Home / Glossary / Camera report
What Is a Camera Report? The Per-Roll Log Explained
A camera report is the sheet the second AC fills for each card or magazine, recording how every setup on it was shot so post can reproduce or match the image later.
Also called: camera log · media report · card report
One sheet per roll
The unit is the card, not the day. A roll is what gets handed to the DIT or the post house, and the report goes with it, so a day that filled three cards produces three reports rather than one.
Each row is a setup: scene, slate, how many takes, which of them to print, and the lens, focal length, stop, frame rate, shutter angle, exposure index, white balance and filtration it was shot at. Support goes on too, because a shot on a dolly is not matched by the same lens on sticks.
Why it survives digital
Most of it is in the file metadata now, which is the usual argument for dropping the paperwork. The argument does not hold. Metadata does not record which take was circled, why a take was no good, or that the diopter came off after take three, and a colorist matching a scene shot across two days needs exactly those.
Timecode is the part that cannot be reconstructed
A timecode reference ties the picture to the sound and to every other camera running that moment. Written down after the fact it is a guess; read off the generator at the take it is a fact, and it is the difference between an assistant editor syncing a day in an hour and syncing it by eye.
