Card-based Camera Workflow

The new generation of video/ digital cinema cameras records image and sound to memory cards, instead of tape. This is a guide to shooting, organizing, and ingesting your footage into a non-linear editing system.

SHOOTING

Internal drive or Memory Card? Be certain your camera is set to record media to a memory card (SD or Compact Flash), and not the internal drive. This setting is usually found in the 'Media' section of the menus.

Formatted? Before any shooting you should reformat the card. Even if you've been shooting with the camera all day, you should reformat. This is the only way to erase the contents of the card with any certainty - reformat it in the camera you are about to shoot with.

AFTER SHOOTING

Cloned cards? Immediately after you shoot, you should 'clone' your memory cards. This means drag ALL of the folders off the card onto your own hard drive. (You should bring a drive & card-reader with you to shoots!) RECOMMENDATION: Create folders for each card you offload, and include the date somehow in the name. Here's an example of how the folders may look:

This folder-structure was made with cards shot by the Sony junior cameras (HXR- NX70U). Note that both the AVF_INFO and PRIVATE folders are copied onto the hard drive. Logging software, such as Final Cut's Log and Capture, needs these additional folders present to be able to read through the card in its entirety. (Note the Sony cameras record the media as .MTS files; the Panasonics will use .m2t files.

TREAT THESE CLONED CARDS LIKE YOUR FILM NEGATIVE. Most productions that can afford it will clone cards to two separate hard drives, so there are duplicates of everything. Once you're confident you have offloaded the cards, you can reformat it in the camera and continue shooting with it.

And just like your film negative - you WON'T be editing with these files. You will transcode them to Intermediate formats.

LOG AND TRANSFER

Use the card clones on your drive to log your footage and transfer it. How you do this will depend on what post-production platform you are using. Three common examples:

•Final Cut Pro (7) -