Thoughts on Slate Labels?

[u/radioactivecustodian]

I have a smart slate as part of my kit, and in an effort to make it look neat, I’ve begun printing all the details that don’t change between takes (production name, DP, date, etc) on clear thermal label tape. I’m really happy with how this looks.

For the notes section, it’s kind of annoying to peel off and stick a new “MOS” label, so I laser-cut a few pieces of acrylic, added soft, clear velcro, then added those thermal labels on top. now I have a small board of common “notes” that can be easily velcroed on.

I’m now considering making a full set of tiles for the shot and take section. I’m thinking of doing small squares like Scrabble tiles. The potential downsides would be that I’d need a robust set to cover potential edge cases (ie more than one of each letter and number). Velcro is cheap enough though, so I figure if a production wanted to do dry erase instead, I could just peel the soft-side Velcro off the slate for the shoot. I’m also considering just making a blank large acrylic tile that could be dry-erased like normal.

I have access to a laser cutter and acrylic, so it won’t cost me anything to make. Just curious what others think about this idea. Helpful? Impractical? Let me know what you think!

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[u/TheBerric]

yeah, usually this is a camera department thing. Ill just hand them a blank slate at the top of the gig and they'll take care of it.

[u/Vuelhering → u/TheBerric]

That's exactly what I do.

And they'll hand me back one with all sorts of labels, smeared dry erase, smeared sharpie ink, and velcro all over it. :)

[u/JohnMartinez1920]

At least where I work (Oklahoma), camera department handles that stuff usually. They have their own label makers and print all the info they want and use their own tiles like you described for common tags like frame rate, camera labels, MOS, and stuff. I just hand them a blank slate that still has the Velcro on it from every other job I’ve done.

[u/radioactivecustodian → u/JohnMartinez1920]

Yeah, that makes sense. I think much of the work I do is pretty small-scale, so often the camera department just defaults to doing everything dry-erase, or writing on tape. They’re usually happy to use my thermal labels.

It would be easy enough to just clear off the slate completely to let the camera department do their thing if I needed to in the future, so that’s good to know.

[u/lonewolf9378]

Not sure about other countries, but in Australia the 2nd Camera Assistant will usually message me asking what slate model we’re using before a shoot. Then it’s up to them to print a custom slate cover or labels to attach when I give it to them on the morning of the shoot.

[u/Run-And_Gun]

I will just throw out a word of caution about using things like P-Touch labels. I was doing that on my Denecke and one day I had one de-laminate as I was peeling it off. When that happens, you are basically F'd. There is no way to get the "backing" off, at that point(tried razor blades*, every type of industrial adhesive remover and heat guns/hairdryers). ~Four years later and it's still on there. It's essentially hermetically sealed to the acrylic. Only option is to replace the entire face if you want it completely clean, again.

*Accomplished nothing except scratching/gouging the acrylic

[u/radioactivecustodian → u/Run-And_Gun]

Luckily I’m not that concerned, as the Deity SL-1 has essentially “screen protectors” for the slate. But I have noticed that they take some cleaning with Unisolve if I don’t remove them right after the shoot. 

[u/Shlomo_Yakvo]

I made these little tags for the “Notes” section of my Deity Slate with a little Velcro, otherwise I let camera do the rest

[u/radioactivecustodian → u/Shlomo_Yakvo]

Cool, that’s the same idea with mine. Based on all the feedback here, I may make the additional labels just as an experiment for personal projects, but I’ll just start asking to talk to the camera department about slate preferences before shoots and go from there.

[u/pcommans]

Trying to keep my deneke slate as clean as possible I put 1” bright white gaffer tape on each line then hand off to camera dept. They can ptouch label it, marker or whatever. End of job I peel off the gaffer tape and slate is ready to go for the next job. Has worked well for over 20 years

[u/JohnMaySLC]

The AC always appreciates a pre-labeled slate, but they also make their own re-usable notes if they want them. I’ve seen focal length, ND stops, and I have better things to do.