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Do you all still voice slate


larry long

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Yes, I voice slate. It's a confirmation of the metadata and also corrects the mistakes of the camera department who have the incorrect slate or take number. I see it happening more and more. I see the Continuity person and the camera assistants looking at their damn phones, facebooking and texting, instead of paying attention to the job they are being paid for. I also still put on end tones. The assistant editors , oh, I mean the DIT's, now doing the syncing, need all the help they can get. They work for the camera department, whereas the Picture Editors worked for the production. Don't get me started, Larry.

 

Edited by RLightstone
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I'm with Crew -- I think this is a tradition that's still important, at least on scripted shows. I like the 2-beeps on the tail from the Nagra days as well. I won't generally tail slate, but I will sometimes say "that's a cut" when nobody else said it (which is too often on some sloppy sets).

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I voice slate (top and /or tail), and get the loaders to also do it, do voice notes, do metadata notes, paper notes, tell continuity to make notes on occasion and send emails if necessary. Jam cameras with TC, use smart slates and make sure we get the claps properly, fine focus pullers (in beer) when they cut early on tail slates (good thing that they don't all pay up or I would be drowning in beer on most shows)………anything to avoid the emails from post.

But I did stop doing beeps when we went non linear, a file is a file.

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I still do voice slate (ID) and beeps (end of take) mostly out of habit (and for me and Crew and Richard and Larry this is a really long running habit!) but also for many of the same reasons mentioned above. It does serve as a short form communication to the Boom Operator and others and even to the people in post who have used timecode and metadata to sync to picture but still will appreciate the audible guidance they can get from listening to the track.

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It's a New York thing for the Assistant Camera person to call out scene and take when presenting the slate. This is almost never done on West Coast productions. The general procedure, at least on features, has always been this: 1st AD calls "Roll" (either roll camera or roll sound or just roll), camera operator usually throws the switch, I voice slate "scene 23A take 1", Boom Operator says "speed" and AC says "marker" and hits the clap slate. On most movies when we would get into the groove and the roll always proceeded like this with a nice rhythm, it felt good and brought a certain orderliness to the set.

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Our AC's still do the East Coast way of reading the slate just before they clap, but I've gotten in the habit of saying it, too. Sometimes I'm asking the ACs for hard sticks to hear the clap through windows or when the booms need to be extended away from the slate. In those cases, I wouldn't hear much a mumbled vocal slate from the ACs so I like having my vocal slate there. It usually doesn't make it onto the audio track before the camera rolls, so I'm not sure when it becomes useless to Post, probably soon after syncing. 

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A related question: you people record a verbal slate for each roll? Habit had me include all the usual info (Date, SR, tech specs then tone) until recently when I started putting tone first 'cause metadata, then more recently, only tone unless I've something clever to say (rare).

Read in a thread here from a post person saying he didn't use the tone, ".....since it was a file," so wonder if I should just give that up too.

I don't head slate takes unless the AC has goofed or is too quiet for whatever reason.

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I slate every roll. It is its own file. I mentioned in the thread about it before that it lets me know that everything is working/recording. It's a bit of a joke...but seriously, then at least I know the cart can record something each day. But I'm assuming no one actually listens to it.

It it also helps me to verify that the 788s are putting the files into the correct folder. "SLATET01.WAV" is good, "SLATET01A.WAV" means it went into the wrong folder. 

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I head slate my files, it let's my boom op know I'm rolling, and it's the first thing someone in post will hear in case metadata gets lost.  If I only let the ac do it, and someone in post wants to hear the scene/take, they will have to look through each take until they find it.  With a head slate at the very top of the file, previewing the file and getting scene take quickly can be done in the bin in in PT without having to put the file on the timeline.

I don't see the need for a per roll slate or a tone file.  0dbfs is 0dbfs.  There is no question about that.

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I don't verbally slate each take. I just Head ID each daily folder with the location info, shooting day, tech specs, metadata, my contact info, and tone. Afterwards, I DO make sure the boom op has the mic cued to the slate/AC, and there's a good hot signal coming from the AC, whenever we roll. 

Incidentally, I was blasted to find that on some recent 'development projects' I've worked (major cable company with a 'family' of channels), they've sometimes sent out some newbie director that didn't seem know the value of slating, and I wonder how the hell that person even got there. 

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I'm with Crew -- I think this is a tradition that's still important, at least on scripted shows. I like the 2-beeps on the tail from the Nagra days as well. I won't generally tail slate, but I will sometimes say "that's a cut" when nobody else said it (which is too often on some sloppy sets).

​ALL TOO OFTEN: "Is that a cut?" "Oh, uh, right, cut, or whatever..."

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Yup, I voice slate at the head of the take (unless we are doing tail sticks, in which case it would be at the end). I find that ACs are more and more inaccurate with their scene/take numbers, and Script Sups are less and less vocal about the scene/take as well, so if everyone can hear my voice slate over IFB they will catch the slate being incorrect, or if I myself am incorrect. It also helps the Boom Op know I am rolling.

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​ALL TOO OFTEN: "Is that a cut?" "Oh, uh, right, cut, or whatever..."

​GOD, that happens to me all the time. I can't get directors to yell ROLL SOUND or say CUT! 

I'm in a spirited debate on the RedUser group right now from people who firmly believe that slating is completely unnecessary. It's madness.

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It's my view that having one source of info produces often more accurate results. The fact is that often connecting with the script supervisor is impossible for every take by myself. So, in Vancouver, it's tradition that the AC verbally slates before the clapper. This is a tradition that is not standard throughout North America. I will step in and correct a verbal mistake if I am certain of the correction, or simply add a more note there is/was slate confusion. I do like the practice of AC's verbally id the head of a take when a tail slate will occur, I try to encourage this. My NagraVI is set to beep on record and two beeps at tail out of nostalgia. Sent from my SGH-I547C using Tapatalk

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It's my view that having one source of info produces often more accurate results. The fact is that often connecting with the script supervisor is impossible for every take by myself. So, in Vancouver, it's tradition that the AC verbally slates before the clapper. This is a tradition that is not standard throughout North America. I will step in and correct a verbal mistake if I am certain of the correction, or simply add a more note there is/was slate confusion. I do like the practice of AC's verbally id the head of a take when a tail slate will occur, I try to encourage this. My NagraVI is set to beep on record and two beeps at tail out of nostalgia. Sent from my SGH-I547C using Tapatalk

+1 ​That's how I handle it for sure. Camera Department has stats to report to script, more bodies. Consistent line of communication. Prefer to leave the verbal slate in their more knowing mouths. I correct verbally, quickly.

Came a time recently when the script sup kinda lost it relative to naming duties...unable to decide...whatever...the loader thereafter decided. Strange bunch of weeks. It was a quiet but noticeable-to-us set revolution.

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