On-set data management: A collection of some basic principles (compilation article)

There certainly is no general, always valid guideline for executing on-set data management in film productions as the requirements can diverge a lot and are influenced by many factors. But there are certainly basic principles that are applicable for almost any scenario. Often these principles touch topics of security, speed, and clear organization.

This article wants to collect an overview of the most important articles about on-set data management that we compiled until now, while deducing a collection of some of the basic principles that we can recommend to follow.

Let’s take a look at those basic principles grouped in three categories:

Always protect your secure copy process

Always verify and document the offload of movie clips.
- Why to never offload footage with the macOS Finder
  (May 2019)
Use source verification to assure source integrity.
- How source verification helps identify underlying problems in your copy process
  (September 2019)
Choose the right verification behavior for your scenario.
- Using the right verification behavior for your data wrangling scenario
  (July 2018)
Manually double check copy completeness.
- How to use Silverstack’s smart file size calculation to double check copy completeness
  (January 2018)

Keep an eye on copy speed

Choose the right storage for your particular job.
- 6 criteria for storage on set
  (March 2017)
Know the copy speed you can expect.
- How to determine expected copy speed for a drive
  (January 2019)
Systematically troubleshoot copy speeds slower than expected.
- How to troubleshoot slow copy speed
  (May 2019)

Organize your files and metadata clearly

Organize all files in a reproducible folder structure.
- Tips for organizing camera files
  (August 2018)
Prepare to manage multiple clip locations with the right tools to help you.
- One clip on multiple volumes – How Silverstack’s design naturally helps you with your duties as a DIT
  (January 2020)
Establish a clip database to keep all information accessible.
- 5 ways a good DIT software helps you answer typical questions on-set quickly
  (April 2020)

To round the principles off, here are some more tips for data wrangling that can give you more food for thought:

7 tips for data wrangling on a film set
(May 2018)

We will be keeping an eye on extending the basic principles as we move forward. Please feel free to shoot us a mail (Contact Pomfort) if you follow a personal basic principal that you feel like is definitely missing here and would like to see included.