Metadata

The data about the work: who, when, how, in what. Unseen by the audience, it is how the work is found, sorted and remembered.

Metadata is the work's memory of itself: who made it, when, in what, under which rights. Audiences never see it, but every system between the work and its audience reads it, search engines, archives, editing suites, licensing lawyers. A file without metadata is an orphan waiting to happen.

For the studio it is both plumbing and legacy: structured data tells search and AI engines what a page actually is, which is why the site's term pages carry their own; embedded credits and dates settle future arguments before they start. The habit costs a minute at export. Its absence costs an afternoon every time, forever.