Posted: 30/01/2015
Cloud, log, tag – Oh my!
As it has always been, the process of logging media is still considered a necessary practice to which all media creation begins no matter how the media was generated. Logging has always been about giving the editor as much information about shots and/or scenes. Beyond the other roles of an assistant editor (terminology from my era) or logger (terminology from your era), keeping the edit process organised through high quality and granular logging of your content is the single most sought after skill-set. Closely followed by the skill of playing therapist to your editor.
HoHum Logging
For years, logging technology has not been so incredibly innovative; to that point it has actually been rather boring. Launch your logging software, load up your clips and depending on the genre of media, you will label your clips according to specific standards that are set and add additional important information into various columns. Optionally, you can import other data from an existing database and merge that with known sources. Additional processes can be included depending on the production. It is safe to say that this process has mostly been done independently on a single computer island, or if you have the money, a local shared storage network.
The Local Logger and “Ail”
The real issue for most productions is how fast can you get the media back to home base for the logging and tagging to occur? It is never fast enough. For many productions, the same day is not an option and by day 2, you are already a day behind. For multi-city, state and continent productions, this proves to be a huge scheduling nightmare. Every hour/day/week that the logger cannot get at the media is a real serious problem for the entire production.
The Cloud Logger
The Forscene SaaS (See my first post) solves this by simply (and yes I mean it is easy) and immediately (and yes, I mean mostly immediate or it could be a couple of hours later) uploading proxies of the camera original media to Forscene’s secure cloud. To the point you are in field production basking in a much warmer climate than Toronto, Canada, and I can still access the media that you uploaded less than a minute after you started the ingest process. I can see, hear and play the media and the all-important time-code and reel data is intact from the other side of the world, immediately.
It’s Alive!
I have to mention, watching media arrive in your Forscene bin browser from 10,000 miles (or 16093.4 kilometres!) away is pretty darn impressive. It really does happen quickly. You actually do not have to wait for entire clips to be uploaded. It grows over time. You get the first 5 minutes, and by the time you reach that point of playback, the rest of the clip has arrived, alive!
Watch the tutorial on how to log media in Forscene:
Check back next Friday for part 2 of this blog, where I’ll be discussing new innovations in log software.
Jeff
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