Slate marking scheme?

[Shawn Nelson]

I've seen a number of ways to mark slates in regards to what the shot is. What is the most common professional way? Example: every time the setup changes you increment a letter and start over on the numbers. So you'd get... scene 33 - take a1. If you go in this way, do you change letters only when the tripod or dolly track moves or do you change it if you punch in from a master to a close up? Or from a medium to a close?

[Charles Angus]

I've seen two ways in common practice.

Increment the slate number every time the setup changes (position, lens, etc.). Continuity keeps track of how the arbitrary slate numbers correspond to scenes, shot list, etc.

The other is to base the slate #'s off of the shot list. This is where I see letters most often; if we get a shot similar to #3, we call it #3a, #3b, etc.

I'm in Canada, though, so the system could very well be different elsewhere.

[Finner]

Typical way of marking a slate in north america is as follows.

Lets say you are light and ready to shoot scene 33 after you have done the # of takes needed for the first shot of scene 33 you would mark 33A under scene and under take you would mark 1. You just keep adding take numbers to the slate until you are happy with that shot and ready to move on to the next shot, When you move on to the next shot which could be as simple of a change as making the camera wider on the actor you change to scene 33B and take 1 and then move up the takes until you get the shot (for the letters do not USE the letters I or S as they can look like #'s 1 and 5 and be confusing in editing). Always use capital letters and if you have a really big scene when you finish Z the next letter in the sequence will be AA then AB then AC...

[wshultz]

What does it mean when they slate at the end of a take or hold the slate upside down?

[Finner]

Thats called a tail slate. Sometimes it is just hard to slate a take at the begining of a scene because of danger or if the camera is starting high on a crane (there are many reasons) so as soon as the sound dept calls speed on sound the 2nd asst camera will yell tail slate and then after the director yells cut the 2nd asst runs in with the slate upside down and claps it. It is upside down so the editor realizes it is a tail slate for the take he just saw.

[Kevin Halverson]

Another designation worth mentioning is for a series. This is typically indicated as "SER" on the slate and is used when there are no cuts between a repeated sequence.

[David Mullen ASC]

Usually the 2nd AC (clapper) will ask the Script Supervisor for the slate number, although usually it's obvious (next take is the next take number, next set-up is the next letter, etc.) It gets unclear when all you do is make a little adjustment to the shot (zoom in 5mm, reframe) as to whether it's a new set-up and gets a new letter -- some people like to give it a new letter because it makes it seem like they are shooting more set-ups per day... Sort of depends on if you think the editor will be hunting for that shot if all it's listed as is another take number.

Sometimes you add P/U after the scene letter to indicate that this is a pick-up (partial take) of the previous set-up, rather than a new letter, like to get one line of dialogue that was flubbed. I don't recall if the pick-up starts at #1 for Take again or keeps going.

Sometimes, to make an actor feel better, after a huge number of takes have passed, you use a new letter and start at #1 again, just so they don't get embarrassed at hearing that it's "Take #22!" or something.

In other countries like the U.K. they have a different slating system -- each set-up gets a new number and there are no scene numbers, so by the end of the show you may be at shot #1205, take # whatever. Someone from the U.K. can clarify.

Since we use letters to identify new set-ups, this is one reason why inserted scenes in a script use a letter before the number, like "Scene A23" rather than "Scene 23A".

I've seen "S" used on slates for set-ups, but not the letter "O" or "I".

[Clayton Harper]

I hope to hell Red implements a slating scheme like the one on the S.two. The S.Two sends a pulse to the audio recorder and burns a few frames of scene/take meta-data on the front of the file. Fincher raved about the time savings from not slating on Zodiac. I have always hated waiting for the slate although some people like it because its a visual cue for everybody to shut up and concentrate.

It would be especially happy if some lens metadata got burned on that screen as well.

Have a look at Thom's excellent visualization of this concept:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1208&highlight=digital+slate

[Finner]

Thanks David I forgot about "O" its kind of obvious why not to use it, Its been a long time since I clapped so I may not be the best person to give out this info.

[David Mullen ASC]

I spend very little of my time worrying about slating issues, so I wouldn't miss it if it went away in favor of the recorder adding slate information. All the AD has to do is say "quiet -- we're rolling" to get everyone to shut up.

But occasionally there is a need to use the back-up audio and there is still an awful lot of old-fashioned manual syncing to the clap that goes on in post houses, despite the use of time code slates, Aatoncode, whatnot.

[Clint Johnson]

I found that when editing a two camera scene it was really nice to have the visual and audible CLAP to quickly sync camera B's footage to the audio from camera A. Camera B was recording through the onboard mic just for this syncing purpose and wasn't capturing usable audio.

One of my actors even had such good repeatability that there were a few times where I was able to pull his best audio take and just line up that CLAP with the slate on the best video take- his voice was regularly in sync with his lips for two or three sentences.

That said, the 2nd AC messed up a few times and neglected to change the slate properly- but seeing as how I wrote and directed it, I was able to figure that out easy enough. And hell, three or four misplaced numbers or letters out of some nine hundred takes isn't bad for a rookie... who was getting paid with credit, experience and really good craft service.

[wshultz]

So am I understanding that a setup is any change in position or focal length, say a medium shot, close up from same position and a reverse angle would be three setups?

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, more or less, if shot with one camera.