Dailies
Encyclopedia
Dailies, in filmmaking
, are 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, synched
to sound, and printed on film
in a batch (and/or telecine
d onto video
tape or disk) for viewing the next day by the director
and some members of the film crew
. However, the term can be used to refer to any raw footage, regardless of when it is developed or printed.
Another way to describe film dailies is "The first positive prints made by the laboratory from the negative photographed on the previous
day." In addition, during filming, the director and some actors may view these dailies as an indication of how the filming and the actors' performances are progressing.
In some regions such as the UK
and Canada, dailies are usually referred to as rushes or daily rushes, referring to the speed at which the prints are developed.
Film dailies can refer to the viewing of dailies on film in a theater.
In animation
, dailies are also called rushes or Sweat Box
sessions.
).
Viewing dailies allows the film crew to see exactly what images and audio were captured the previous day, allowing them to make sure there are no technical problems such as dirty, scratched, or out of focus
film. It also allows the director to ensure that they are happy with the performances of the actors and that they have captured a scene from all the necessary camera angles. If additional filming is desired it can often be done immediately rather than re-shooting later when sets may have been torn down and actors may no longer be available.
Dailies are also often viewed separately by producers or movie studio executives who are not directly involved in day-to-day production but seek assurance that the film being produced meets the expectations they had when they invested in the project. Commonly a dailies sequence is quite boring, as it often includes multiple takes of the same shot.
Film directors and film producers prefer to view film dailies rather than DVD dailies. However, because of the costs involved, some productions will start by viewing film dailies and later switch to DVD dailies. One reason why film dailies are preferred over DVD dailies is it is much easier to check for correct focus with film dailies than with video dailies. HD dailies can be as big as 2k resolution (2048 x 858, 2.39:1 aspect).
In the production of low-budget films with few crew and a short uninterrupted shooting period there is sometimes no time to view dailies.
If a unit shoots with more than one camera usually all the shots from one "A" camera will be followed by all "B" camera shots because of the way the dailies are processed.
To save time, ordinarily only a small amount of the previous day's footage is viewed. If viewing dailies on video, often all the footage is transferred and the viewer can fast-forward as desired. Dailies on print film are more expensive to produce and cannot be easily fast-forwarded. In this case, during shooting the director will specify which takes he or she wants converted to dailies. When a take is completed, the director yells, "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 on their log sheets so that only these circle takes will be printed that night by the film laboratory.
The end of a dailies reel may contain sound that was recorded without simultaneous picture recording called wild sound.
Visual effects
shots are often assembled daily for viewing by a visual effects or animation supervisor. They will contain the previous day's work by animators and effects artists in various state of completion. Once a shot is at the point where additional feedback from the director is needed they will be assembled and screened for the director either as part of the normal dailies screening or as a separate weekly VFX dailies screening.
Dailies delivered to the editing department will usually have timecode and keycode
numbers overlaid on the image. These numbers are used to later assemble the original high-quality film and audio to conform to the edit. Depending on how the dailies are produced, these numbers may only be on the editor's copy of the dailies or on all copies of the dailies.
captures the image on 35 mm film
and a separate audio recorder (such as a Nagra tape recorder
or digital hard disk
recorder) records the sound on-set.
The film negative is developed
and printed or telecined so that the images can be viewed on a projector
or video monitor
.
The sound is synched to the film using a clapperboard
as a reference. The clapperboard is labeled to identify the scene, shot, and take number for the camera. The numbers are also read aloud to label the audio recording. Once camera and sound are rolling, a camera assistant will close the clapper creating a visual and auditory reference point. During the synching 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. Then the technician looks for the frame where the clapper first closes and for the beep or clapping sound on the audio tape, adjusting one or the other until they happen simultaneously when played back. This needs to be done for every take. Systems exist which record synchronized timecode onto the film and audio tape at the time of shooting, allowing for automatic alignment of picture and audio. In practice these systems are rarely used.
Before computer-based editing tools became widely available in the late 1980s, all feature-film dailies were printed on film. These pieces of film are called the workprint. After viewing, the workprint is used by the film editor to edit the movie using a flatbed editor
. Once the workprint is edited and approved, the negative is assembled so it is identical to the edited workprint.
Today, most editing is done on computer based non-linear editing system
s which use a video copy of the dailies. When the film is telecined, keycode
numbers are logged which assign a number to each frame of film and are later used to assemble the original film to conform to the edit.
or digital motion picture camera
the image and sound are often recorded simultaneously to video tape or hard disk in a format that can be immediately viewed on a monitor, eliminating the need to undergo a conversion process to create dailies for viewing. The footage recorded each day will still usually go through a daily process to create a second copy for protection and create multiple copies on DVD or other media for viewing by producers or other people not on set.
For a variety of reasons, major motion picture studios never release their dailies for outside use. One cited problem is that 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. In most other English speaking countries, the actors unions have similar contracts which limit the distribution of all film dailies. New Zealand does not have this limitation, which is why the dailies from Xena and Hercules are on the DVDs for these shows.
Every year American Cinema Editors
holds the ACE Film Editing Contest in which they make dailies available to 50 film students for an editing contest. ACE also sells a video tape with film dailies from the 1950s TV show Gunsmoke
. These film dailies have been used by many film schools for the last 40 years.
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...
, are the raw, unedited
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...
footage
Footage
In filmmaking and video production, footage is the raw, unedited material as it had been originally filmed by movie camera or recorded by a video camera which usually must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work...
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, synched
Synchronization
Synchronization is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar conductor of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....
to sound, and printed on film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
in a batch (and/or telecine
Telecine
Telecine is transferring motion picture film into video and is performed in a color suite. The term is also used to refer to the equipment used in the post-production process....
d onto video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
tape or disk) for viewing the next day by the director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and some members of the film crew
Film crew
Television crew positions are derived from those of film crew positions.A film crew is a group of people hired by a production company for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the Actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for...
. However, the term can be used to refer to any raw footage, regardless of when it is developed or printed.
Another way to describe film dailies is "The first positive prints made by the laboratory from the negative photographed on the previous
day." In addition, during filming, the director and some actors may view these dailies as an indication of how the filming and the actors' performances are progressing.
In some regions such as the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Canada, dailies are usually referred to as rushes or daily rushes, referring to the speed at which the prints are developed.
Film dailies can refer to the viewing of dailies on film in a theater.
In animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
, dailies are also called rushes or Sweat Box
Sweat box
"Sweat box" is the animation industry's equivalent to rushes, or dailies. Nowadays, when an animated scene has been approved by the animation lead, it is sent to the edit suite. The editor inserts the scene into the reel for viewing in context with other scenes...
sessions.
Viewing
Dailies are usually viewed by members of the film crew either early in the morning before filming starts, during the lunch break, or in the evening after filming ends. It is common for several members of the film crew including the director, cinematographer, editor and others to view and discuss the dailies as a group; but some productions opt to distribute multiple copies of the dailies for individual viewing (e.g., on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
).
Viewing dailies allows the film crew to see exactly what images and audio were captured the previous day, allowing them to make sure there are no technical problems such as dirty, scratched, or out of focus
Focus (optics)
In geometrical optics, a focus, also called an image point, is the point where light rays originating from a point on the object converge. Although the focus is conceptually a point, physically the focus has a spatial extent, called the blur circle. This non-ideal focusing may be caused by...
film. It also allows the director to ensure that they are happy with the performances of the actors and that they have captured a scene from all the necessary camera angles. If additional filming is desired it can often be done immediately rather than re-shooting later when sets may have been torn down and actors may no longer be available.
Dailies are also often viewed separately by producers or movie studio executives who are not directly involved in day-to-day production but seek assurance that the film being produced meets the expectations they had when they invested in the project. Commonly a dailies sequence is quite boring, as it often includes multiple takes of the same shot.
Film directors and film producers prefer to view film dailies rather than DVD dailies. However, because of the costs involved, some productions will start by viewing film dailies and later switch to DVD dailies. One reason why film dailies are preferred over DVD dailies is it is much easier to check for correct focus with film dailies than with video dailies. HD dailies can be as big as 2k resolution (2048 x 858, 2.39:1 aspect).
In the production of low-budget films with few crew and a short uninterrupted shooting period there is sometimes no time to view dailies.
Contents
Many films have one main film unit which does all primary filming and one or more smaller film units shooting additional "pickup" shots, stunts, or shots involving special effects. These shots are included with the main unit footage on the dailies reels. A typical pickup shot might be a shot of a hand picking up a book. To save time and money the shot may be filmed with smaller crew and a different person's hand used as a substitute for the real actor's hand.If a unit shoots with more than one camera usually all the shots from one "A" camera will be followed by all "B" camera shots because of the way the dailies are processed.
To save time, ordinarily only a small amount of the previous day's footage is viewed. If viewing dailies on video, often all the footage is transferred and the viewer can fast-forward as desired. Dailies on print film are more expensive to produce and cannot be easily fast-forwarded. In this case, during shooting the director will specify which takes he or she wants converted to dailies. When a take is completed, the director yells, "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 on their log sheets so that only these circle takes will be printed that night by the film laboratory.
The end of a dailies reel may contain sound that was recorded without simultaneous picture recording called wild sound.
Visual effects
Visual effects
Visual effects are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or...
shots are often assembled daily for viewing by a visual effects or animation supervisor. They will contain the previous day's work by animators and effects artists in various state of completion. Once a shot is at the point where additional feedback from the director is needed they will be assembled and screened for the director either as part of the normal dailies screening or as a separate weekly VFX dailies screening.
Dailies delivered to the editing department will usually have timecode and keycode
Keycode
Keycode may refer to:* scancode, the parcel of data generated when pressing a computer keyboard key ;...
numbers overlaid on the image. These numbers are used to later assemble the original high-quality film and audio to conform to the edit. Depending on how the dailies are produced, these numbers may only be on the editor's copy of the dailies or on all copies of the dailies.
Creation
During the typical filming of a motion picture, a movie cameraMovie camera
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...
captures the image on 35 mm film
35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
and a separate audio recorder (such as a Nagra tape recorder
Nagra
Nagra is the trademark referring to any of the series of mostly battery-operated portable professional audio recorders produced by Kudelski SA, based in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland....
or digital hard disk
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
recorder) records the sound on-set.
The film negative is developed
Photographic processing
Photographic processing is the chemical means by which photographic film and paper is treated after photographic exposure to produce a negative or positive image...
and printed or telecined so that the images can be viewed on a projector
Movie projector
A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying moving pictures by projecting them on a projection screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras.-Physiology:...
or video monitor
Video monitor
A video monitor also called a broadcast monitor, broadcast reference monitor or just reference monitor, is a display device similar to a television set, used to monitor the output of a video-generating device, such as playout from a video server, IRD, video camera, VCR, or DVD player. It may or...
.
The sound is synched to the film using a clapperboard
Clapperboard
A clapperboard is a device used in filmmaking and video production to assist in the synchronizing of picture and sound, and to designate and mark particular scenes and takes recorded during a production...
as a reference. The clapperboard is labeled to identify the scene, shot, and take number for the camera. The numbers are also read aloud to label the audio recording. Once camera and sound are rolling, a camera assistant will close the clapper creating a visual and auditory reference point. During the synching 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. Then the technician looks for the frame where the clapper first closes and for the beep or clapping sound on the audio tape, adjusting one or the other until they happen simultaneously when played back. This needs to be done for every take. Systems exist which record synchronized timecode onto the film and audio tape at the time of shooting, allowing for automatic alignment of picture and audio. In practice these systems are rarely used.
Before computer-based editing tools became widely available in the late 1980s, all feature-film dailies were printed on film. These pieces of film are called the workprint. After viewing, the workprint is used by the film editor to edit the movie using a flatbed editor
Flatbed editor
A flatbed editor is a type of machine used to edit film for a motion picture.Picture and sound rolls load onto separate motorized wheels, called "plates." Each set of plates moves forward or backward separately, or locked together to maintain synchronization between picture and sound...
. Once the workprint is edited and approved, the negative is assembled so it is identical to the edited workprint.
Today, most editing is done on computer based non-linear editing system
Non-linear editing system
In video, a non-linear editing system is a video editing or audio editing digital audio workstation system which can perform random access non-destructive editing on the source material...
s which use a video copy of the dailies. When the film is telecined, keycode
Keycode
Keycode may refer to:* scancode, the parcel of data generated when pressing a computer keyboard key ;...
numbers are logged which assign a number to each frame of film and are later used to assemble the original film to conform to the edit.
Video or digital film
When using a video cameraVideo camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
or digital motion picture camera
Digital cinematography
Digital cinematography is the process of capturing motion pictures as digital images, rather than on film. Digital capture may occur on video tape, hard disks, flash memory, or other media which can record digital data. As digital technology has improved, this practice has become increasingly common...
the image and sound are often recorded simultaneously to video tape or hard disk in a format that can be immediately viewed on a monitor, eliminating the need to undergo a conversion process to create dailies for viewing. The footage recorded each day will still usually go through a daily process to create a second copy for protection and create multiple copies on DVD or other media for viewing by producers or other people not on set.
Other uses
Outside of their use in producing a motion picture, dailies are desirable by fans as a collectors item and to see more of the filmmaking process. They are also desirable to film students and teachers to illustrate how a film is shot and as a tool to practice editing.For a variety of reasons, major motion picture studios never release their dailies for outside use. One cited problem is that the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
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. In most other English speaking countries, the actors unions have similar contracts which limit the distribution of all film dailies. New Zealand does not have this limitation, which is why the dailies from Xena and Hercules are on the DVDs for these shows.
Every year American Cinema Editors
American Cinema Editors
Founded in 1950, American Cinema Editors is an honorary society of film editors that are voted in based on the qualities of professional achievements, their education of others, and their dedication to editing itself. The society is not to be confused with an industry union, such as the I.A.T.S.E...
holds the ACE Film Editing Contest in which they make dailies available to 50 film students for an editing contest. ACE also sells a video tape with film dailies from the 1950s TV show Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
. These film dailies have been used by many film schools for the last 40 years.