HD DSLR Film Making Essential Gear: The Slate
In this day and age with ultra fast computers and programs that auto-sync your sound files from 100′s of sources (if you got ‘em) with just the click of a button, why bother with an old fashioned slate?
A slate is an erasable board about the size of a magazine (for those that don’t remember magazines, they were kind of like a laptop made out of a stack of paper, containing photographs and text). You write on the slate information that is pertinent too a shot in that movie you’re making featuring your neighbor Danny, his 83 cats, and that overly friendly lady in the short skirt. You know, the one that hangs out by the bus stop and smells like coleslaw and feet.
Hinged on one side, two blocks of wood sit above the slate. That’s so you can clack them together and make a nice clap sound. That’s why some folks like to call slates “clap boards.” What’s the point of all that noise? So you can take sound that you recorded separately, out of the camera, find the point where that loud clap happens and slide it over to the exact frame of video where the two blocks of wood touch for the first time, lining those suckers up.
As I mentioned, there is software that can automatically line them up for you. So why bother with the slate? Because slates do more than just help you line up the audio.
Well, you’re not writing poetry on them, you’re writing important information about the shot that you are going to want to have later when you or your editor are sitting in front of the computer faced with a mountain of video files, Balthazar, your lead actress’s “friend” telling you which take has the most “realisms.” At the very least you’ll want to write down the scene number, shot number, and number of the take. Make sure the slate is in front of the lens when you hit record and now you can use a program like Adobe Bridge or your editing software preview window to see what each file is without having to hit play. Unless you are shooting a completely unscripted doc like a wedding, concert, or kid’s party, without those numbers your life just took a sharp turn down the off ramp to Sucksville.
Now, you could just write that info onto a piece of paper and hold it up in front of the camera. That’ll work. Kind of slow to have to write down the headings for each number each time. And it’s not very pro looking, but it’s way better than nothing. However a good slate also has stripes.
That’s right. Stripes. Those boards on top that you clap together, a decent slate has color, black, gray, and white stripes on there that help you with exposure and match your white balance later when you are color grading. It’s right there on the stripes. Big time saver. You could just use a gray card for that, hold it next to your janky spiral bound notebook that you’re writing your scene numbers on. I won’t, but you could.
Yes, having a really decent quality slate can be temporarily replaced with items you have already, but nothing quite replaces that really good clap sound. So what if you don’t need it to sync sound anymore? Well, that sound has a magical effect on a set. It snaps your crew and cast to attention. Don’t underestimate this power. No joke.
Buy your last slate first. Slate’s seem expensive. Heck, they are expensive. Even crappy ones are around $40. And that’s $40 you are just going to throw away because you’ll be lucky if they last through a pair of productions. For less than double that you can get the best made slate I’ve ever used, the CineTools Engraved Film Slate (currently $75). It’s made in the USA and I think it might last forever. It’s made of a dry erase marker friendly plexi that is engraved with the headings that don’t change from shot to shot and super solid clappers with a magnet in the ends to make sure you get a solid clap! I likey. Throw down an extra 35 smackers and they’ll custom engrave what you want on the board. Why engraved instead of just printed on there like the cheepy ones? So it doesn’t wear off after a couple hundred takes.
As I was saying, slates seem expensive, but at $75 for one that will outlast your next five multi-thousand dollar cameras, and considering all the time they can save in the editing room, etc., I’d say it could be one of the best values in your bag.
Essential gear for HD DSLR film makers? I’d say so.
Nice!
In this day and age with ultra fast computers, programs that auto-sync your sound files from 100′s of sources (if you got ‘em) with just the click of a button, why bother with a slate?
A slate is an erasable board about the size of a magazine (for those that don’t remember magazines, they were kind of like a laptop made out of a stack of paper, containing photographs and text). You write on the slate information that is pertinent too a shot in that movie you’re making featuring your neighbor Danny, his 83 cats, and that overly friendly lady in the short skirt. You know, the one that hangs out by the bus stop and smells like coleslaw and feet.
Hinged on one side, two blocks of wood sit above the slate. That’s so you can clack them together and make a nice clap sound. That’s why some folks like to call slates “clap boards.” What’s the point of all that noise? So you can take sound that you recorded separately, out of the camera, find the point where that loud clap happens and slide it over to the exact frame of video where the two blocks of wood touch for the first time, lining those suckers up.
As I mentioned, there is software that can automatically line them up for you. So why bother with the slate? Because slates do more than just help you line up the audio.
Well, you’re not writing poetry on them, you’re writing important information about the shot that you are going to want to have later when you or your editor are sitting in front of the computer faced with a mountain of video files, Balthazar, your lead actress’s “friend” telling you which take has the most “realisms.” At the very least you’ll want to write down the scene number, shot number, and number of the take. Make sure the slate is in front of the lens when you hit record and now you can use a program like Adobe Bridge or your editing software preview window to see what each file is without having to hit play. Unless you are shooting a completely unscripted doc like a wedding, concert, or kid’s party, without those numbers your life just took a sharp turn down the off ramp to Sucksville.
Now, you could just write that info onto a piece of paper and hold it up in front of the camera. That’ll work. Kind of slow to have to write down the headings for each number each time. And it’s not very pro looking, but it’s way better than nothing. However a good slate also has stripes.
That’s right. Stripes. Those boards on top that you clap together, a decent slate has color, black, gray, and white stripes on there that help you with exposure and match your white balance later when you are color grading. It’s right there on the stripes. Big time saver. You could just use a gray card for that, hold it next to your janky spiral bound notebook that you’re writing your scene numbers on. I won’t, but you could.
Yes, having a really decent quality slate can be temporarily replaced with items you have already, but nothing quite replaces that really good clap sound. So what if you don’t need it to sync sound anymore? Well, that sound has a magical effect on a set. It snaps your crew and cast to attention. Don’t underestimate this power. No joke.
Buy your last slate first. Slate’s seem expensive. Heck, they are expensive. Even crappy ones are around $40. And that’s $40 you are just going to throw away because you’ll be lucky if they last through a pair of productions. For less than double that you can get the best made slate I’ve ever used, the CineTools Engraved Film Slate (currently $75). It’s made in the USA and I think it might last forever. It’s made of a dry erase marker friendly plexi that is engraved with the headings that don’t change from shot to shot and super solid clappers with a magnet in the ends to make sure you get a solid clap! I likey. Throw down an extra 35 smackers and they’ll custom engrave what you want on the board. Why engraved instead of just printed on there like the cheepy ones? So it doesn’t wear off after a couple hundred takes.
As I was saying, slates seem expensive, but at $75 for one that will outlast your next five multi-thousand dollar cameras, and considering all the time they can save in the editing room, etc., I’d say it could be one of the best values in your bag.
Essential gear for HD DSLR film makers? I’d say so.
Nice!
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Zeke: You might also want to take a look at a very cool iPhone app called “Movie Slate.” It turns the phone’s screen into a time code slate, running at all of various frame rates used in production work. It also has a very useful shot logging/note taking feature. In terms of jamming the slate to an external time code source (e.g.: a time-code audio recorder), it’s easy enough to set both the slate’s time code and the external source to “time of day” (just get them close enough) and then figure out offsets later on in post.
Here’s a link:
http://www.appstorehq.com/movie-slate-clapperboard-shotlog–iphone-50018/app
Matt
That looks fun. Definitely better than a piece of paper, but IMO not even close to as good as a real slate. Right? I mean if you aren’t shooting with time code which the HD DSLRs aren’t.
Zeke: Sure, the HD DSLR isn’t running time-code, but it’s quite likely that your digital audio recorder is (if you’re shooting a sync-sound scene). By having the iPhone slate and the audio recorder running time-of-day time code — and having their time-codes within about a second or so of each other — it becomes super easy (SUPER easy) to lock audio tracks to picture.
As an added bonus, running time of day time-code (and wearing a half-way accurate watch) makes it easy to log shots. When you get the “keeper take,” (you know what I mean) just look at your watch to get the outpoint for the scene.
Matt
Interesting!
The iPhone app is a nice toy but it doesn’t really offer anything in timecode besides a pretty picture. In order for TC to be useful it has to be resolved AND referenced. That is the number has to mean something (i.e. 01:00:00:00 on one source = 01:00:00:00 on the other – or at least there is a known offset) and both have to be driven from the same clock source (so that one frame has EXACTLY the same duration on each source). Unfortunately HDSLRs don’t have GENLOCK inputs so there’s no way to force the speed to follow the exact same reference signal that your audio recorder is following (which actually is generating the audio SAMPLE RATE since audio doesn’t actually have a frame rate but derives it’s sample clock from the video or reference frame rate) and, in the case of the iPhone app, make the transition between frame numbers fall exactly on the cut from one frame to the next in camera.
Yea, you can definitely line of the clap and go with your double system, and on short takes you’ll be fine, but when you get to longer takes, you’ll definitely see drift. You can see this if you sample-accurately line up the on-board audio from the camera (which IS referenced to the video) and your outboard audio. The two will definitely drift since they don’t reference the same clock.
Sorry, maybe my post is a little TMI, but I spend much of my professional life syncing other people’s “wild” audio. Proper sync is what separates the pros from the ams and yes, it usually starts with a slate.
Steve:
I agree completely with your main premise, which is that time-code drift (or — simply — going off-sync) is a complete and total bitch. I would also agree with the notion that the iPhone Movie*Slate app is not a professional slate… Quite honestly, it’s not — and any recordist who would show up on a major commercial set with an iPhone and an app as “the slate” would get kicked off in a second.
On the other hand, the Movie*Slate app does seem to be more than just a toy, as it was actually designed by people with experience in the the production industry. I spoke with the folks over at PureBlend Software (the designers of the slate) about the time-code stability issue, and they’re finding that their app stays within 3 frames during the course of an hour. Sure this isn’t as good as Ambient Lockit Box — I don’t think that anything’s as good as an Ambient Lockit Box — but it’s certainly good enough for most short takes (twenty to thirty minutes and under).
My concern — and you absolutely nailed it — would be the actual stability of the HDSLR’s frame rate. If the camera’s sync can’t be relied upon, then whatever stability that the iPhone app (and the associated audio recorder) might have would be fairly worthless. Myself, I don’t actually own a DSLR that can shoot video (I’m waiting for the next generation of Nikons to come out), so I can’t conduct any sort of sync/stability tests with the gear that I have.
Sooooo… I guess that the thing to do right now might be to toss this one out to Zeke’s readership and say: “Hey! Do any of you guys own an DSLR that shoots video, an iPhone with the Movie*Slate app on it, and a Final Cut Pro (or Avid) system? If so, are any of you willing to test out the sync/drift issues that might come up when all three of this set-ups come into play on a long take?”
Matt
Matt and Zeke,
Most professional sound recordist have a “smart slate” slate with an LED timecode readout which the camera shoots.
The timecode on the smart slate reflects the audio recorder timecode.
The Iphone app is useful for a visual slate to indicate the roll number and other info but as far as the time of day timecode it is useless unless it is locked to the actual timecode recorded on the audio recorder or camera.
Indies always seem to have a lust for going in cheap to save a buck only to have it cost them a lot of time, effort and additional money on the back end.
It’s a ass backward approach in my opinion.
Matt why waste time testing a prosumer system when a professional workflow and standard already exist that has been documented to be effective and working.
No need to reinvent the wheel with a square one.
John Smith