Dialogue Editing

82 BURN-INS, FILE NAMES, AND BACKUPS
Figure 6-1 Place the timecode burn-in at the top of the frame, taking care not to
cover other windows. The other information on the screen is largely for the
picture department, but it occasionally comes in handy. In this frame from Jellyfi sh,
by Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret, the original windows are (clockwise from upper
left): lab roll, videotape number, dailies timecode, Keykode. (Reproduced by
permission of Lama Films.)
play speed. Without VITC (vertical interval timecode), neither the VTR’s
timecode character inserter nor your workstation’s timecode interpreter can
accurately defi ne addresses as you “scrub,” making reliably defi ning scene
changes and perspective cuts impossible. Even with VITC there are pitfalls.
When you have a timecode burnt in on the tape (see Figure 6-1), the noise
bar 2 of the video will wipe over the timecode window and you’ll see the
frame change. It’s more like working on fi lm.
2 The noise bar is the “frame line” that wipes over the video as you slowly scrub from
one frame to the next. Since there are two fi elds in a frame, two noise bars must pass over
the screen to advance one frame. If your VTR has a timebase corrector or dynamic
tracking, you likely won’t see the noise bar.