Tips on organizing footage after the wedding

John Wiley · May 8th, 2011, 07:52 AM

Here's a tip (courtesy of Shane Hurlbut in the B&H HDSLR series) which you may or may not find immensely useful when shooting with DSLR's, particularly with multiple cameras:

Take a jpeg photo with your camera, Load the card into your card reader, and change the name of the photo on the card to "IMG_1000". The next video the camera records will be "MVI_1001" - and will continue in this way.

So you can set up a card or a camera to start recording at a specific number. This means you can set A-Camera as the 1000's and the B-Camera as the 2000's, or you can have the prep start at 1000 and the cermeny start at 2000 and the reception at 4000 etc simply by preparing the cards in advance and switching at the right time (putting in a card without a numberd file will let the camera keep the current counter going).

You might find this useless, or you might find 100 different ways to implement this info, but personally I think it's something every HDSLR user should be made aware of in order to eliminate some of those post- production organisation problems.

It can sometimes also be helpful to have duplicates (either in your folders on your hard disks or the bins in your NLE), that way you can leave all the clips numbered in their original chronilogical order, but if you find clips you know you'll want to use later for something specific you can duplicate them and give them a more descriptive name.

May 8th, 2011, 07:52 AM	#16
John Wiley Trustee Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Byron Bay, Australia Posts: 1,155	Re: Tips on organizing footage after the wedding Here's a tip (courtesy of Shane Hurlbut in the B&H HDSLR series) which you may or may not find immensely useful when shooting with DSLR's, particularly with multiple cameras: Take a jpeg photo with your camera, Load the card into your card reader, and change the name of the photo on the card to "IMG_1000". The next video the camera records will be "MVI_1001" - and will continue in this way. So you can set up a card or a camera to start recording at a specific number. This means you can set A-Camera as the 1000's and the B-Camera as the 2000's, or you can have the prep start at 1000 and the cermeny start at 2000 and the reception at 4000 etc simply by preparing the cards in advance and switching at the right time (putting in a card without a numberd file will let the camera keep the current counter going). You might find this useless, or you might find 100 different ways to implement this info, but personally I think it's something every HDSLR user should be made aware of in order to eliminate some of those post- production organisation problems. It can sometimes also be helpful to have duplicates (either in your folders on your hard disks or the bins in your NLE), that way you can leave all the clips numbered in their original chronilogical order, but if you find clips you know you'll want to use later for something specific you can duplicate them and give them a more descriptive name.