SlateX Blog
Make chaos structured.
How sets record, what handoff files carry, and where the limits are. Each article answers one question and states what we cannot yet do.
Article archive
Articles are in production and will appear here.
What to Check Before Using an ALE for Matching
Before using an ALE for matching, verify identity, time position, and missing-value behavior, then decide whether to return it, repair traceable gaps, or treat it as reference only. A readable table does not make every value trustworthy.
What a Take Record Needs for Handoff
A handoff-ready take record should let the next person identify the take, separate each camera, see the on-set status, and trace its timing, notes, and continuity evidence. More fields are not the goal; traceability is.
How Continuity Photos Should Link to Shots and Takes
A continuity photo should trace back to a specific take and from that take to its shot, while the production element remains a separate relationship. A representative-image rule can decide what you see first, but the photo is evidence and the continuity judgment remains human.
How Script Eighths Work—and What They Do Not Tell You
Script eighths express scene length in eighths of a page. SlateX converts each eighth to 7.5 seconds, but that conversion describes scene-length scale only; it does not encode position within a page or serve as a shooting schedule.
What a Script Supervisor Needs to Hand Off at Wrap
A wrap handoff is not one table but a set of records that lets downstream teams identify scene, shot, take, time position, and recorded judgments. SlateX can generate several exchange forms, but their rows, ordering, and fields are not identical, so receivers still need to verify them.
What FDX Exchanges—and What It Does Not Carry
FDX is useful for exchanging script structure, not shooting results. SlateX currently imports episodes, scenes, and script items, but does not create shots, takes, shoot days, or camera setups, and a round trip is not guaranteed to preserve text exactly.
What an ALE File Is Actually For
An ALE is a tab-delimited text list with a header, columns, and data rows. It carries material identity, time-position values, and scene/take context for receiving checks; it does not decide which take is good or carry media paths, shot parameters, or channel mapping.
Where Your Project Data Lives Before and After Sign-In
SlateX keeps guest records and signed-in records in separate database stores, with only the account store configured for a private cloud database. Guest data moves into the account store only during an explicit sign-in and the source is cleared only after verification.
What Sign-Out, Account Deletion, and Project Deletion Actually Remove
Sign-out, account deletion, and project deletion follow different data paths. Sign-out does not delete account-cloud rows but clears the local guest store; account deletion verifies an ownership scope before removal; project deletion is local to that project and does not change sign-in state.
How to Decide Whether a Handoff Can Move Forward
When receiving a handoff, verify media identity and time sources first, then scene-shot-take identity, and finally whether judgment information is actually present in the relevant output. Each output has different omissions, so acceptance should remain tied to verifiable values and their sources.
Why One Continuity Photo Has Both Image Data and a File Path
A continuity photo can exist as database image data and as a relative disk path: display reads the former while deletion relies on the latter. Renaming can create a new filename, and some write paths do not persist the authoritative path, so the two records are not interchangeable.
Why the Same Takes Do Not Line Up Row-for-Row Across Handoff Files
Several handoff outputs start from the same take snapshot and then apply different ordering keys and row granularity. Some expand per camera while another stays one row per take. Cross-file matching should use scene-shot-take identity rather than row number.
Which Camera Parameters Carry Forward When You Add a Camera
A newly added camera inherits reel, clip number, frame rate, shutter, white balance, and sound roll, but not lens, aperture, ISO, focus distance, composition fields, or VFX count. Different take-creation paths also clear composition fields differently.
What a Slugline Is Made Of
A slugline usually carries interior/exterior, location, and time of day on one line; equivalent wording can differ literally, so software can only split by structure and still needs human verification.
Circle, Keep, Hold, and N/G Explained
Circle marks the selected take, Keep a usable alternative, Hold a take kept pending judgment, and N/G a rejected take; SlateX stores and exports these states through names that are not perfectly identical.
Scene, Shot, and Take Numbers Explained
Scene numbers identify script scenes, shot numbers identify setups, and take numbers identify repeated attempts; scene and shot numbers can be managed, while take numbers are generated with no manual edit field.
What the App Fills In Before You Type
Take and shot numbers, reel and clip identifiers, sound roll, an initial timecode, and some camera parameters can be prefilled, but derived values are only a starting point and still need verification.
How Candidate Grouping Works Without an Absolute Threshold
Continuity photos are grouped first by human element labels, while unlabeled images are paired by whole-image feature distance; there is no absolute similarity threshold, so groups are review candidates rather than conclusions.
Where Each ALE Column Comes From
SlateX writes a tab-delimited ALE whose columns mix entered data, derived values, and fallbacks; receivers should verify each field by source rather than treating every readable cell as equally trustworthy.
What a CSV Handoff Carries That an ALE Does Not
The CSV carries more camera, optical, composition, state, and date detail than the ALE, but still omits media paths, channel mapping, and sound timecode, and it follows different handoff rules.
Four Shapes of a Missing Value
A missing value can appear as an empty string, a dash placeholder, a plausible default identifier, or zero timecode; receivers need to distinguish those shapes and verify them against source records and media.
What a Semicolon in Timecode Actually Tells You
A semicolon in the final timecode separator usually marks drop-frame notation, but it is only a display cue and does not prove the frame numbers were converted with drop-frame arithmetic.
What the Tracks Column Does Not Tell You
The ALE Tracks field is a fixed track notation, not a channel map; it does not identify sources per track or carry sample rate or sound timecode, so receivers must verify sound from the source records and media.