Circle, Keep, Hold, and N/G Explained

In on-set record language, Circle generally marks the take explicitly selected by the director, Keep is a usable alternative, Hold means keep the take pending a final judgment, and N/G marks a rejected take. SlateX displays those working terms, but its storage identifiers, UI labels, and delivered text are not perfectly identical, so receivers should not infer meaning from one field name alone.

First establish whether you are reading a UI label, a stored identifier, or a delivery field. The same state can use different names across those layers.

Start with the on-set meaning of the four labels

Circle is the explicitly selected take. Keep is an alternative worth retaining. Hold means the take is being kept while the judgment remains unsettled. N/G means the take is not accepted.

These are working production terms rather than terminology invented by SlateX. The app records those judgments and maps them into its own UI, storage, and handoff fields.

That is why the labels should not be rewritten into an invented score system. What matters is the working meaning of each status and where that status is represented in a particular handoff.

UI labels and storage identifiers do not match one for one

Internally, SlateX uses the stored identifiers Best, Good, Keep, and NG, while the labels shown in the English interface are Circle, Keep, Hold, and N/G. Display names go through localized strings, so another interface language shows its own terms for them; only the rating text written into delivered files is fixed English. The easy trap is that stored Good maps to displayed Keep, while stored Keep maps to displayed Hold.

Documentation therefore cannot translate the internal identifier literally and assume it has reproduced the on-set term. The outward meaning has to follow the UI and delivery mapping rather than the code identifier.

Delivered rating text also uses fixed English status labels. A different interface language should not be interpreted as proof that the handoff will translate those status strings.

ALE has no rating column; CSV carries Rating

The current ALE has no Rating, Circle, Keep, or other take-status column. A receiver cannot determine a take’s on-set status from the ALE itself.

The CSV does carry a text Rating. When a take is marked, the field can contain Circle, Keep, Hold, or N/G; an unmarked take can be empty. Another report format can also read the rating, but that does not mean every delivery format carries the same status data.

The useful question is therefore format-specific: does this file have a status field, and which internal value is that field actually derived from?

The CSV Circle Boolean is narrower than Rating

The CSV also contains a Boolean Circle field. It is TRUE only for the rating that displays as Circle; the other states are FALSE.

That means a Keep take reads FALSE in the Boolean Circle column. This does not erase the meaning of Keep; it only shows that this Boolean field tests a narrower condition than the full rating.

SlateX also has an internal circled-state field that can be written for more than one displayed status, but the CSV Boolean does not read that field. To reconstruct the delivered take status, read the text Rating and the actual format rule rather than treating Circle=TRUE/FALSE as the whole status model.

Rating carries the full text label. The CSV Circle field is only a narrower derived condition.

“Only one Circle per shot” is not an unconditional rule

In one take-log work surface, setting a take to Circle also demotes an existing Circle under the same shot to Keep. That behavior belongs to that particular status-update path, and on this path the visible names follow the interface language while the exported rating text stays English.

Saving a status from the new-take form or edit sheet does not run the same sibling-demotion step. The same shot can therefore contain more than one Circle. A local work-surface behavior must not be described as an app-wide mutual-exclusion guarantee.

Different screens also read different status sources. The take-list icon reads the stored status string, while statistics and representative-media ordering in the associated reference area read the numeric rating. If a write path leaves those sources out of sync, screens can disagree. Troubleshooting should begin by identifying which source the current view actually reads.

FAQ

Which label means the take was explicitly selected?

Circle is the explicitly selected take. Keep is a usable alternative, Hold is retained pending judgment, and N/G is rejected.

Why does stored Keep not mean displayed Keep?

Because the storage identifiers and UI labels are different name sets. Stored Good maps to displayed Keep, while stored Keep maps to displayed Hold, so the code identifier should not be translated literally.

Can the ALE tell a receiver which take was Circle?

Not from a rating field. The current ALE has no take-rating or circled-take column, so status has to come from a handoff that actually carries it or from the on-set record.

Why is a Keep take FALSE in the CSV Circle column?

Because the Boolean Circle field tests only the Circle rating. Keep remains visible in the text Rating, while the narrower Boolean condition evaluates to FALSE.

Axiom One LLC — SlateX. Figures current as of 24 September 2026.