POLL: How do you feel about "Roll" numbers with regards to non-linear recorders?

[Darren]

It might be very interesting to hear from as many posters on this board as possible on how they feel about still using Sound "Rolls".

[Eric Toline]

Darn, I don't have a non linear recorder so I can't vote but I do have a couple of Portadats and I just mark them as tape 1-2, etc. In my market no one asks for non linear so they get DAT and they're happy.

Eric

[miker71]

In ideal working conditions I'll make a note of the camera roll number on my sound report, also I use Compact Flash to record to which I dump to my PowerBook and DVD-R at the end of the day - I'll give the DVD-R a roll number too and note that on the sound report.

[ptalsky]

I just came off a shoot with the HVX200 and we used the roll number to represent the P2 card - each time we changed P2's we rev'ed the roll number.  I think this will help post keep track of what goes where. 

Phil

[Travis Groves]

What about Sound Roll # as reference to production day?

[Marc Wielage]

What about Sound Roll # as reference to production day?

That would work, except:

1) what if you use more than one roll a day? This is often the case for long days, where there's a break-off and 50% of the footage is rushed to the lab so that dailies can meet a specific schedule.

2) what if there's a second-unit crew working on the same show?

I can tell you from a post perspective we do use the sound roll numbers all the time, even when the "roll" per se is really a disc or a directory. This is particularly true for B-negative shots, where a production comes back weeks or months later and has us transfer a before-unused shot, and we have to hunt down the sound for that specific take. Finding the negative (at least for a film shoot) is often easier than locating the sound roll, especially if the latter is split between DATs, DVD-RAMs, and sound files.

--Marc W.

[taylormadeaudio]

It's merely a reference # -- a symbol -- used to communicate information.  Should we get hung up on the fact that there's really nothing 'rolling' per se, or should we be content with the fact that there is already a system in place that works for most situations?

Maybe we should start saying, "acquiring" instead of, "sound speed"... since we're really no longer waiting for the recording mechanism to come up to speed.  Is MOS really still Minus Optical Stripe?  Should we change that too?

If there are two sound crews, everything should have a prefix: sound roll A1, A2... B1, B2... etc. -- there should never be an issue as to which 'roll' (or file) corresponds to which crew, camera, day, etc. -- if anything, it should be easier to discern -- with all the possibilities we have with metadata... editors still need to read sound reports.

...just thinking outloud -- for what it's worth

[old school]

It doesn't really matter what we call it, as long as they call us for the gig. I vote 4 the old terms. I can and will use new terms, but the rest of the crew will be confused and never get it.

CrewC