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Monday, February 28, 2011
The Secret Art of Slating: 25 Tips to Help You Slate Like a Pro
Art Adams | 02/28
Take these to heart and become the editor’s best friend.
The only time it’s acceptable to shoot a slate out of focus is when the shot is locked off for visual effects.
16. If you’re simply ID’ing a take, which happens when it is being recorded without sound or if the sound is being recorded single-system with the picture onto tape or a hard drive, put the slate into the shot with the clapper closed. If the clapper is open then the editor will assume that it’s going to close and they’ll look for audio to sync up to it, but if it’s closed then they know not to bother. For example, the shot above was captured without sound.
17. Sometimes slating has to happen at the end of the shot. Hold the slate upside down to indicate that the slate is happening at the end of the take. (These are all visual cues that allow editors and their minions to very quickly figure out what’s going on with both picture and audio.)
After the director calls “Cut!” it’s a good idea to yell “Tail Slate!” or “Tail Sticks!” to remind the operator and first assistant not to stop the camera yet.
18. Make sure the slate is well lit. Shooting in the dark is no excuse for a dark slate. Ask the electricians to set up a small slate light that they will turn on for slating, or invest in a good flashlight with a wide beam.
19. When the shot is very, very tight there are a couple of things you can do:
If there’s room, simply hold the slate so scene and take fill the frame. When the camera rolls, wait a second and then move the clapper down into frame, say “Mark!” (or “Marker!”) and hit it.
If the shot is so tight that you can’t get both the scene and take in the frame, hold the scene box on the slate in the frame and wait for the camera to roll. Count to one and move the slate horizontally so the take number fills the frame and count to one again. The lower the clapper into frame, say “Mark!” (or “Marker!”) and hit it.
Insert slates are miniature slates, although often without clappers. If an extremely tight shot requires a clap and you don’t have an insert slate with a clapper, take the clapper off a regular slate and use it. Hold the insert slate in the shot as the camera rolls, count to one, and then hold the sticks in frame, say “Mark!” and clap ‘em. (Sometimes you can remove the sticks from a full size slate and squeeze the insert slate into the slot, toward the open end of the sticks.)
In the absence of an insert slate you can write the scene and take together in the “take” box (“17A/1”) and only shoot that portion of the slate. It’s a good idea to include all the information on the slate when possible, but the bottom line is that post only cares about the scene and take information. They probably know who the director and DP are.
20. Slating for multiple cameras on film was pretty simple: you’d “bump” a slate on each camera, meaning you’d roll a second of film on each camera’s slate, and then at the beginning of the take you’d take one set of clapper sticks out in front of the cameras and say “A and B common mark” before hitting them. (This tells the editor that A and B cameras are rolling and this sync mark works for both.) That doesn’t work in digital because bumping a slate means creating a separate file, which defeats the purpose of ID’ing a take.
The solution is to hit each camera’s slate separately. Bang the slates in sequence: “A camera mark!”, “B camera mark!”, etc. Hopefully there are enough people around to help if there aren’t enough assistants to do the job. Often the A-camera first assistant can slate their own camera as they usually have a wide shot.
When slating multiple cameras keep your slate in the frame from the beginning of the shot. This not only creates a thumbnail of the slate for the editor but it blocks the camera’s view of other slates, preventing the editor or assistant editor from trying to sync the audio to the wrong camera’s slate.
Each camera will have its own slate with a large “A” or “B” or “C” letter on it somewhere. The letters are often different colors: red for A camera, blue for B camera, etc. (There’s a color system for additional cameras that I don’t remember anymore.) Once again, this is another visual tool that helps an editor quickly figure out what’s going on.
(21) Occasionally you’ll have odd slate numbers: R17A means you’re reshooting 17A, 17A-TV means you’re shooting a “clean” version of the scene for TV, etc. Visual effects projects often have a very bizarre nomenclature for identifying scenes and takes, often because each completed shot requires many separate visual elements and all the elements must be tracked. The script supervisor or visual effects supervisor will guide you in this.
(22) Roll (or card) numbers are often ignored by union crews. I’m not sure why, but assistants frequently buy slates that don’t have a place for roll numbers and union editors typically don’t ask for that kind of information. (See the slate at the top of this page.)
(23) Make sure you spell the director and DP’s names properly. If you want to impress everyone, get a label maker and print out neat labels for each new shoot. It looks very professional, and that goes a long way toward impressing those around you. Neatness counts. (Large budget projects will custom order engraved slates with the project title and director/DP information.)
ROOKIE MISTAKES that you’ll want to avoid:
(24) DON’T TAKE THE SLATE AWAY FROM THE CAMERA. There’s a tendency for rookie second camera assistants to hook the slate in their belt and walk around with it. This is pointless and possibly embarrassing, because if you’re not on the set when the cameras roll someone is going to be very angry with you.
Always leave the slate in the first camera assistant’s front box, on the dolly, or some other consistent place near the camera so that the first assistant can easily find the slate and mark the shot if you’re not around. The slate should always be within easy reach of the first camera assistant.
(25) NEVER REHEARSE SLATING. Film students often think they have to hit the slate during rehearsals, when the camera isn’t rolling. You don’t rehearse the slate as it isn’t part of the performance, it’s just an identification tool for editors who have to round up the good takes quickly and cut them together.
Some of these tips may seem unusually intricate but there’s a good reasons for every one of them. In the film business time is money, and knowing how to mark a shot quickly so that an editor can find it quickly saves a lot of money in the long run. The best way to make a producer angry is to force them to spend more money than they need to, and bad slating can waste a lot of money—both on set and in the editing room.
My first union job was loading film on a sitcom with a crew that hadn’t done a lot of sitcoms before. The first assistants refused to do their own paperwork (“That’s the second assistant’s job!”) and the second assistant was a bit crazed managing four cameras on the first few episodes. I often received rolls of film that had nothing on them but a blank camera report and a roll number. I did my best to fill in the camera reports but I often had to send the rolls to the lab with almost no scene and take information.
On the third episode a guy walked up to me on the set and said, “Hey, can I ask you a favor? Can you PLEASE make sure the camera reports have the scene and take info on them? I’m the third assistant editor they’ve hired on this show and I’d like to keep my job.” Upon hearing this the first assistants became a bit more cooperative and that assistant editor was able to sync dailies fast enough to stay employed.
What you do on set affects a lot of people down the line. Get in the habit of doing it right and, in time, it’ll become so routine that you’ll be able to focus on the hundred other things you have to learn to do properly.
Art Adams is a DP who likes to be in sync with his crews. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.
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Bruce A Johnson | 04/20
400 watts of LED replaces a 6K? Sounds good to me.
Next time you need to flood a room with soft light - in whatever color temperature - you should give the Ohm a look.
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Bruce A Johnson | 04/20
EZ to use, EZ on your wallet
I’ve always been intrigued by jib arms, and usually put off by their high prices. EZ-FX might have a solution to that problem.
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Bruce A Johnson | 04/18
The big one in the picture is TEN FEET TALL!
When I walked past these the first time, I thought they might be antennas left on the Moon to shoot signals back to earth. But a little research proved to me that these are great lighting devices. NOTE: a big “Thanks!” to my colleague Erik Higgs for letting me edit on his laptop while I was in Vegas.
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This is excellent and very useful. Thanks Art!
Posted by Steven Bradford on 02/28 at 09:46 PM
Thanks, Steven! Send students! 
Posted by Art Adams on 02/28 at 09:53 PM
Yes these are fantastic tips. As an editor that are appreciated. I’ll add a couple more:
On music video shoots where you’re not going to clap the slate be sure you hold the clappers sticks open and far apart so the editor knows there will be no clapping.
And on those shoots where it’s very important that the editor be able to READ the timecode readout of the timecode slate be away of glare or sunlight that can make those numbers unreadable. If you’re not shooting reference audio (like when shooting film) then those numbers are the only way the editor has to sync the playback.
Be diligent about keeping the slate on-hand and ready to pop in at a moment’s notice. This might make a hurried director more likely to use it. Good directors know that the time will be saved in the editing suite.
Art’s mention of having the slate in frame when the camera rolls so there’s a slate there in the NLE’s poster frame is very, very good. In the edit you can change the poster frame if the slate wasn’t in frame but to do this for every shot is a real PITA time waster.
Great post!
Posted by Scott Simmons on 03/01 at 08:58 AM
This is a great list! A couple thoughts from a working assistant editor.
Don’t forget the date! This is very helpful on longer shoots, especially a season of TV when pick-ups are done for episodes other than the one currently shooting. It really helps you dig through binders full of script notes when trying to see if there’s B-Neg that could be pulled, as well as many other situations.
Re: 15, The P/U is actually very helpful. All it has to indicate to the editor is that it doesn’t cover the whole scene (or doesn’t cover the same part of the scene as the other shots in the setup). It’s also always a new take number, just indicated that it’s not a full take. (i.e 17-1, 17-2, 17-3PU, 17-4PU) The different PU shots may cover different lines, but that info is in the script notes.
Re: 22, sound rolls are as important as camera rolls when you’re using double-system sound. I’ve worked on a lot of union shows (mostly episodic TV) and they’ve never left this out, though.
Re: 17, It’s also a good idea, once you’ve have the slate in the frame and clapped it upside down, to turn it right side up and hold it for a second to make it easier to read.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/01 at 10:38 AM
This is a fantastic article! I do lots of tv commercials and corporate videos and am always looking for better ways to be more organized. This was VERY VERY helpful.
I’ve been searching Amazon trying to find a book that outlines how a corporate video or television commercial script should look, but I haven’t found any books on script techniques. Maybe in the future you could write another article about script writing techniques. (not the narration, I’m talking about how the shots are organized and listed)
Thanks again Art!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/07 at 10:20 AM
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