Who brings the slate?

[johnpaul215]

I've also worked on pickup interviews for reality where they really just want the slate to write on the board more than a clap (let along TC display). something like "Jeff p/u interview for episode 205", then we reslate "jeff interview p/u for 206" as a request from post. They didn't have a slate before I was there, so they previously used a little white kitchen white board. 

 

Maybe it was just me, but I didn't use a slate on reality work until the cameras became a 5D, or some other camera that can't keep TC. I never was asked to pull out a slate with a big ENG camera. Narative work, yes always, but reality it has just been the last few years (for me). 

[Marc Wielage]

marc: " I also seem to recall that IATSE decided that since timecode was... "

err... not to sure on that... I don't think IA had anything to do with it...

 

That came from a conversation with Mike Denecke in the 1980s, during some of our early film/sound TC projects. I asked, "hey, how come the sound guys have to be responsible for timecode," and I was given the explanation that TC was an "audible" signal, plus timecode had already been part of the 695 videotape contract. On the other hand, you could argue that even the early Betacam pro camcorders had timecode, and that would be the camera department's domain.

 

Reality producers are often so beleaguered and inexperienced, they might not grasp the importance of having a TC slate. What befuddles me are the shows that shoot in RecRun, where they're really going to be out to lunch on sound timecode... unless of course the sound recorder is getting a wireless feed from the camera TC output.

[David Silberberg]

When I used a mono Nagra 4.2 in the early 90's I never used TC and I never needed a smart slate. 

I was assistant editor on documentaries with Les Blank and co.  and we synced miles of footage manually. We synced to mic bumps, hand claps, and or a bloop light  (what a clunker that was!) Post was all 16mm, flatbeds and fullcoat mag. If we missed a slate while shooting, say because of a rollout, we'd have to rely on lipsync or find some other sync point in the picture to sync up the sound.  We synced a lot of shots on the flatbed by looking at Bs and Ps , that moment when the lips come together. 

 

Later I bought an HHB Dat PDR 1000 and I suddenly needed a smart slate to go with it.  It just makes sense that the two go together. You have to have these things in your hands to become skilled and ready.  

 

I ended up buying a used TS-1 from ASC's rental department.  I still have it and still works. It's a sturdy chunk of gear. It was fine for the low budget film gigs I would get, but when I went out on 'run and gun' documentaries the thing was way too heavy to carry. One day I called the Denecke company and asked about smaller slates and I got to talk to Mr. Denecke himself. He loved working on documentaries he said and told me all about the TS-1/2. But alas it was too expensive for me. Still it was a really great talking to Mike Denecke.  Now I have a TS-3 and it's also really sturdy and has taken a lot of abuse and has always come up working (knock on wood).  

 

In the last few years,  a lot clients I work for don't want to bother with slating. They're in too much of a hurry, or it's too intrusive.

They want to use Plural Eyes. In a way it's come full circle back to manual syncing, except now the computer is doing the work finding the sync points. 

 

If it's a cart job, I'll always bring the slate.  If we use it, I'll charge for it., and even if I couldn't get an extra rental, I still like using it. The little bit of discipline required to slate each shot stops a lot of disorganization and brings a little more sanity to my day. 

 

If it's a bag job and they tell me they do not want a slate, and there's no room for extra gear and no one to carry it, then I'm obliged to leave it behind.  But we also have a conversation about the post work flow for syncing / TC  so that things are well planned. I don't like surprises.  

 

Nowadays there are a lot of different people out there producing content with many different styles and expectations and budgets.

It's so important to understand everything you can about the job, especially when dealing new people, so you can avoid surprises and be ready, and yet everyone is in a hurry and the person who is hiring me is 3 or 4 steps down the management chain and they often don't have the answers-- so I end up bringing extra stuff-- just to be sure- and the slate is one of those extras. 

 

BTW thinking about all this history-- I heard they called it a smart slate because the smart slate generated it's own time code and there was zero offset due to analogue tape delay-- the dumb slate being actually hard wired to the Nagra and the TC was delayed a few frames because it was read from the playback head.  Is that right?

[Marc Wielage]

I heard they called it a smart slate because the smart slate generated it's own time code and there was zero offset due to analogue tape delay-- the dumb slate being actually hard wired to the Nagra and the TC was delayed a few frames because it was read from the playback head.  Is that right?

 

Yes, I believe that is the history. Before the Denecke slate took over in America, I had worked on a handful of 1980s shows where they had a monitor on the set with a BIG timecode window on it, and we just used that as a faux slate. As long as the TC offset was constant, it wasn't a big deal in post -- we could just compensate for it with a trim value and move on. Not really a problem. 

 

 

If it's a cart job, I'll always bring the slate.  If we use it, I'll charge for it., and even if I couldn't get an extra rental, I still like using it. The little bit of discipline required to slate each shot stops a lot of disorganization and brings a little more sanity to my day. 

 

Yes, I agree completely. If you stand in the other guy's shoes, and try syncing up hours and hours and hours of takes with no slates, you'll find it's a lot easier to do so with slates. I like having the slates if only for the identifier so we know exactly what scene and take number it is, what camera roll number, what date, and all that stuff. All this information is very important for editorial, and if they don't have the slate, we have to guess... and mindless tragedy can result. 

[stevegrider]

It is a great workflow tool and not only for post...When the slate comes in, and you hear the mark, everybody on set knows it's time to get down to business.

[Jeff Wexler]

I am very sure that the audible nature of smpte timecode and Local 695 having jurisdiction over "sound" have no connection to eachother. As stated before, a much more relevant and historical aspect is that synchronous sound, from the very beginning (can you say "speed" and know why you're saying it) was presided over by the sound department. The timecode slate was just another method for syncing sound.

[studiomprd]

David: " I heard they called it a smart slate because the smart slate generated it's own time code and there was zero offset due to analogue tape delay-- the dumb slate being actually hard wired to the Nagra and the TC was delayed a few frames because it was read from the playback head.  Is that right? "

sort of...

a "smart" TC slate has a brain, a SMPTE TC generator, and a "dumb" TC slate only reads and displays SMPTE TC that it is fed from some source (typically a radio link, but sometimes wired)

Edited September 8, 2014 by studiomprd

[Eric Toline]

David: " I heard they called it a smart slate because the smart slate generated it's own time code and there was zero offset due to analogue tape delay-- the dumb slate being actually hard wired to the Nagra and the TC was delayed a few frames because it was read from the playback head.  Is that right? "

sort of...

a "smart slate" has a brain, a SMPTE TC generator, and a "dumb slate" only reads and displays SMPTE TC

Then what do you call the original wooden clap slate?

[Whit Norris]

These days on the set they are called "Hard Sticks".

 

 

 

 

Whit

[Jeff Wexler]

These days on the set they are called "Hard Sticks".

 

Whit

Thanks, Whit, I knew there must have been some "new" term to refer to the traditional clap slate. "Hard Sticks" is okay, I guess, but I would love to know if anyone else has heard of some other term in use today.

[Eric Toline]

I was always under the impression that the old clap slate was the dumb slate and a slate that had batteries, numbers & lights was a smart slate. I'm fairly sure the term slate comes from the use of a piece of blackboard slate in the beginning of ID'ing scene & take.

[Jeff Wexler]

Probably not slate but here is an old clap slate from "Five Bold Women". My father was the DP, probably around 1959.

 

 

Some more from "Five Bold Women":

Pop checking the exposure (that's a light meter he's using)

the Sound Mixer

exterior microphone with "homemade" wind protection

Pop checking the "exposure" again

 

 

[johnpaul215]

Then what do you call the original wooden clap slate?

Usually "standard slate", but some people call those a "dumb slate". Usually people calling a classic / standard slate a "dumb slate" were not in the business for the heyday of things like the TS-1, and don't understand how the tech has evolved. That's understandable. To them it's a digital display or a slab of plastic with sticks.

If anything, I think a younger AC likes it when you call their slate a "standard slate" instead of a "dumb slate".

[Philip Perkins]

I not only know the Coherent TC and slate system very well, I owned one of Ivan's slates and his TC generator.  The early-'80's slate was not at all what Mike Denecke came up with, it was just a dumb TC display (not even a reader) with a clap stick, no brightness control and had to be hardwired to the TC generator, which also contained the electronics of the reader.  The TC generator was a module that bolted to the bottom of a stock Nagra IV-S (L), and the TC was input to the pilotone input and recorded along with the FM pilot signal in the center track.  In telecine the operator had a choice of either high-passing the center track signal (to use the TC), or low passing it (to use the pilotone).  The filtering was very tricky, but the company I worked for, One Pass Inc in SF, eventually worked out the bugs and we did a huge number of commercials, corpo films, music videos and the feature "Massive Retaliation" with this system.  The hardwired slate (with a 9 pin connector at the recorder end) was a huge pain in the ass, and eventually we dropped it in favor of just recording the TC and using a dumb slate.  All this was years before the Nagra IV-S TC.  When we first saw Mike's slate we were thrilled and we made life much easier for telecine.  I still have two TS-1s that I bought from Mike personally.   The Denecke TSC is one of my fave pieces of gear.

 

philp

[stevegrider]

Here lately, I have heard the term "Insert Slate" used to not only refer to the 4"x 4" Lucite slate used to ID shots, but to the bigger, full-sized Lucite slates with sticks.

[studiomprd]

eric: " Then what do you call the original wooden clap slate? "

"old school" ?

maybe just "slate" ??

maybe "darling", but only if it is very beautiful, and I get to know it really well...

before TC, it was just "slate", then came the TC slates in dumb, then smart.

[Eric Toline]

eric: " Then what do you call the original wooden clap slate? "

"old school" ?

maybe just "slate" ??

maybe "darling", but only if it is very beautiful, and I get to know it really well...

before TC, it was just "slate", then came the TC slates in dumb, then smart.

TMI Mike TMI

[Jeff Wexler]

Interesting Resume and timeline for Ivan Kruglak --- I can personally verify his work on the original timecode slate since I was out to Ivan's shop on a regular basis (for all sorts of other things he was developing and building). It is certainly true that Ivan's slate never did catch on and one of the reasons was that there wasn't yet a widespread need for timecode with film --- certainly feature films had no need for timecode (traditional clap slate was in use even after timecode established itself in other sorts of work). The real push for timecode on film jobs (which, actually, was EVERY job because video and digital had not come in any big way yet) was in commercials.

 

I'm posting the history of the Denecke slate (in Mike Denecke's own words from the Denecke website) since I think we can all agree that the Denecke slate became, and still is, the defacto most common timecode slate in use.

 

- from Denecke site:

 

THE BEGINNING OF TIME:

 

WHY DENECKE GOT INTO THE SLATE BUSINESS

 

The first time I heard of a time code slate was in 1985. Ivan Kruglak of Coherent Communications had made a limited number of TC-400A time code slates, but they were not catching on. I was a working sound man and electronic designer at that time. I spoke frequently with Manfred Klemme at Nagra and he showed me the Nagra 4S-TC Stereo time code tape machine. The 4S-TC, now the industry standard, was a beautiful machine but was not being used since a light weight, easy to use slate was not available. Manfred suggested it might be a good time to make a slate. I had recently finished the TC-1 Time Code Reader and decided to try making a time code slate.The TS-1 Time Code Slate was basically the TC-1 Time Code Reader with large 1 inch led's and special drive electronics in a slate form. Since I worked on film sets and saw how the crew used standard slates I knew what was needed in a time code slate. The TS-1 had to be light weight, rugged and easy to use. The features that made the TS-1 an accepted standard on the set were the under cut sticks which allowed the camera assistant to hold the slate with one hand, the "clap stick activated display" which automated slate operation, a very bright display so the numbers could be seen in daylight and a single bright/dim power switch.

 

The first use of the TS-1 Time Code Slate was filming music videos. The advantages of time code on playback were numerous. Only one playback machine needed to be used on the set. The time code slate eliminated the need to re-record the playback tape with conventional sticks as a marker. The TS-1 eliminated the need to re-transfer all of the takes to mag film to sync the music to picture. A music cue could be started anywhere in the song and the editor would know exactly where he was by the displayed time code numbers. The time code slate sped up the music video process and saved time in post. Telecine transfers were becoming more popular and the negative was transferred to video eliminating the need for a work print. The TS-1 was also a great advantage to multi-camera concert shoots. Multiple slates with the same time code can be used to sync all of the camera starts. Each camera looks at the TS-1 time code at the head of every take. The camera man doesn't need to run a whole reel of film from each bloop light mark as was the convention in pre-time code shoots. Filming close-ups of the performers with playback immediately after a concert shoot is easily accomplished by playing back the time code into the TS-1. Film stock is saved and each camera is slated individually. The editor can sync all of the takes with fewer errors.

 

Soon commercial and television producers realized that time code could be used on their projects to their advantage. Producers wanted to see their dailies on video as soon as possible. The time code slate sped up the syncing process in telecine by as much as 30%, while eliminating the need for work prints and mag film. The time code slate had sped up the film to video process which saved lab time, sound transfer time and material.The methods of feature post production are now changing. Producers have realized that computer based electronic editing systems can help them save time and meet increasingly tight post production schedules. The TS-1 time code slate is now being used regularly to speed up telecine transfers for these films, putting time code on film without the expense of buying new camera equipment or special readers in post. Film making is slowly changing toward automation but the basic way of working on the set is going to stay the same. The time code slate is a tool that connects conventional film making with the new electronic editing tools.Over the years the Dcode® Time Code Slate has undergone various changes, improvements and modifications.

 

~ Mike Denecke, 1997

[Eric Toline]

Very interesting and informative about the evolution of TC. I wonder what Mike would say today what with TC being fed to cameras and perhaps less use of TC slates.

[Philip Perkins]

I see more use of TC slates than I used to--nearly every job these days.

 

philp

[Glen Trew]

This is my recollection of how, "dumb slate," came into our verbal lexicon.  The first Denecke slates were readers only, they didn't have the "sync box" in them yet, and were originally referred to as timecode slates.  When Denecke released their slates with the "sync boxes," there was a need to differentiate between the two, so a reader was dumb and a slate that could be jammed, was smart.

The term "smart slate" was used before the term "dumb slate". I first heard "smart slate" used for the Coherent slate, not because it had a reader but because it displayed timecode. It seemed pretty smart whether or not it generated it's own timecode. Of course, as soon as the term "smart slate" was used, there was the need to call something a "dumb slate", which was often used for standard clap sticks. I seem to recall that the Coherent slate could be had with or without the timecode generator, so It's possible that at some point before the Denecke slate entered the scene the terms "dumb" and "smart" were used to differentiate between a slate that had an internal timecode generator and one that was only a reader. But those terms were swapped back and forth, used and misused, as they still are, so it's likely that people remember this history differently but correctly. The original Denecke slate, the TS-1, did not have a generator, so it was only a reader that was originally intended to be hardwired to the timecode source. It didn't take long for someone to realize that a Comtek transmitter and receiver were of high enough quality to send the timecode from the recorder to the slate wirelessly. Comtek receivers in those days were built to turn on automatically when headphones were plugged into them, so we started making special cables with a 2K resistor so the Comtek receiver would turn on when connected to the slate.  Because of this, not long after the TS-1 came out, Denecke built in a 2K resistor so that the Comtek receiver would automatically turn on with the slate's sticks were opened, and turn off automatically with the sticks were closed, saving Comtek receiver batteries. The big motivation for timecode in film production during those early days was for music video production (where the timecode had to be sent from the playback machine), so there was not much need for a slate with a built-in timecode generator. Eventually timecode for double-system film production caught on so Denecke made the SB-1 sync box timecode generator that could be Velcroed to the back of the TS-1 slate. Not too long afterward, Denecke came out with the TC-2 that had the SB-1 built inside. At that point, the term "dumb slate" referred to a timecode slate that was reader-only, and "smart slate" referred to a slate with built-in timecode generator. Even then, my preference for sync dialog recording was for a dumb slate and Comtek feed, my rationale being that if the slate showed moving timecode it could only be the timecode from the recorder, eliminating the possibility of the most common mistake.

 

Chapter 2...

[Marc Wielage]

It would be interesting to get Ambient's input on where they came in and how their slates were created in Europe. I can tell you from a purely American post perspective, I never liked getting Ambient slates on projects because their numbers were hard to read, and the wireless TC transmission system was always very faulty. The Denecke slates were always more readable, and I think the jammed system is a lot more reliable.

 

Today, it's possible to do wireless timecode transmission and make it reliable. Unfortunately, we still have a profusion of different cables, different TC levels, different cameras, different sound recorders, and many other factors that makes a single unified system very complex. There's a lengthy thread elsewhere on how the Red camera was completely unable to read a simple timecode stream from a Zaxcom device, which is inexcusable in 2014. The camera should have enough of a threshold to be able to handle a reasonable range of timecode levels and work just fine. Now, it works, but it took weeks and weeks to get Red to even recognize the problem. 

 

 

Even then, my preference for sync dialog recording was for a dumb slate and Comtek feed, my rationale being that if the slate showed moving timecode it could only be the timecode from the recorder, eliminating the possibility of the most common mistake.

 

I think Post has to be the department that decides on timecode slate or not, because it really does help the assistants verify when and where a timecode sync problem is happening. At least if slate TC agrees with sound, we know what two out of three are correct, and most likely camera is bad. 

 

Many, many neophyte producers and editors expect for sound and picture to automatically sync up to each other, and some don't grasp that there's a "granularity" within timecode where sometimes, things are not 100% perfect. I've always maintained that "the numbers get you close; only the slate clap tells you if you're really in sync or not."

 

I concede that there are a handful of directors who specifically dislike digital slates; Tarantino is one of them. With a crew of the caliber that he normally uses, the material is all going to be right, 99.999% of the time.

[Malcolm Davies Amps CAS]

eric: " Then what do you call the original wooden clap slate? "

"old school" ?

maybe just "slate" ??

maybe "darling", but only if it is very beautiful, and I get to know it really well...

before TC, it was just "slate", then came the TC slates in dumb, then smart.

Heard more than anything else in th UK is  "Put the Board In" or "Board It".

[Philip Perkins]

In the early days of using the Coherent slate+ TC generator system mentioned above the term "smart slate" became a production term that was used to mean the whole package--TC on the Nagra, TC slate, then telecine and sound sync.  I'd get calls from producers saying they would be doing "smart slate", and this is what it meant.  My ancient TS-1s worked for years with Comtek RX attached to them, with TC transmitted from my Nagra.  There were a few small advantages to working this way: the main one was that we found that we could run the Nagra in record-run TC, and that the TC blip on stop was small enough that the telecine playback deck could "flywheel" over it.  This meant that if you had a short preroll--the bane of this whole system from telecine's point of view, the telecine operator could back up into the tail fo the previous take and use that as the pre-roll for the short-rolled new take.  This worked most of the time by the end of the run of this technology, but it meant that I often had to explain why I was working with the Comtek RX instead of an onboard TC gen on the slate, and why the TC numbers were not turning when I wasn't rolling.  This last was useful in some situations, everyone would know that sound was not rolling if the numbers on the slate weren't updating.  The Comtek-on-slate thing is still the best way I know of to display playback TC for music video type shoots.   One advantage to the TS1+ SB1/2/2a setup was that you could pull the TC box off and use it for other setups if need be.

 

philp

[jrd456]

Soon, sync boxes will be expected to be provided at no extra charge. Mixers are already not charging for them so they can get the job.It was a mistake to provide them---remember, it attaches to cam. and should be provided by cam.----It.s too late now.

 

                                                                                                    J.D.