and keeps track of takes.
Was not really a big deal, even with us running around a school filming kids on the go. You can plug/ unplug at any time and the camera continues to keep track.
It also provided for ARRICODE, so no clapping of slates at all.
But no real way to accomodate metadata. (film-based, obviously)
But the scrip super, running Scriptor and synced with our time of day code, had a running metadata file.
With Red One, we have a chance to combine all of the technology and really have great shot management and notes for the editor.
Cheers,
Harry

[divorce certificate]

A technique known as “end slating” was used to capture Paul’s reaction as he enters the nearly-vacant Club Berlin. Right before filming the shot, Griffin Dunne went to a bar around the corner, ordered drinks for the customers, then ran out without paying. The scene opens on him after this had just happened off-camera.

I really like the general idea of this: capturing a person during or after something particularly fearful or extraordinary. I wonder if this has other practical purposes beyond filmmaking, like perhaps interaction design (since, in theory, it is a designed interaction). Any thoughts or ideas? Although it is mentioned in this imdb entry, the term has no other mentions on the web, which seems kind of odd.

[Joe G.]

Stuart acknowledged this, so they might implement it on Scarlett/Epic. That would be a great addition for streamlining the workflow. Whatever "patent" or "copyright" issues can be worked out by "improving" on existing implementations. New patents are granted when existing patents are improved upon.