Metalogging: The Ultimate Act of Kindness for Your Future Self

Picture this: you’ve got three days of footage, nine cameras, and no timecode. Just hours of raw, unorganized content from a live event — in my case, a local lowrider show.

It could have been a nightmare to sort through — but I did one thing that saved my future self a world of pain: I metalogged.

What’s Metalogging?

Metalogging is simply taking notes while watching your footage. But instead of logging technical details, you’re jotting down what jumps out creatively. For this project, my notes looked like:

• Candy red Impala – mural under hood – crowd gathers – USE.

• Kids pointing at engine – laughing – community energy.

• Woman in blue dress polishing car – great moment – USE.

  
  

The “USE” tag became my best friend. Any time I spotted gold, I marked it — and when it came time to build the edit, I could pull together my best shots in seconds.

Why Metalogging Works

Metalogging isn’t just about organization — it’s story spotting. Without realizing it, I was already mapping out my edit:

• The pride of the community.

• The absolute art of the different paint jobs.

• How difficult it is to actually build a lowrider.

  
  

And when I finally sat down to cut it all together, it wasn’t a slow, painful process — it flew. Future Me didn’t have to dig for gold; Past Me had already done the work.

Here’s a real world example of how it worked on that project. The Hop Competition!

The Hop Competition

Now, if you’ve never seen a Hop Competition — it’s wild. Lowriders loaded with hydraulics, compete to see whose car can hop the highest, and things get intense. Cars bounce six feet in the air, springs snap, metal grinds, and sometimes… disaster strikes.

As I watched the footage, I realized there was a whole other story happening in the chaos — and I knew it would make a killer segment. So my meta tags shifted:

• Hop – broken spring – USE

• Hop – Red Truck – crash – crowd reaction – USE

• Green Stripes – crowd erupts – Good

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I started thinking of it as a disaster sequence. The chaos. The failures. The triumphs. And because I had already marked every moment of mechanical mayhem, building that segment later was effortless. I didn’t have to go hunting for the best shots — I already knew where they were (or at least my editing software did).

Pro Tip: Keep It Simple

Metalogging doesn’t have to be complicated. My go-to tags were:

• USE – Must-have shots.

• COLORS – Sometimes you NEED to find that Orange car again.

• DISASTER – Anything wild, unexpected, or high-energy.

• EMOTIONAL – Visuals or narratives that capture the heart of the story.

  
  

So whether it was  a gorgeous mural painted under a hood or a spring exploding mid-hop, my meta tags helped me build the story before I even touched the timeline.

My go-to tags change from project to project and you need to do what works for you. But trust your first instinct - this method is to help you, your first instinct will likely be your first instinct a month later so trust yourself. And if you’re afraid that you’ll forget, you can make a list of metatags as you go. 

Your Future Self Will Thank You

Here’s the truth: editing is hard enough without having to scrub through hours of footage trying to remember where that one killer shot was. Metalogging takes the guesswork out of it. It’s like leaving breadcrumbs in the forest — when you get lost in the edit, you already know where the gold is.

And honestly? Nothing feels better than hitting play on a rough cut and realizing: Dang. This is going to work.

So next time you’re knee-deep in raw footage, do your future self a favor: Metalog it. It’ll turn chaos into clarity.

Don't do. it for me, - do it for future you.