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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Proper Slating

Shawn Booth

Shawn Booth

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When slating, you ideally want the slate to own the frame. Top-to-bottom, side-to-side... This is easy to achieve. Take the focal length (say a 50mm) and place the slate out at a distance that is equal to 10% of FL. So, on a fifty, the slate should be 5 feet in front of lens. This should give you a nice full slate. (Always making sure to hold for a beat so the assistant editor can read it.)
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The slate always enters frame open and when "roll camera" is called. This way, the first frame is the slate ready to clap. Also, you aren't blocking the frame from the operator/cinematographer/director/etc...
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If tail slating - throw up slate, clap it and flip it upside down. Or start upside down and flip, then clap. (Always making sure to hold for a beat so the assistant editor can read it.)

As far as what you call out when slating... Depends on show. Sometimes, "marker" is all that is needed. 2 camera shoot, "A marker"/ "B marker". (The sound mixer usually calls scene/take on the audio track.)

Filling out the slate - top row (scene/take/roll #) should be filled out as fully as possible. What I mean is, make the numbers nice and full to take up as much space as possible.
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Hope this helps...
 
Ufff... I just finished doing dailies on a 10-12 camera shoot. LOUSY LOUSY slating. IN the defense of the guys, they where rolling on:

2-Alexas
4-7D's
2-Sony EX3's to Nanoflash
2- Canon Vixia
1- Panasonic A100
2- GorPro's
1- Forward Looking Infrared


As you can imagine, having this many cameras mixed up, and sometimes ALL of them rolling at once with crappy slating REALLY made our job (dailies) hell.

I CANT STRESS ENOUGH how important this is.

Thanks for the advice. I'll be sure to print this and hand it in.


Now on a lighter note...

http://vimeo.com/5516736
 
Nice Frank -

Yes, sometimes you have to go way out there and sacrifice the full frame slate because it's easier than speed cranking the focus to the slate and then back...
I love his style of having fun. I know a few guys that do odd and random "things" while marking...

Here ya go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=195DIZY-C3Y
 
Another thing - Each camera set up is annotated with a letter (not a change in scene #).

ROLL 47 SC 17 T 2 "great. moving on."

ROLL 47 SC 17A T 1

You just change the letter for any lens change, camera position change, etc. When you run out of letters, you simply start over with double letters:

ROLL 58 SC 17AA T 1 (next set up = SC 17AB NOT SC 17BB) When calling out letters (to scripty usually), "seventeen apple" or "seventeen alpha bravo". Or get fun with it, "seventeen awesome butt". I have played with trying to use only a particular actor's character names or other fun things.

Letters you want to avoid: I & O for sure. Some shoots (script supervisors, always check with them on first day) skip: Q, S, Z as well. These letters look similar to numbers.
 
I would add.

IF on a multi cam shoot, dont get creative using multiple letters to identify cameras. For example,

AA - Alexa#1
AB - Alexa #2
CA - Canon #1
CB - Canon #2
and so on. Do avoid this. Your friendly dailies dept. and editorial will thank you for it...
Stick to single letters.
 
If you wanna be high speed, you label the slate with a P-Touch.

You can also make REALLY NICE tags (VFX, POLA and other filters, if in TV the episode number, DAY/NIGHT, camera letter, etc.)

Velcro is a must have...

If you utilize a Sharpie on the slate (either by design or accident), simply color over it with your mouse (dry erase marker of choice) and then wipe off.

Learn "soft sticks" for when you're right in the actor's face...

Put the slate down!! Stop walking around with it...
 
Frank Cueto said:
I would add.

IF on a multi cam shoot, dont get creative using multiple letters to identify cameras. For example,

AA - Alexa#1
AB - Alexa #2
CA - Canon #1
CB - Canon #2
and so on. Do avoid this. Your friendly dailies dept. and editorial will thank you for it...
Stick to single letters.
Click to expand...

Oh boy...

Yes, cameras should be designated a single letter with corresponding colored tape.

A camera
B camera
C camera

These never change during the shoot. Let's say on DAY 1 you have four cameras. "D" camera is a Phantom. It only works on DAY 1. But on some other day you bring in a new fourth camera. This will be "E" camera.

Back to the colored tape. Usually, you tape every piece of a camera package with tape to quickly identify that the part belongs to a certain camera. Usually, it breaks down to:
A - red
B - blue
C - yellow
etc...

However, the first assistant camera (1AC) can choose whatever colors they like. I have seen purple for A camera, red for B. Or green for A... I use DAYGLO ORANGE


EDIT: If you look at the pics I posted, you will see on the slate: the camera is XA and XB. This (the X) usually indicates either 2nd unit or a splinter unit... Same in the scene info.
 
Shawn Booth said:
Put the slate down!! Stop walking around with it...
Click to expand...

I'm terrible for this...
As soon as I set it on the dolly, the sideboards come off and it has to move
As soon I lean it on the sticks, camera moves
If I place it on the cart, the camera ends up being 100 ft from the cart etc

I've thought about making sort of a pouch to keep it on my belt or hook to hang it off... (But already carrying half the camera package on my belt doesn't really make this such an appealing idea :001_smile:)
Any thoughts?
 
Ryan - use a small cube shaped cooler. Air, tape, small AKS and slate.

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Half the package on your belt?! Please elaborate this one... I try to carry as little as possible and have lost the belt in favor of the chest piece and cooler. Most still use belt and cooler.

I would hate the slate attached to me...
 
We put together an informative video about this a while ago :)

http://www.vimeo.com/5516736

And you might be interested to know that we refer to scene-number/setup-letter as "American slating" - out here it's sequential setup numbers only from go to whoa in a given shooting block. (6 week feature might get up to 1500 or so...)
 
Shawn Booth said:
Ryan - use a small cube shaped cooler. Air, tape, small AKS and slate.

Half the package on your belt?! Please elaborate this one... I try to carry as little as possible and have lost the belt in favor of the chest piece and cooler. Most still use belt and cooler.

I would hate the slate attached to me...
Click to expand...

The small ditty is a good idea, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to just throw it in my marking bag...

I'm obviously exaggerating on half the camera package. I have a hard tape, soft tape, 3 types of allen key sets, crescent wrench, multi screwdriver, 2 slate markers, multiple sharpies, multiple pens, insert slate, 2 powder puffs, panchro spray, notepad, kim wipes, 5 colours of marking tape, 1 inch white cloth, 2" black paper, canned air, coffee cup, small jewellers set, 2 sausage markers, china pencils, flashlight, headlamp, an extra chammy, plus extra stuff depending on the project like a pelican CF card case or even the FF whip.... It's really my own fault, the 1st asks for something, I grab it from my belt in 2 seconds and after that, if I don't have it in 2 seconds something is wrong!
 
Some thoughts...
In the old days, pre-smart slate, we used to slide it into a slot at the bottom of the first AC's front box (that's what the cutout there is for in case any of you youngsters were wondering) Now it doesn't fit there. Hard to believe that Deneke et al haven't found a way to make slates REALLY slim (electronics and battery crammed into the bottom stick perhaps)
Another tip for newbie slaters: TILT THE SLATE (usually down) slightly to avoid glare on the numbers. If there is a soft source below camera, tilt in slightly up. I can't tell you the number of times we've called out to the poor PA assigned to slating on quick notice, "tilt the slate!" To which they invariably tilt sideways or up or any other direction the fails to help... ;)
Hold the slate for a quick beat after you clap. This avoids blurring the sticks by motion (if the numbers are off due to some technical snafu, the assistant editor will rely on finding the first UNBLURRED frame of the sticks together to denote the line-up with the audible clap) Newbies often drag the slate down, continuing in the same motion as the top stick. Bad form.
It doesn't matter as much now with digital cameras, but a thrifty practice from the film days is to call out the scene number as soon as sound calls "speed", BEFORE the camera rolls. This ensures a minimum amount of film being consumed by the slating process.
A practice I miss with digital is pre-slating MOS shots. Nothing is more cool and low profile than keeping this most rudimentary office function unobtrusive by pre-slating a take BEFORE the actors step in. "Never waiting on camera" as we used to say...
I wish digital camera designers would have included a "slating function" button that would roll the camera, but then when pressed again, stop rolling and keep the file open so that an MOS slate "grabbed" before the actual take was contained at the head of the file it goes with. As it stands now, if you pre-slate, you merely make a new short file that the editor has to assume is associated with the file that immediately follows it. I suppose editors have gotten used to that one though...
Cheers,
Harry
 
Ryan Lalonde said:
The small ditty is a good idea, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to just throw it in my marking bag...

I'm obviously exaggerating on half the camera package. I have a hard tape, soft tape, 3 types of allen key sets, crescent wrench, multi screwdriver, 2 slate markers, multiple sharpies, multiple pens, insert slate, 2 powder puffs, panchro spray, notepad, kim wipes, 5 colours of marking tape, 1 inch white cloth, 2" black paper, canned air, coffee cup, small jewellers set, 2 sausage markers, china pencils, flashlight, headlamp, an extra chammy, plus extra stuff depending on the project like a pelican CF card case or even the FF whip.... It's really my own fault, the 1st asks for something, I grab it from my belt in 2 seconds and after that, if I don't have it in 2 seconds something is wrong!

I'm not actually the worst, I DP I work with always tells me when he was a second he would wear a fishing vest (20+ pockets) and a belt. He would carry anything and everything at all times! haha
Click to expand...

most of that can go in the cooler, which is always nearby. every AC is different and has their way of doing things though...
 
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