Ah, the oddly satisfying feeling of organized and easily sortable data. Nothing quite like it! While we know everyone has their methods, we have ours too. Read below if you're interested in some of our favorites practices and see if any work for you.
Dates in Folder Names
For universal consistency and easy sorting, we recommend using YYYYMMDD anytime you are dating folders or files or logging archival. In the case of archival, if you only have a rough estimate of the date, fill in what you know followed by zeros to complete the date (e.g. "20010100").
OCM
Check out our drive log example for an example of one way to name and label your cards. Whatever naming practice you adopt, we recommend creating a folder of the same name and copying OCM in it (with verification) from the root of the card.
Archival
Post and archival teams should adopt a unique identifier for each archival asset so they may be tracked throughout the post process. Identifiers must be unique, and should include indication of media type, source, and whether or not the file is of master quality. Maintain universal conventions like a 3 character code for each source. Some examples:
- FT_0001_FOX
- S0001M_CBS_Description_of_still
- AUD_0001_NPR_program_title