User Manual

Editing Clip Metadata
Whether you’ve imported media in preparation for editing, or you’ve imported a project for
grading that resulted in media being imported automatically, once you’ve added clips to the
Media Pool, it would behoove you to consider taking the time to review and add metadata to
your clips.
At the very least, it would be valuable for you to use the Metadata Editor that’s available in
either the Media page or the Edit page to add information to each clip such as a Description,
Shot and Scene designations, Take information, and possibly some useful keywords such as
Character Names, Shot Framing, Interior or Exterior keywords, and so on. If you’re especially
ambitious (or you have a very responsible assistant), you could go further and add Shoot Day,
Camera Type, Audio Notes, and other valuable information. Much of the metadata that is useful
in the day to day work of editing and grading can be found in the Shot & Scene group, but there
are many other potentially useful groups as well that you should explore.
Keep in mind that the more metadata you associate with each clip, the more methods you have
at your disposal for creating custom Smart Bins (for editing) and Smart Filters (for grading) with
which to zero in on the clips you need for any given situation. This will not only make it easier to
find what you need, but it’ll help you to work faster.
For example, if you’ve entered enough metadata, then you can create multi-criteria Smart Bins
or Smart Filters that let you find the equivalent of “every close-up of Sally inside the diner,” or
“every long shot of Antonio outside in the parking lot.” In a documentary, you could easily
isolate “every interview shot of Louis from camera 1,” or “every B-roll clip with Robyn.” All of this
will help you to find media faster for editing, or to quickly isolate similar clips that you need to
match together for grading.
Automatically Imported Metadata
In many instances, metadata is also imported along with the media you’ve added to the Media
Pool. For example, media recorded on BMD cameras may have had a variety of metadata
entered into the camera or automatically generated by the camera, and this metadata is
automatically available in the Metadata Editor. Similarly, Broadcast WAVE files can have quite a
bit of metadata entered at the time of recording, such as scene and take numbers and channel
names describing each microphone. Still images are imported with EXIF metadata. In all cases,
available metadata is imported along with the media and exposed in the Metadata Editor to
facilitate workflows where valuable organizational metadata is being entered on set during the
shoot or immediately after ingest.
Using the Metadata Editor
Whenever you select a clip in the Media Pool, its editable metadata appears in the
appropriately named Metadata Editor (so long as it’s displayed). You can use this editor to
further massage the metadata of the clips in a project, adding information on set that will be of
help later during editing and finishing.
By default, clips initially appear with a set of clip metadata called “Clip Details,” that shows some
of the most fundamental details of the clip such as start and end timecode, duration, bit depth,
and so on.
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