Two copies, verified, before anything is formatted

Every card is copied twice, to two separate devices, and both copies are verified against checksums before the card goes back into rotation. Not "copied and it looked fine" — verified, with the report kept. A card that has been formatted against a single unverified copy is the one failure in this whole process that cannot be repaired.

Camera and sound reports, even when they are boring

Roll numbers, frame rates, shooting formats, any change of codec mid-day, and the circled takes. When a project arrives with fourteen roll folders and no report, the first day of post is spent reconstructing it, and that day is billed.

Sound sync information

Whether timecode was jammed, how often, and what the sound recorder was set to. If sync was on clapper only, say so. Knowing that in advance turns a sync pass into a planned task rather than a discovery in the middle of the assembly.

One naming convention, agreed in advance

Reels, days and units named the same way for the whole shoot. It does not much matter which convention is chosen as long as it is chosen once and nothing is renamed halfway through. Renamed folders are the most common reason a conform cannot find its media three months later.

Anything unusual, written down

A lens with heavy distortion, a shot taken at a different frame rate for a speed ramp, a scene that was lit for a look that has to be matched later, an on-set LUT that the director approved. Five lines in an email at wrap prevent a week of guesswork in the grade.

We are happy to run this conversation with the DIT or the production coordinator before the shoot; it takes about twenty minutes. It is the cheapest twenty minutes in the whole schedule.