What Happens When the Camera Report Goes Missing at Comp

The ARRI Alexa footage from Shoot Day 14, Scene 40 Take 2 — the wide exterior establishing shot with the rig removal — goes to the compositing team six weeks after the shoot wrapped. The VFX supervisor opens the report to find focal length: "approx 35mm," focus distance: blank, T-stop: blank, lens height: not recorded. The CG set extension that needs to be seamlessly integrated into the shot depends on accurate perspective geometry to match lens characteristics. With "approx 35mm," the compositor is guessing.

The re-shoot request goes back to production. The shot is already cut into the offline edit. The location has been released. The re-shoot costs more than the original shoot day.

Camera reports exist to prevent this class of problem. A VFX camera report filled at the moment of filming — at the camera, with the actual lens pulled — takes three minutes and saves the cost of an entire corrections session.

The VFX Work Field as a Communication Protocol

The VFX Work checkboxes — 2D comp, Green Screen, Paint Out, Rig Removal, CG Character, CG Vehicle, CG Set Extension, 2D Matte Painting, BG Plate, Under Protest — are not just a description of what was requested. They are a contract between the on-set wrangler and the VFX facility.

"Under Protest" is the field that prevents disputes. When production shoots a VFX element in conditions that the wrangler has verbally flagged as inadequate — wrong light match for the CG integration, talent crossing a seam line that will create a tracking nightmare, rig shadow that can't be cleanly painted out because it falls across a detailed background — the Under Protest checkbox creates a documented record of the objection. The shot still gets filmed. The wrangler's concerns are still recorded. If the composite fails in the review, the paper trail exists.

The Todos checkboxes — Survey Diagram, Witness Camera, Track Points, Clean Plate, Chrome Ball, Cube — and the Set Media checklist — 360° HDRI, Ball, Cube, HDRI Photo, Survey Diagram, Photogrammetry, Panoramic Tile, Witness Camera, Photos, Color Chart — function as a completion checklist. Leaving set without the chrome ball shot when the report shows CG Character work means the lighting reference for the CG figure doesn't exist and cannot be recreated.

Lens Data at the Shot Level

Focal Lens Start and Focal Lens End handle zoom shots as a range. FPS, Shutter Angle, Camera Record Mode (sensor crop, resolution), and T-Stop (the Stop field as an integer, representing T-stop at time of exposure) capture the exposure geometry. Focus start and Focus End with Lens Height start and end enable the compositor to reconstruct the exact optical configuration of any move in the shot.

Tilt start and Tilt end fields capture the camera angle. A shot where the camera starts at -5° tilt and ends at +12° has different perspective characteristics at beginning and end — both matter for the 3D matchmove.

The Tk Clip Name field — formatted as A025_C002 — ties the camera report directly to the digital magazine identifier in the DIT's records. When the offline edit references a clip and the VFX facility needs the raw camera report for that specific take, the clip name is the lookup key that connects the on-set record to the digital intermediate.

Camera Letter (A, B, C) paired with the Unit field (1st, 2nd, 3rd unit) handles multi-unit and multi-camera shoots without ambiguity. Scene 40 Take 2, A camera, 1st unit is a unique identifier. Scene 40 Take 2, B camera, 2nd unit is a different shot entirely. GPS-linked Set Location as a URL field gives the matchmove team the precise geographic coordinates for any exterior shoot where solar position and shadow direction are relevant to the CG integration.