One of the great things about redefining a work space, filing and organizing is the things you find while doing so.

One of the hard lessons of being professional and maintaining a professional work environment is labeling: Label very specifically and date to nearest possible day. One other hard lesson to learn and practice consistently is make a back-up copy and a back-up copy of the backup copy. We take too much for granted the integrity of these little discs that hold information, common knowledge will have you believe that the data on such mediums are safe for at least 300+ years however in practical applications in a production and archiving environment this is found not to be the case.

For you see I was mere moments of throwing away something I could have never gotten back.There was this stack of marred and scratched unlabeled DVD's I was tossing one by one hoping to get rid of clutter in my workspace. I aimed it for the trash bag and when it fell on the floor top side down I noticed a small amount of data on the back. Out of curiosity I popped it into my computer to see what it was and it was (1) a single copy of a short animation experiment that had no back up and (2) it was an unlabeled DVD with no title nor date of approximate conception. This is a Lethal combination for any artist.

I quickly grabbed a sharpie (which I recommend having a cup full of them nearby at all times) and once having watched to affirm the contents scribbled "Green Screen Skull Experiment circa 2005" with an additional description : High resolution camera animation green clay and green screen case study.

"Memories may fade, but sharpie ink lasts damn near forever"

Take it from me, figure out a labeling system and use it consistently. I can't even begin to get into how many different perilous scenarios this saves you from.Such a simple thing too, but critical for anyone that deals with mass amounts of data, sound, pics, video or other . Labeling and filing descriptively and consistently  helps you to find things quickly on the fly and cuts down on production time, in effect saving production money, aiding recovery catastrophes and keeping a tight cohesion between departments

This was really a fun thing to find. be on the lookout for details in the media section as this was experiment that is just dying to be discussed.

see you soon,

TJPARSONS