Dailies

From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids

"Rushes" redirects here. For the water plant, see Juncus. For the film company, see Rushes (Company).

Dailies, in filmmaking, is the term used to describe the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually, at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synced to sound, and printed on film in a batch (or telecined onto video tape or disk) for viewing by the director very early the next day. However, the term can be used to refer to any raw footage, regardless of when it is developed or printed.

In the some regions such as the UK, dailies are usually referred to as rushes or daily rushes, referring to the speed at which the prints are developed.

Contents 1 The Raw Negative and Sound Reels 2 The Conversion Process 3 Selective Process 4 Who Views Dailies Daily? 4.1 Where to find Film Dailies? 4.2 Where do old Film Dailies go? 4.3 Where to find Film Dailies? 4.4 Who needs to see Film Dailies?

[edit] The Raw Negative and Sound Reels

During the typical filming of a 35mm films today, a movie camera captures the image on 35 mm film and an audio recorder (such as a Nagra tape recorder) records the sound on-set.

The film negative reels and the sound reels are not in the correct format (and/or are too fragile and too valuable) for showing to the director and the crew once the negative is developed. Therefore, the negative and the sound reels are converted to a product called "dailies" or "film dailies".

Similarly, the negative and the sound reels are not in the correct format for editing on film or using computers. Therefore, the dailies are used for the off-line edit of the motion picture. When editing on film, the dailies become the workprint which can be edited using any 35mm editing system which might be a flatbed editing system such as a Steenbeck flat bed editor or an upright editing systems such as the vertically-oriented Moviola.

[edit] The Conversion Process

To convert a 35mm negative and sound reel to film dailies, the 35mm film negative is printed and the sound is synced to the 35mm film using the slate.

For converting to video dailies, the 35mm film negative is telecined and the sound is synced to the video using the slate. Then the video is transferred to video tape or video disks.

[edit] Selective Process

Because the conversion process is so expensive for 35mm film, only the better takes are converted to film dailies (and therefore, to the workprint.) The director makes the decision which takes will be converted to dailies (and therefore, to the workprint) and which will not. When a take is completed, the director yell, "Cut" and if the director wants the take converted to dailies, the director will also yell, "Print". Once the director yells, "Cut! Print!", the script supervisor, the camera assistant and the sound person circle the take number for good take on their log sheets so that only these "Circled Takes" will be printed that night by the film laboratory.

[edit] Who Views Dailies Daily?

Even though the dailies are viewed in the morning by only the director, the producer and executives from the studio, many other people also need to examine the dailies to check their work throughout the day. This is why VHS (in the USA) dailies tapes are made for distribution to the heads of all the departments of a TV show. As an example, the wardrobe department needs to check to see if the costumes look OK on film so the wardrobe department receive a VHS copy of the dailies to look at each day.

The average film dailies is 20 to 40 minutes long. Each day of filming is usually only one to three pages of the script. Each page of the script represents one minute of the final film. The shooting ratio of the circled takes is typically 5 to 1 for episodic television dramas or 10 to 1 for motion pictures.

Since dailies for each day are processed in a single batch, the first unit dailies and the second unit dailies and the effects shots all end up on the same dailies reel.

• Because of the way the dailies are processed, the first unit dailies usually have all "A" camera shots followed by all "B" camera shots, etc.
• Second unit dailies are the pickup shots which are filmed (usually without sound) by a different film crew (usually very small). A typical pickup shot might be a shot of a hand picking up a book. The shot will be filmed on a different day than the scene it belongs to with a different person's hand used as a substitute for the real actor's hand.
• Effects shots come from effects houses. These are very short clips (usually only a few seconds long) which are printed in the dailies batch so the director can see what it will look like on film.
• At the end of the dailies reel is the wild sound (sound takes which might be useful but for some reason do not match up with any of the shots.)

Sound complicates the process of preparing film dailies. In most countries, film is shot with sound (rather than without sound which is known as MOS). With very few exceptions, all production sound is recorded separately from the film camera. That is why the sound must by synced to the dailies before the dailies can be viewed by the director.

Sound is synced (either manually or with an electronic slate) by using (1) a slate board, (2) a clapper, and (3) a verbal slate and/or log sheet. During the syncing process after the film has been developed, the technician will look at the numbers on the slate board and then match the numbers with the verbal slate (or the tape log). Then the technician looks for the frame where the clapper first closes and looks for the blip (or clapping sound) on the audio tape. To be properly synced, the sound of the clapper should follow immediately after the closing of the slate. This adjustment is usually done in one frame increments. With electronic slates, the current trend is to have the audio follow the video by two frames but for close up shots, a two frame delay makes the actors seem to be out of sync so often film editors must resync the audio visually before being editing a scene.

Once a movie clip and the sound are in sync, the picture and the audio are assumed to remain in sync for the entire shot. This is because the audio recorder and the film camera are controlled by crystal clocks. By the end of each shot, the sound should not have drifted out of sync with the picture by a noticeable amount. This is not always true. This is why film directors prefer to keep all shots short.

Film dailies have other uses. Inside the film studios and post production houses of Hollywood, film dailies are used to train beginning film editors. A scene from an episodic television drama or motion picture is loaded into an editing system (or personal computer containing and editing program) for the budding editor to edit.

There are two kinds of scenes in narrative productions -- scene with dialog (scripted conversations) and action scenes. Each is edited differently. Editing a conversation can the most challenging and the most fun so the scene used by the film studios to train a new film editor is usually a conversation.

[edit] Where to find Film Dailies?

Dailies are not available outside of the film studios or the post production houses. This is for two reasons:

• First, no one at the film studios realize how interesting film dailies can be for film students and fans of the actors who live outside the Hollywood area. Since most people outside Hollywood have never seen actual film dailies most of the people outside of Hollywood do not know what fun they are missing. Yet at the same time film dailies are so common in Hollywood that no one at the film studios sees any reason to distribute them to people who live outside the Hollywood area. That is why no one at the film studios considers film dailies to be valuable.
• Second, the production companies do not own the rights to their own film dailies except use in the edited motion picture. It is true that the production company owns the copyright for the dailies but the copyright is almost useless. Long before filming starts, the production company has already signed away their rights to the dailies. Everyone who touches the production usually has a clause in their contract to retain their rights to some part of the film... including the dailies.

As an example, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is the owner of most of the rights to film dailies for all union productions in the USA. The Screen Actors Guild has a clause in their contract to protect their actors' privacy which says that the producers of all union productions must give up their rights to the actor's performance for anything but the edited movie. Any reuse of the film dailies (such as on a CD-ROM which is considered to be Multimedia) requires a re-negotiation of the entire SAG contract (which has never happened.) Even for training purposes, SAG does not allow the distribution of film dailies -- the ACE Film Editing Contest is one exception.

In most other English speaking countries, the actors unions have similar contracts which limit the distribution of all film dailies. New Zealand is the only English speaking country which does not have this limitation. This is why the dailies from Xena and Hercules are on the DVD-Video disks for these shows.

[edit] Where do old Film Dailies go?

Film dailies do not live forever. Until about 20 years ago, all film dailies had a life span of about two years. This is for mechanical reasons.

• Until about 1985, all film dailies were first printed on film. These pieces of film are called the workprint. It is the workprint that the director views the next day. Later, this same workprint is used by the film editor to edit the movie. That means that the workprint is destroyed (cut up) during the editing of the movie. Then, once the workprint is edited and approved, the negative will be conformed (cut up and assembled to conform to the workprint) so it is identical to the edited workprint. Unfortunately, that means the original negative is destroyed during the negative cutting process since one frame of the movie is destroyed at every edit in the movies. After the negative is conformed, there is no way for anyone to view the original film dailies from any motion picture filmed before 1985. The dailies are gone forever.
• Starting about 1985, film editing switched to computers which use a copy of the dailies on video tape or laser disk. These video dailies are not as high a quality as the workprint. Some of these tapes have survived and so can still be viewed (and edited) after the negative is conformed. Even so, many production companies when they close up operation throw all the remaining dailies tapes into the trash. Gone forever!
• Starting about 2000, some dailies are put on DVD-Video disks for viewing by the director and/or used for the rough editing of the movie. Often, these DVD-Video dailies are very high quality video (but without any color correction.) In this case, the dailies on the DVD disk remain usable long after the negative is conformed. (Many directors keep at least some of their dailies disks and when the director dies, these dailies appear at estate auctions in the LA area.)
• Also, some television dramas were edited entire on tape. Therefore, the original negative was never conformed (cut up) since these television movies and dramas were never released theatrically on film. (This is rarer than it might seem since a television show might be edited on video for release in the USA but later edited on film for release overseas.)

When a movie is distributed, all of this gets a bit confusing. In theory, the distributor receives everything for the movie (including the dailies, as well as the rights and obligations associated with the dailies.) Yet, so far, no distributor of a motion picture has attempted to release the film dailies for a movie or television drama to the public, either for publicity or for sale to fans.

[edit] Where to find Film Dailies?

Because the Screen Actors Guild is the owner of the majority of the rights to the film dailies for a motion picture or television drama and because the production company wants to abide by their union contract, all dailies are collected after viewing and destroyed. In the case of video tape dailies, the tapes are erased and reused.

However, some of the dailies tapes escape destruction and find their way onto eBay where they are sold to fans of the shows or the actors. The price for original film dailies is about $25 per tape for popular television dramas. Dailies tapes for Star Trek: The Next Generation sold for $325. Because film dailies from motion picture are usually less exciting (because they are less efficiently filmed), a dailies tape from a motion picture will sell for about $5 to $10.

Care must be taken when buying film dailies on eBay since many of the tapes listed on eBay are only second generation copies. Look for original labels on the tapes (preferably with color logos from the telecine house.)

Odd Note: Most original film dailies tapes are sold during the month of March. Then the bidding can be fierce if the television show is popular.

[edit] Who needs to see Film Dailies?

With the increased popularity of DV filmmaking, film dailies from Hollywood become increasingly important to the education of beginning filmmakers and film editors. Viewing film dailies is a terrific substitute for traveling to Hollywood and visiting the film studios to watch how scenes are filmed and edit by the pros. Film dailies make this so much easier.

Yet, purchasing film dailies, even for film schools, is not easy. The one exception is the American Cinema Editors (ACE) which sells a video tape to film instructors (only instructors and never to film students) with film dailies from "Gunsmoke". These film dailies are still used by most film schools for the last 30 years. (In this scene, Jack Klugman is young!)

With the exception of television dramas filmed in New Zealand (such as Hecules and Xena) and scenes from Highlander shot in France, there are no other film dailies from actual productions sold in the USA. However, in India, the Star Movie Shop sells film dailies from old and forgotten television dramas. These files are already digitized for editing on the Macintosh with editing programs such as Final Cut Pro. These film dailies are good examples for beginning filmmakers to see how to film their own motion pictures. Also the dailies give beginning film editors scenes to practice editing narrative dialog (dramatic conversations.)