When The Shooting Stops … The Cutting Begins: A Film Editor’s Story. This is a great book by Ralph Rosenblum, a New York feature film editor. Whilst it’s written about editing with 35mm film, there are some great lessons for any one who is about to sit down to edit their footage.
Workflow – plan it out first
Before you even go out on your first shoot, make sure you have thought through the process of managing the digital footage you have captured onto your SD, CF or P2 card (or other media). When you finish shooting it’s often too easy to load everything back into your car and head off for a well earned beverage without thinking about where your digital media is. (In the days of film, it was a lot harder to lose a roll of 35 or 16mm film.)
Digital Media storage
I use a Pelican digital card case which holds all my SD Media. My Panasonic camera, Canon 5D and my Zoom audio recorder all use SD cards, so that makes it a lot easier. All my gear is in Pelican cases and whilst I never hope to put these cases to the test, they are waterproof and dustproof and when empty, can be used to prop up stands, camera sliders, etc. Great cases and they make you and your kit look professional.
Have a system
After a card is filled, I click the record tab so it’s safe and then return it upside down to the case. This tells me it’s been used and it will need to be dumped to a hard drive, either on location or back in the post suite. When it has been copied (and verified) I turn the card around so the label is hidden. This tells me the card has been copied and may be used again if necessary.
Double backup
When it comes to hard drives, they say there are two categories of computer users – those who have had a hard drive crash and those who will. I think the same thing could be said about users of digital media. There are those who have recorded over a full card and those who will. I’m still in the first category and I hope to stay there! I always do a double back up of my cards to two different hard drives. One might be your laptop’s internal drive if you’re out on location, but always do two copies.
Keep your cards with you
I mentioned this in one of my posts about location shooting. I never leave my cards in a hotel room when I go out to dinner or even downstairs for breakfast. If your room is rifled you can replace any of your equipment but you can’t replace your data. Look after it.
Happy shooting.
