Plan data management

What this is about

The routine that prevents it is boring and has to be identical every single time: cards travel in one direction only, copies get verified rather than dragged, and nothing is formatted until the material exists in two places on separate media. On larger shoots a data wrangler owns that routine. On corporate shoots it usually lands on whoever happens to be free at wrap, which is why it belongs in the plan with a name and a time slot against it. The second half of the job is structure — naming and folders decided before day one, because renaming later severs the link between picture, sound and notes.

The order matters more than the tools. Skip a step and you usually notice two steps later — by which point the fix costs several times as much.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• A copy counts as a copy only once it is verified: checksum-based tools confirm the file arrived intact, drag-and-drop does not.
• 3-2-1 as a working rule: three copies, on two different media, one of them off site or in the cloud.
• Cards are not storage. Format only after two verified copies exist, never to free space mid-shoot.
• Naming and folder structure are decided before the first shoot day, because renaming later breaks the link to sound and notes.
• Offloading needs time in the schedule; doing it in parallel with wrap is how cards get formatted early.

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Estimate the data volume before the shoot from codec, resolution and shooting ratio, then buy or rent drives to match with room left over.
2. Write the card workflow down: full cards go into a marked pouch, empty ones into another, and nobody formats a card except the person doing the offload.
3. Name one person responsible for data on each shoot day and give them time in the schedule instead of expecting it to happen during wrap.
4. Copy with a tool that generates checksums and a report — then read the report. An unread verification report is the same as no verification.
5. Reach two copies on separate drives before any card is reused, then add the third off site or as an upload as soon as a connection allows it.
6. Offload sound and the second camera into the same structure on the same day, with the same naming. Split workflows create the orphan files an editor finds weeks later.
7. Keep the day's notes with the material: shot notes, circled takes, sound reports. Metadata separated from footage stops being metadata.
8. Hand over to post with a written manifest of what exists and where, and confirm the receiving side can actually read the files before the drives leave the building.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Formatting a card on set because it is 'definitely copied', while the second copy is still running.
• Keeping both drives in the same case in the same van, which is one copy with extra steps.
• Inventing folder names on the day, so the edit spends its first hours reconstructing what happened.

With TillyGen

TillyGen's shot list and schedule give you what sizing needs: how much gets shot, where and for how long — so drives and offload time are booked before the first card goes in.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.