NIGEL
HALFHORN.

WORKING PRACTICE

Nigel is responsible for media receipt, ingest, labelling, synchronisation, version control and archive integrity at Massive Overheads. His remit begins when material is offered for receipt and does not conclude merely because the production has ceased referring to it.

Editorial work is conducted against identifiable source material and an identifiable instruction. Where either is absent, the absence should be recorded before work proceeds. An explanation supplied afterwards should be dated as an explanation supplied afterwards.

The purpose of the record is to permit another person to establish what was done without requiring the continued availability of the person who did it. Familiarity with a project does not remove this requirement.

MEDIA HANDLING

Cards and drives should be clearly labelled before transfer. Each item must identify the project, date, originating device and responsible operator.

Unidentified media may not enter editorial custody. Material received without sufficient identification should be held separately pending clarification. A likely association with a project is not an identification.

On receipt, the carrier, accompanying documentation and declared contents should be compared. Discrepancies should be entered in the receipt record before the contents are renamed, rearranged or distributed. The original presentation of the material should remain recoverable.

A container described as empty should be examined before it is returned to circulation. An empty directory and an empty carrier are separate conditions.

LABELLING AND IDENTIFICATION

Labels must describe what is present, not what was intended to be present. Working titles may be included in addition to the project reference, but should not be used as its sole substitute.

Where an item has been relabelled, the previous identification should remain recoverable. Labels removed from physical carriers should be retained with the relevant record where they contain information not reproduced elsewhere.

Abbreviations should be used consistently and expanded in the accompanying documentation. An abbreviation understood by its author is not necessarily understood by its recipient.

The words NEW, OLD, LATEST and USE THIS do not establish a reliable sequence. Colour may assist identification but should not carry information which is absent from the written label.

RECEIPT AND TRANSFER

Electronic transfer does not remove custody. Responsibility passes only when receipt has been verified. A notification that an upload has completed is a statement about the upload, not an acknowledgement by the receiving party.

The transfer record should identify the sender, recipient, material, date and intended destination. Where a transfer is divided into parts, the parts should be numbered and the expected total stated before the last part is dispatched.

Receipt should be checked against the manifest. A matching file count does not establish that the expected files have arrived. Where checksums are supplied, the comparison and its outcome should be recorded.

Temporary download links should not serve as the permanent location of the record. Instructions accompanying a transfer should be retained with it, including subsequent corrections to those instructions.

INGEST AND SOURCE MATERIAL

Source material should be retained in its received form. Working copies may be prepared for editorial use provided that their relationship to the source remains explicit.

Changes made during ingest should be documented. These include altered names, directory arrangements, channel assignments and any substitution made to permit the material to be opened.

A successful import does not establish completeness. Material which cannot be read should remain listed as received but unreadable until its status has been resolved. It should not disappear from the record because it cannot appear in the sequence.

Where a second delivery replaces a defective first delivery, both receipt events should remain distinguishable. The first delivery should not retrospectively be recorded as having arrived correctly.

SYNCHRONISATION

Picture and sound should be associated by reference to an identifiable synchronisation point or other recorded basis. An association made by inspection should be described as such.

Offsets introduced for working purposes should be noted. If an offset is revised, the previous value and the reason for revision should remain available to the next person handling the material.

Material received without a corresponding picture or sound element should be identified as incomplete. Silence in a working sequence should not be taken as evidence that no sound was recorded.

Where synchronisation remains uncertain, the uncertainty should be carried into the handover documentation. It should not be resolved administratively by omitting mention of it.

VERSION CONTROL

A file is not final because FINAL appears in its filename.

Final status is assigned following approval. Superseded versions remain part of the record. A filename should permit the version to be identified without requiring the recipient to open several alternatives and compare them by recollection.

Where two versions bear the same date, the later version must not be assumed to supersede the earlier version without confirmation. Sequence must be established from the record, not inferred from filename, location or modification date.

A duplicate made for transfer is not a new editorial version unless its contents have changed. A changed file carrying an unchanged version reference should be treated as a discrepancy requiring correction.

If work resumes after approval, the resulting material should receive a new version reference. The existence of further work does not alter what was previously approved.

INSTRUCTIONS AND AUTHORISATION

Changes to approved material require a named authorising party. An instruction to make a change does not establish authority to approve that change.

Verbal approval may permit work to proceed. It is not sufficient for the archive. The instruction, its source and its scope should be confirmed in a form that can be retained.

Comments received from several parties should remain attributable to those parties. Contradictory instructions should be referred for resolution rather than silently combined into a third instruction which nobody supplied.

Approval should identify the version and the purpose for which it is approved. Approval for a viewing copy does not, by itself, establish approval for every subsequent use.

An unanswered request for approval should remain an unanswered request. The passage of time should not be entered as the name of the approving party.

VIEWING COPIES AND NOTES

Viewing copies should carry sufficient identification to associate comments with the correct version. Where a viewing copy differs from the intended delivery, the difference should be stated when it is circulated.

Notes should identify a location in the material and describe the requested change. References such as the earlier bit should be clarified while the person supplying the note remains available.

A note marked done should correspond to an identifiable action. Where a note has been declined, superseded or rendered inapplicable by another change, that outcome should be recorded in place of a completion mark.

Comments embedded in a review service should be retained before access to that service expires. The continued existence of a link is not a retention arrangement.

PHYSICAL MANIPULATION

Nigel undertakes the preparation and assembly of 16mm and 35mm workprints, the matching of picture and magnetic track, and the identification of cuts by edge number.

Where required, he makes splices by hand and inserts slugs to preserve synchronisation. Removed frames, leaders and trims remain accounted for.

Reel identification should remain attached to the material throughout handling. A can and its contents should not be treated as inseparable merely because they were received together. Any transfer between containers should be reflected in the labelling.

Head and tail material should be distinguished. Instructions written on a leader should be copied into the relevant record before that leader is replaced.

Trims should be returned to their identified storage location. Material laid aside temporarily should still be capable of identification when the reason for laying it aside has been forgotten.

LEGACY CARRIERS

Tape and film holdings should retain their carrier identification alongside any subsequent digital reference. A digital copy should not erase the distinction between the original carrier and the particular transfer made from it.

Transfer records should state the source used, the date, the operator and any known limitation affecting the result. An incomplete transfer should be described as incomplete even where the missing portion is not currently required.

Labels, cue sheets, track sheets and other accompanying papers may contain information not reproduced in the recorded material. They should be retained as associated records.

Where the equipment required to examine a carrier is unavailable, its contents should be described as unverified. The lack of a suitable machine does not establish that the carrier is blank.

EXPORT AND DELIVERY

Exported files should be checked against the delivery instruction and entered in the export register. The register should distinguish the sequence used from the file produced from that sequence.

The destination, intended use and accompanying documents should be recorded. If several files are delivered, their relationship should be clear without requiring the recipient to reconstruct the export session.

A file prepared for delivery and a file actually delivered are separate entries where circumstances require them to be distinguished. Failed, withdrawn and replacement deliveries should remain traceable.

A replacement should identify the item it replaces. The recipient should not be expected to discover the replacement by noticing that a familiar link now contains something else.

RETENTION OF SUPERSEDED COPIES

Superseded material should be removed from current circulation without being confused with material authorised for disposal. The reason for retaining it may differ from the reason it was originally created.

Copies retained as evidence of approval should be identified separately from working duplicates. Where an approved version has been superseded, the approval record should remain associated with the version to which it applied.

No item should be destroyed solely because a more recent item appears to perform the same function. The relationship between the two should first be established.

Disposal, where authorised, should identify what was disposed of, by whom and under whose authority. A missing item is not a disposal record.

ARCHIVE

Editorial material is retained with its transfer records, checksums, project versions and export register. Responsibility for each handover must be identifiable.

No item should depend for its identification upon the memory of the person who created it. Material whose status is uncertain should be retained until its status is established.

An archive description should identify the material actually deposited. Outstanding elements should be listed as outstanding, with the person or organisation from whom they are expected.

Access copies should remain distinguishable from retained source and master material. Where an access copy is altered for convenience, that alteration should not be allowed to pass back into the archive without a separate record.

The archive should include sufficient information to explain its own arrangement. A directory named ARCHIVE is a location. Its name does not establish that the material within it has been examined.

EXCEPTIONS AND OUTSTANDING MATTERS

Exceptions should be recorded at the point at which they are recognised. A departure from procedure may be necessary; an unrecorded departure leaves the next person unable to distinguish a decision from an oversight.

The record should state the condition, the action taken, the authority for that action and any matter left unresolved. Where no authority could be obtained, that fact should be included.

An outstanding matter should remain open until a specific resolution has been recorded. Closing a production account, vacating a room or ceasing to receive replies does not necessarily resolve an editorial discrepancy.

BACKGROUND

Nigel joined Massive Overheads following a period working with physical editorial materials and continues to prefer procedures in which responsibility can be identified.

His work encompasses the preparation, movement and retention of recorded material, including material whose original production arrangements are no longer in place. He maintains an interest in the point at which a working convenience becomes an undocumented dependency.

He regards documentation as part of the material supplied, rather than an optional account of what somebody remembers supplying.

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

16mm and 35mm film handling and inspection; workprint preparation; leader identification; trim organisation; and the maintenance of associated cutting records.

Flatbed editing systems; picture and magnetic track synchronisation; edge-number reference; and the preparation of material for physical assembly.

Linear videotape editing; broadcast tape labelling; cue sheets; track allocation records; and transmission documentation.

Avid Media Composer — operator training. Earlier course records refer to the equipment and software versions in use at the time of instruction.

Training entries are retained in their original terms. They should not be read as statements that the corresponding equipment remains available on site.

PROFESSIONAL RECORDS

Earlier qualifications and training records are held offline. Their absence from this page should not be taken as confirmation that an electronic set exists elsewhere.

Where a record uses an earlier course title or departmental description, that wording has been retained. Retrospective modernisation of a title would make the published entry less useful for comparison with the underlying document.

Copies prepared for reference should be distinguished from original certificates and attendance records. A transcription is not a replacement for the document from which it was made.

CURRICULUM VITAE

A current curriculum vitae is not presently available.

Previous versions have not been substituted. The availability of an earlier document would not establish that it accurately describes the present position.

CORRESPONDENCE

nigel@massiveoverheads.com

This mailbox is unmonitored. Any correspondence sent to this address will be ignored.

The presence of the address in a contact list should not be entered as evidence that an instruction has been received or that responsibility has passed.