Does and Don't on how to wrangle data in Film and TV
If you are a production runner or camera assistant there may be times when you will be asked to data wrangle. Below are my top tips on how to get the job done and remove the stress and reduce time need to backup all the camera footage correctly.
Do Not
Never DRAG and DROP
Drag and Drop or Copy and Paste is never a good idea when you have large amounts of data to move. The copy process may get interrupted and files can get missed or corrupt during the copy process.
Never just use a drive you are given
When production provide you with a hard drive for backups ALWAYS format the drive. Even if it is brand new. Unless you have been told other wise by the Editor or Post house on any different format most Editors will use Mac for format the drive to Mac OS Journaled.
To do this you need to use the Mac Disk Utility. See this link on how to Erase and Format drives.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/disk-utility
If you are using a Windows Laptop then as a last resort you can use XFAT format drives and this will work across both Windows and Mac systems. NTFS can also be used but this requires some extra steps for a Mac machine to read the drives which I will cover in another post.
Copy, copy, copy
Never just copy data from camera card to drive, then drive to drive to create multiple copies. Reasons why I say this is unless you have a system where you can connect a minimum of 3 drives simultaneously and write to all drives at the same time you are going to run into trouble. The primary factor is time. You need to process the cards as they come to you and get them back to the camera crew as soon as possible. Otherwise you run the risk of hold up the days filming because you are waiting for cards to offload.
Dont assume anything
You may have been asked to wrangle data and given a drive to get on with it. If you are not sure then ask. But the problem most line managers, PMs etc are not technical. So ask it you can talk to the Editor or Post House to confirm how they want to receive the files.
Do
List of things you must do
1: Format and label your hard drives
2: Create the directory structure on the backup drives
3: Backup to 3 drives simultaneously using an industry recognised backup and replication software tool.
4: Label everything. Each backup should be labeled and when inserting the card into the reader place the camera tape on top of the reader so you know what card is in the slot. When done mark the card as done.
5: Use an uninterruptible power supply. Not having a UPS means you run the risk of messing up you offload jobs and having to restart things should the lights go out. This normally happens at the end of the day when the sparks leave at wrap and switch everything off. This is when you are under the most pressure the get everything done and the rushes running is waiting for your drives.
Tags:
Comments are closed