silly question

[yommytacoe]

hey guys,
this may seem random, but i'm wondering what those boards are called that are held in front of a camera and snapped before each take. they usually have the timecode and several colors for white balance i'm guessing.

http://www.parkavenue-ent.com/images/timecode.gif

 

[ZazaCast]

Clapperboard ....Clapboard....Clapsticks. Used to identify scenes & takes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapperboard
http://www.studio1productions.com/clapboards.htm

 

[New_Zealand]

slate board

 

[renegadewill]

I've heard clackboard...i dunno. They are for synching sound to image.

 

[The Noble Robot]

Clackboard or clapperboard is informal, NZ is right, they're called "slate boards" or "slates." They're named for the information which is "slated" on them, while the informal name comes, obviously, from the noise they make. If you want to get technical, a clapperboard refers specifically to the old chalkboard-clapstick combination device, while a "slate" is a much broader term. In early films, the clapstick and the slate were seperate objects, with the clapstick just being two sticks with a hinge. Somewhere along the line, they were combined into one object.

The act of writing the info for a take and "clapping" the slate in front of the camera is called "slating," and is usually performed by the same person in every take, sometimes assigned to a specific camera if there is a multi-cam shoot. Sometimes this is the script supervisor (since they keep track of that info anyway), or a dedicated PA or AC, or a camera department PA.

Film editors used to use them to sync sound to image, by manually aligning the film frame of the slate "clap" with the sound tape. This is why the slate is striped in stark black and white, so you can see the exact moment where any motion (and thus, motion blur) ends.

Modern slates have synced LED timecode displays right on them and are often connected (often by a wire) to the camera and/or sound equipment, and the "clap" is actually not needed for the sound but for a button press, and sometimes is merely used for record keeping (what take was recorded when) rather than sound sync.

They still look the same mostly for nostalgia reasons, even through they don't do the same thing anymore.

If you're shooting video and audio together (like most of us) instead of using a separate audio deck, just use an 8x10" whiteboard to "slate" the take, since the "clapping" is unnecessary.

 

[ef03]

The clapping isn't necessary unless you are doing a multi camera shoot with cameras that aren't synced up.

Even then the clap isn't a must, but it is the easiest way to sync up cameras in that situation.