How many hours will be shot? This is the question every editor asks, and, for producers, it is the most annoying thing to hear.

But the reality is that you should be given a ballpark estimate for how many total hours of footage you can expect to receive. How else will you be able to estimate the amount of digitizing time you will need, or how to manage how much disk drive space you will need? If it is too much footage for your disk drive space, you may need to buy more disk drives, or digitize in a lower resolution, which could affect the rest of your workflow, especially if you are working with green screen or jobs where graphic animators need your footage to do compositing work.

What are video recording best practices? Even though it is standard procedure for video camera operators to record bars and tone at the head of each tape (or even the palm of their hand), some of them don’t. Sometimes, in run-and-gun type shooting, it is impractical to do this. But emphasize that it is for the safety of the footage that they do it when they can. I have had numerous problems with DV tapes getting jammed in various clamshell or small VTRs such that the first 20 seconds of the videotape are destroyed. The tapes can often be salvaged, but the video from the first 20 seconds cannot.

Shooting non-drop frame vs. drop frame timecode: There is no real reason to shoot in drop frame timecode if the footage is being edited and then mastered to tape. It’s the MASTER whose timecode format matters, not the source footage. So I suggest shooting in non-drop since the numbering is easier to follow. If they shoot drop frame anyway, no big deal. Just be sure they know NOT to mix drop frame and non-drop timecode on the same tape. This will cause your editing system to reject the tape after a switch in timecode format. In this case, you will have to give the tape an alternate reel ID for the portion of the tape with the other timecode format.

On multi-camera shoots, there will sometimes be a “line feed”, and then individual recordings for each camera in use (known also as an “iso”). The line feed is a recording of what has gone through a live video switcher and edited on the fly by the technical director. Be sure that the tapes have been numbered according to camera or line feed, or that there is a guide to indicate the source of the recording for each tape. I like to label my tapes as follows: Cam A series = 101, 102, 103, etc; Cam B 201, 202, 203, etc., and anything else, such as a layoff compilation with some other series, like 1001, 1002, etc. This will distinguish your tapes as being camera originals or “created” by dubbing from other sources. There are lots of methods to accomplish the same thing, and this is merely one example.

DO NOT label tapes in repeated series according to date, such as September 5 #101, 102, 103, etc., then September 6 #101, 102, 103. This will create confusion. Use a number first in your reel ID so that you can sort your reels in your bins easily, then if you have any other date or identification data, use it after the number ID, or use another column in your bin for it.

Advise your DP not rewind any video tapes after they have been ejected from the camera. Let a studio quality VTR do the delicate tape rewinding rather than a camera. Even before you place a tape in a VTR, ALWAYS check that the record tab has been set to PROTECT. Each tape should be labeled according to agreed upon specs, and make sure they do not place the adhesive label on or near the flip-up tape protector part of the cassette. Labels should be placed ONLY on the specified labeling area of the tape. Misplacing the label can cause the flip-up bar to jam making it impossible to insert into the VTR.

With inexpensive cameras, if the DP will be powering off the video camera, or stopping and rewinding frequently, the timecode will sometimes revert to zero on the tape somewhere in the middle, which will make digitizing exceedingly difficult. If this is the case, you must request that the camera masters be cloned to another tape with unbroken ascending timecode. Although cloning a tape is a waste of time in the pure sense, compared to the aggravation of digitizing a tape with broken timecode, it is the lesser of two evils. Nothing will slow a log and digitize session down to a crawl than a badly recorded videotape.

There is nothing you can do in the digitizing process that will make your life easier except to clone the tapes to another set of tapes. This will negate any timecode issues by generating new wild timecode, and, if done through a proper digital connection, will not incur any generation loss on the footage. It is wise to spot check all of your videotapes for this problem if you suspect that the shooters powered off frequently. That way, you can be cloning bad tapes while digitizing good ones. The decision to do this is should be weighed against wasted money because if there are 40 bad tapes, it will cost a lot of money and time to clone them all. So if there are only a few problems with each tape, you might have to bite the bullet and babysit the capturing process. Again, it is best to warn against this potential problem before it happens.