ABSTRACT
Shooting and editing digitally has many advantages and one that is often overlooked is metadata. The term simply means “data about data,” and in this context it means information within the signal other than the actual images. The concept is not original with digital, but as a concept extends back to the early film era. Whether you call them clips, shots, takes, or footage, it is important to keep them organized and easily found. The earliest solution was slating, something we still do today. Early slates were chalkboards, which evolved into Plexiglas with erasable markers and although these are still used, the introduction of timecode slates was a huge step forward, even though many productions still use the traditional clapper slate.
