There are many different ways to show a clap board which does have different meanings for it.

For a Talkie shot

the stripped portion of the clap board will be open which will be easy for syncronisation with sound.

silent clap board 

the stripped portion is closed saying that it a silent shot without any lip sync.

end clap talkie will be open and silent closed and the clap board will appear upside down

Let’s understand the clap board, like what are the details, that are there in it. Along with that what kind of a shot is that?

I google it for the image (some bigstock front view was the name of the image i had selected)

this black clap board is the ideal one that the white, its glossy reflects light too much and the numbers are not that much visible. like this one 

so let me jump to the part of explaning things :-) most of them know but it to refresh everyone that there is a clap board and like everbody has got a name and we call them by theirs, likewise the clap is very important to a shot its, its name and identification by which you call the shot

Prod no. (title of the film or number )

scene number / shot number/ take number/ silent or talkie/int ot ext/ day or night/

director name camera man name date and production company name are all present on the clap board, so it is very much important.

This process of making subclips is common for all the workflows except the latest clip based rushes we will understand this in much detail in our next work flow, for now let’s get back to subclips.

To understand a subclip we’ve to understand a shot.

what is a shot?

A single start and stop of camera is a shot, that is whatever gets recorded in between the start and stop of a camera (well everybody know about this but when asked to explain everybody blinks coz everybody will remember all the tuff portion of their subject and missout the easy parts this is where the catch is)

so we have to replicate the same while doing a subclip like each and every take (start/stop) of the camera must be made into a separate clip with the name of the shot like scene number/shot number/take number by reading the clapboard for every shot.

The clap board shown in the picture frame surely has a lot of details in it.

we will have a look at that in the next following post. 

now we will jump into the process of subclips and sync. 

I know I’ve not gone in detail explaining how to consolidate and the use of media manager that will be done while i explain about the softwares till then we will stick on to the workflow and go ahead :-)

in the next post we will try to understand what is a subclip and what is sync and i will surely try to give you examples about it 

This part what we’re dealing is the more crucial and tiresome process in this particular workflow, if we’re to get a proper cutlist then the consolidating process must be perfect.

the details for consolidation of cans is received from the negative cutter, as he had made all the punches in the negative for every 400 or some bit negatives and naming them properly with the lab roll number and writing the edge number in the frame 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Keykode-edgecode.jpg

the image is from wikipeida.

this edge number is noted by the negative cutter then that complete list reaches us along with telecine this what i has said earlier so now let me jump to the process instead of blah blah blah….

***This process is same for both the professional edit softwares (Avid & FCP)

1. load the tape in the viewer or play window 

2. mark the beginning punch and end punch with in and out.

3. make a subclip out of it in my keyboard settings it would be “S” key

4. rename the sub clip with the edge code number example from the last post

 like this 039/002 EN 46 2122 8799+00 is the beginning punch

(explanation of the above , where xxx/xxxx stands for the lab roll, the second set with the two alphabets and some numerical stands for the edge code and the last set of numbers are the running footage it changes every 16 frames for which i will explain how we’re calculating film for dummies) It looks like a tiresome process but in the end during the checking of cutlists it will be very easy as you’ve already mentioned it earlier.

5. Now the subclips has to be made to be separate master clips .

Avid we use the consolidate/transcode menu in clip menu or select the clips you want to consolidate right click and you could also go to that menu in that way.

in FCP to do the same we have to use the media manager to make every clip into master clip. 

then the 5x400ft (aka) jumbo roll (2000ft) with the beginning and end leaders (extra film for threading) is telecine to tape which would be of 60 mins or 90 mins.

If each 2000 ft jumbo roll runs for apx 20 mins then it would hold 3 of them in 60 mins tape which would be 15x400 ft cans. 

Once the telecine is over it has to be digitized into avid or fcp for editing. If we have to do this we capture the whole tapes into the software and then consolidate again to 400ft each.

That information is provided by the negative cutter who has punched the negative and sent it for telecine, that list will reach us, with all the edge numbers and other important details which has to be mentioned so that it appears properly in the cutlist(we will talk about this later).

This workflow uses 35mm film which is scanned to Videotapes.This work flow will based upon my experience.

The process what i did explained,

There are a number of stages, from the negative that is brought from the shooting spot upto the release print.

After shooting the negative is sent for developing to the processing labs, form the lab the negative is sent to the negative cutting room where the negative punch happens.

NEGATIVE PUNCHING process :- 400 ft of film is used in the film cameras which will have a running duration of apx 3 to 5 according to the mode that it is shot on (it may be 4 pref or 3 pref) this 400ft cans cannot be run on the telecine machines as it not economical, we join these cans to 2000ft add leaders to the negative, so that it easily threaded during the Telecine.

5x400ft cans are joined together in this to identify each 400ft can the negative is punched in the beginning with a two punches and one punch in the end