custom labels for deliverables

[Noah Timan]

You guys on bigger/longer shows recording to multitrack--how much traction have you gotten with the idea of your computer generated reports getting sent in as PDFs, rather than printing them out?  Or do you do both anyway?

I usually still just do handwritten ones because it's fast and involves less fuss than using a computer and printer, although I'd be interested to hear of a computer based template (other than Majax) that makes entering sound report data on a computer easy.

.02 nvt

[Jeff Wexler]

The only problem with that is that we still work with a printed copy for telecine dailies. If the PDF is on the audio disk, we'd have to eject it from the Fostex DVD drive, put it in a conventional computer, pull up the file, print it out, then return it to the Fostex drive.

--Marc W.

The debate over "sound reports" (and when are we going to get into the discussion as to whether we can still call them "sound" reports, ha, ha) is a healthy one, and input from Marc is very important to guide our thinking. I have been against this whole .pdf on the disk idea for just the reason Marc states here. So, I am relieved of all the drudgery of the handwritten sound report only to hand off this task to someone else who has to print out the .pdf. This procedure probably works much better in Europe where, as we have discussed before, the whole daily/telecine/syncing/editorial workflow is substantially different. If an assistant editor is copying the entire contents of our disk into a computer in the first place and syncing will happen there, it may not be such a big deal to print out or view the sound report.

I think that when, and if, the process of putting some kind of viable log as a text document on the disk is available to all of us (not just Cantar users), there is some value in having this text document on the disk for future reference. I agree with Marc, though, that it is not terribly useful for the basic daily telecine operation as we now do it.

For the record, I still do handwritten sound reports and because of the way I work (Mr. Mono and one mic seems to get the job done) the reports do not need to be very elaborate (they just need to be clear and have accurate information).

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

[JamieSound]

I have a Mac Pbook with BWAVLISTER on it. Besides doing hand written logs, I often put a text file log (from metadata) on the polyfile disk. 

In the next generation of recorders, It might be interesting to put metadata log software built right into the firmware. With a printer hooked up to the recorder, one could just press a button and print a log, or write the file into a folder. Lest we forget - these recorders ARE computers.

Jamie Scarpuzza

[Philip Perkins]

On the jobs I work on ANYTHING that costs time in telecine on the way to making dailies is a non-starter, so I guess I'll hold off on the PDF reports for now.  Metacorder can make pretty good reports automatically but they have to be corrected before you have MC make the PDF (obviously).  They've been good for bigger multitrack music sorts of things (18 + tracks) and have an option to have the sound report be a music style tracksheet.  I still want to try out BWF Widget just looking at the folder of 702T etc files and listing them in a document to go on a backup disc, (after I recover from taxes enough to afford a new laptop...).

Philip Perkins

[Matt Mayer]

On the other hand: Technicolor has an entire department devoted to logging the audio disks that come in for telecine, so we have "clap logs" already. But I like having the mixer's own notes, just in case we have to deal with something non-standard (unusual track assignments, operating levels, etc.).

--Marc W.

Marc,

That's very forward thinking of them.  Which Technicolor branch/house?  Do you know what they use to log the claps?

---Matt

[Marc Wielage]

Which Technicolor branch/house?  Do you know what they use to log the claps?

This is for Technicolor/Hollywood (aka Complete Post on Sunset & Gower). I'll probably be killed if I confess how the clap logs are generated, except to say it's something for which we charge the client a small fee. (It essentially provides the same "clap-finding" feature in the competing Aaton system.) In cases where a production uses all dumb slates, it's used 100%; in cases where there's a smart slate, we use it when the numbers are unreadable or bad. In every case, we check the claps as we go to make sure we're in sync.

Because most of dailies transfers are done in 24p HD, we're sometimes a field out of sync (1/60th of a second), because the frame with the clap occurs on an odd field. On an Avid, editing in 24p SD (525), this can result in the sync "appearing" to be 1 frame out. This results in no end of discussion and concern from many assistant editors. Our dailies people really sweat getting the sync right, on top of the overall color, paperwork, plus plowing through hours of footage quickly. It's a tough, thankless job.