"Slates" are short pieces of film or video (1-2 seconds) that proceed every shot (and finished movie) of a video/film production. They contains important information about the production of the movie that editors and directors need, but they are not meant to be seen by the general public (although you may catch one on TV every once and a while when someone hits the wrong switch). The slates found at the beginning of individual shots typically contain the name of the production, scene name and number, take number, director, cameraperson, and date. Slates found at the beginning of finished videos contain information about the project as a whole, and may include:
Include a slate at the beginning of each of your projects in this class. It should play for 2 seconds (don't include that time in total running time), and must include the informaion in bold above, plus one additional piece of information:
It should also be noted that these are not titles, therefore refrain from fancy graphics, typefaces, etc. Slates should be very simple and easy to read—white on black, black on white, or against a simple test pattern (as in the sample below).
Here are some samples: