Im principal sound recordist on a little indie short at the moment, and got tired to collecting hundreds of wav files from my zoom, and renaming them (and backing them up) to project-scene-take based on what the clapper says (ie. "scene x take y clap) on the audio track. So i wrote a little logging software which basically lets you set up a source directory (recursive, so even if its in subdirs it will get all the wav's found inside), and then loop through them, playing each file and by the press of a button either log them as a scene - take (increasing the take each time), enviroment/ambience logging them as scene - ambience (you get a prompt to state what type of ambience it is), new scene (which will log the current clip as scene x + 1 take 1 or discard with take (which increases the take by one but wont copy any file) or discard (without take). If not discarded, it copies the relevant file to a destination directory of your choosing with a filename of projectname_scene_xxx_take_yyy for easy backup and unless you set the destination to the same as the sources, wont touch the original file. Key points are that it speeded my workflow immensly when logging multiple sound files from my Zoom recorder after a shoot getting them named with the proper scene & take, make a backup of the file (and leave the original file intact) and get rid of any discarded sound files. Now i wonder, anyone else interested in this or have any other good software to do their logging. I wrote this for myself so its not exactly perfect and bug-free and just want to check if this is something that others would find useful or if i should just leave it in my tool belt ;D
Post-Production : Hm.. anyone need a simple logging app for sound? by Henrik Bengtsson
Other topics in Post-Production:
Check out Trending Discussions
Register / Log In
I've likewise been frustrated in the past trying to organize/name files meaningfully from recorders that don't really do that - like the Zoom. I eventually wound up using a combination of software. The workflow is a little convoluted so I won't go into it here, but it works well and fairly quickly now that I have the process down. I use a combination (all freeware) of Wave Agent Beta, Bulk Rename Utility, BWFMetaEdit, and a homemade Python program. I eventually refined the homemade program enough to avoid using Bulk Rename Utility and BWFMetaEdit.
Thanx Doug for the comments. I was wondering, right now i have my software set up to use Scene & Take since thats what my director seems to prefere. But there are many other ways to slate a movie, Scene, Slate, Take, Reel, etc. with different style of numbering (1,2, 3, 4... etc A, B, C, D... ) Was contemplating to fix it so you could define a few different ways to log (and thus count up the different parts). We'll see if i get it to work :D
The options for "where to put metadata" gets pretty boggling when you start to think about it (generalizing past just the zoom recorders and looking at recorded sound files in general). There are 62 gazillion elements of metadata - just to include a few: scene, take, roll, date, mic choice, channel (if mono), channel description, project name, starting timecode, sample rate, bit depth... The list goes on. Then you start thinking about all the places you can include those bits of metadata: directory names, file names, BWF BEXT chunk, BWF iXML chunk, paper report, pdf report, spreadsheet report... Again, the list goes on. I've been experimenting to find the "best" way to present sound recording metadata for years, always asking editors what they prefer whenever I can. Every once in a rare while, I'll find an editor with an actual preference for how they'd like to see the information organized. But the overwhelming response from most editors has usually been, "Meh. Whatever." Let me know if you come up with a good format that you and your editors like. I'd be curious to see what you come up with. Good luck!!!
Yepp. Just as with imagery/video, metadata CAN be very useful IF done properly, and a nightmare if not. The "Meh. Whatever." comment is something ive heard also, and have to confess said a few times myself ;D The way me and my editor works on this production is quite simple. We make sure that the clapper states the scene and take and that he says the scene and take before clapping. I then deliver soundfiles named Projectname_Scene#_Take# to the editor who syncs it up with the shot before editing. It's worked pretty good so far but this is a very small production with an inexperienced crew. Sometimes the clapper doesn't give the right scene-take in which case i have to label them as a mis-slating, and then its up to the editor to figure out what the real scene-take was. Not a lot of mis-slating though so it's not to big of a deal. But as you can imagine, there is no shot-records being kept or any other form of logging. It's 100% "what file do i have in my camera and what soundfile goes with it". What the actual scene & take entails they figure out by watching it ;) Bit of a nightmare for the editor, but not my problem right now :P
For those interested, i put up a little walkthrough of the workflow with my app. https://vimeo.com/124112057 if it looks like something useful drop me a line and i will put it up for download. I wont be charging for it but any feedback, ideas, etc would be greatly appreciated =)
That workflow is pretty smooth Henrik!
Thank you Doug. It works pretty well so far. Makes logging hundreds of audiofiles a matter of minutes rather than hours. Only thing i am not 100% sure about yet, mainly since i havent had a project where we slated that way, is the use of alpha sequences, for example Scene 1a, 1b, 1c etc. In this workflow you would have to define that as two separate entities (which is probably not an issue), for example Scene 1 SubScene A, etc. Just have not done such a project yet =)
I think the addition of subscene (a.k.a shot) field could cover automation for a majority of well numbered scene/shot/take scenarios. Then, the fact that you allow for custom editing each field handles those cases where the slate numbering system goes haywire during production. Actually, in most cases, I think the automated scene number advancement will end up less useful than one would hope anyway in cases of U.S. (scene+shot = numeric+alpha = "1a") slate numbering where all scene numbers are pre-determined and shot out of order. Probably much more handy for the more U.K. centered approach of just advancing numerically for every shot. I'm not sure which parts of the world lean toward which numbering system, but suspect that both are in use enough to make it worthwhile to plan for both. I think your addition of the subscene(shot) field would definitely simplify automated advancement for typical users of the numeric+alpha system. If you found that it made things annoyingly complicated for users of the the numeric-only system you could consider something along the lines of a "disable subscene(shot) advancement" option. In any event, I think that even if you left everything alone, what you have now for automated take number advancement would be a huge time saver.
Yepp. you could do the reel, scene, shot totally manually if you want to and only go with the automatic take part. Especially important since you will most likely get the audio-files totally out of sequence anyway =) Just have to remember to do the changes top-down. On the other hand i could actually make the automatic reset of lower parts optional and even the logging functionality optional (for the higher parts). So if you want to do all the scene and shot stuff manually and just automatically log on the takes, that would be much easier and you wouldn't be able to accidentally click on the scene or shot parts.
Ok. hacked this together now. So now you can either run the logging the "old" way where you can log sequentially on all parts. http://imaginara.se/Screenshot1.jpg Then under settings you can turn it to Take only mode (which basically just means that the LAST part will be the log point. It doesnt have to be named Take, you could log Monkeys if you want ;) http://imaginara.se/Screenshot2.jpg And that will remove the dependance of sequence between the other parts (and the logging buttons), Giving you full control of all parts as you wish and only one button for logging a take. http://imaginara.se/Screenshot3.jpg Of course this can actually be turned on and off whenever you want even in mid-sequence. Hell you can even change patterns if you want mid-sequence also (it will reset the counters ofcourse when you do that, but your current audiofile remains selected).
pretty cool!
Btw! If anyone wants to beta-test this, drop me a line and i'll send you a download link. Want to run it through a bit more testing before releasing it to everyone. It is .net 4.5 and Windows only for now.