Metadata & Auto-Tagging


One of Flow Capture's great strengths is its ability to provide a rich repository of metadata by gathering information directly from the camera and seamlessly making it available to downstream vendors. Almost anything annotated by the camera department as having a value can be attributed, be it Kelvin, Focal Length, Aperture, or something truly obscure.


This metadata also powers all of Flow Capture's sort and search capabilities enabling you to zero in on Units, Cameras, Days, Scenes, and more with ease.

Include the camera setting in an On-Set Dailies system (OSD) and output an ALE which can then be mapped to an asset or group of assets in Flow Capture. This is done in the background when you upload your ALE along with your assets.

Renaming Assets

If you've uploaded a file that you need to share with either a group of execs, some press folks, or anyone else outside of an editorial workflow, we can understand your reluctance towards distributing a Playlink with file called FAST_CAR_MOVIE_13-1080p_(4/17_-_LOCKED_CUT). To change the display name of any file on Flow Capture, you just need to open up the metadata tab in the Assets view. The field you are looking for is the first one, right at the top:

You can enter any name that works best for you, and once that's up you can just press enter or click the Save button the save the change.

After you do that, the name will be displayed along with the clip and populate in any links that it gets sent out in.

Auto-Tagging

Sometimes locating an asset, annotating it as a Print Take and then transferring those Print Takes from an Unreleased Dailies Folder to a Released one can be an industrial-level pain - we have your back!

With some clever scripting by Flow Capture's development team, it's possible to pre-map a list of specific tags like those Print Takes or a series of keywords to look for in an ALE across a folder. When you then upload assets with an ALE to Flow Capture, the script will trigger and the specified tag will be applied to the designated Assets.

This feature requires engineering time and enabling it will need to be prioritized and scheduled ahead of time to ensure successful, timely implementation.  Urgent or short-turnaround times are generally not be available. Please contact Flow Capture Support to coordinate setup details for your production!

Setup and Requirements

We'll need the following from your team to get auto-tagging set up:

  • An example ALE file 
  • An example of the file name format you're using 
  • The metadata field(s) from the ALE that you want us to apply tags from (Print Take, Camera, Lens,) 
  • A list of keywords you want our system to look for from an ALE or metadata field and apply to clips (e.g. character names, locations, etc.) 

You'll also need to go into the folder where these assets will be upload and create all tags you would want in Flow Capture. The steps below help illustrate that process:

  • Screen 1 - Your standard metadata enriched asset on Flow Capture. Note the circled P for a Print Take.
  • Screen 2 - Shows the creation of the Print Take tag.
  • Screen 3 - The asset is then auto-tagged as a result of the script trigger.



If you then open up the Manage Assets tab, you'll be able to filter the source column by the auto-tag that you've created, making the Unreleased Dailies to Released Dailies workflow even easier in Flow Capture. Just select the destination for your Released Dailies and you're set!