Any process is only as strong as its weakest link. If you put tons of time, money and resources into shooting your film or commercial only to forget to offload or back it up – you’re in big trouble.
Last week we had the awesome opportunity to talk with the co-founder and CEO of Hedge our favorite offload and backups software – and today I want to give you guys a recap of that discussion, and the process you can follow to always make sure your footage is safe:
Let’s dive in with a helpful overview of the process in 3 steps:
1. When you fill-up a card and take it out of the camera
- If it’s an SD card, slide the little lever on the left-hand side to the “locked” position. This will keep you from accidentally writing over any of your files.
- Take a piece of paper tape/painter’s tape on the card covering the contacts and mark the Reel/Camera info on the tape.
- Put that card into a safe card case, and make sure it’s stored back where it should be.
DON’T:
⛔ Put the full card in your pocket telling yourself you’ll remember it later.
⛔ Throw it loosely into your camera bag because you’re in a hurry.
2. When it comes time to offload:
- Make sure your offloading computer is plugged in, and plug in any hard drives that need power. PRO TIP: Having everything plugged into a “UPS” (Uninterruptible power supply) is a great protection against accidental power loss.
- If you’re offloading on a laptop and are using a USB hub, make sure you have a powered USB hub so that you don’t lose data or data transfer speed.
- When you go to dump a card, pull the tape off of the card and put it somewhere in a stack where you can refer back to it if needed. It’s a helpful record to refer back to if needed!
- Create multiple backups – two at a minimum. If it’s a small project, just copying and pasting the data is fine, but for more safety and for larger projects, using a software like Hedge will not only transfer everything faster, but also make sure that everything is copied correctly.
- Keep it organized! It’s easy to be in a hurry and try and just get your footage off the cards as quickly as possible – but it’s critical that you keep everything organized, as this is going to be the master copy of what you’re going to work from in the future.
- If you are copying the files with just the default file viewer, make sure you check the file sizes of the original and the backups to make sure there aren’t any inconsistencies. You’d be amazed how easy it is to miss stuff!
3. Once you’re back at the office or at home:
- It’s a good idea to create another backup of your files that will live off-site. If your home or office is broken into or burns down, having an online or offsite backup will save your bacon.
That’s it! There’s obviously a lot more details you can get into when it comes to DIT and offloading, but at a minimum, I hope this gave you some new ideas and input to your offload and backup process!
Thanks again to Paul for joining us, and if you haven’t yet definitely check out their amazing software at http://hedge.video
For Motion University alumni, you can get 15% off of a Hedge license!
To Get your discount:
– Send an email to motionuniversity@hedge.video
– Attach proof of enrollment/purchase (or use a motionuniversity.org email to send from)
– You’ll get a 15% discount link
Check out the full conversation with Paul here:
