Archive footage

I am in unfamiliar territory and I need to utilize logged archived footage: This archiving was done a few years ago when I was learning FCP. The footage I want to use in a current project is in small Quicktime clips. I don't know if the footage has been captured on an external Lacie drive or if these QT clips are referrencing the captured footage stored on internal drives.

My question is this: Can I just open a FCP project and drag and drop these QT clips into my timeline ... or do I drag them into the browser? If it does work that way, when I bring this footage into FCP, will I be able to separate the audio and the video? If none of the above is correct how do I utilize these QT clips? And will the have they original captured footage with them?

Those of you with a lot of experience are probably laughing by now but help anyway.

Thanks for your assistance.

Sheryl

> My question is this: Can I just open a FCP project and drag and drop these QT clips into my
> timeline ... or do I drag them into the browser?

They wouldn't have to be in the Browser, but trust me, you'll want them there.

> If it does work that way, when I bring this footage into FCP, will I be able to separate the audio
> and the video?

Yes. But if you want audio and video as separate clips, you'll have to do it manually.

What's more important is that you figure out whether those clips are self-contained. Look at them in the external drive. Are they of a reasonable size? If you see clips that are 8KB, 16KB, or anywhere under 100MB, chances are they are reference movies and you don't ever want to edit with those.


www.derekmok.com

Thank you very much for your help:
I doesn't seem that dragging a QT clip, that is to say, something that's been output to Quicktime, can be put in the Browser and be expected to serve as raw footage.

To be more specific, the question is this:
Is that QT clip the raw footage or just what was put out to the Quicktime?
I need to find in my system in all the many folders and files that FCP seems to create - I need to find the original audio and video clips.

How do I use what I have (the QT clip) to locate the originally logged footage?

Are you saying that I could drag this clip into my Browser and it would help me source the originally logged footage?

I need this footage into a current project that is on a severe deadline and I'm being so pedantic here because I don't want to do something stupid and wreck the project I'm bringing it into.

Thank you VERY MUCH.

Sheryl

> It doesn't seem that dragging a QT clip, that is to say, something that's been output to
> Quicktime, can be put in the Browser and be expected to serve as raw footage.

Not sure what you're asking there.
QuickTime exports from FCP are used as "raw footage" (as you call it) all the time.
When I have a very complicated effect, say one that involves 24 video tracks, I often render it in a separate Sequence and then export a full-quality, self-contained QuickTime movie of it. Then I re-import it and cut it into the edit.

> Is that QT clip the raw footage or just what was put out to the Quicktime?

The only person who can answer that question is you...or whoever had done the capturing and file management.

> How do I use what I have (the QT clip) to locate the originally logged footage?

If you're talking about a reference movie file, go into QuickTime Player, open the clip, and press APPLE-J (Show Movie Properties). The "Resources" tab will show you what file it's referencing.

But if you're talking about somebody having exported that file somewhere from FCP, then you're out of luck -- unless there's a timecode/text burn-in, there's no metadata anywhere on that file that tells you where on a certain tape the original footage had come from.

If you locate the original batch-captured clip files on a drive, you can import them into the Browser. Some metadata will be intact (eg. Media In/Out, Reel Name); some will be lost (eg. Log Notes) because they were part of the project file, not the captured clip.

Not sure exactly what your situation is. You'll have to be clearer.


www.derekmok.com

I agree - it's very hard to follow what you have done and what you want to do. Since you *could* have done all manner of things, there's no way we can say - "Oh, just go to the blah folder and select 'blah'."

The only thing that could possibly be a help is if you have a sequence with the vision you really want already referenced in it. So - on the timeline or in the browser there is a clip from a file you are looking for. In this case, select the clip and right click (or control click) and select 'reveal in finder'. This will find the original file at the finder level.

Also, IMHO. using the 'import' command is better than just dragging to the browser or timeline. It gives you a clearer sense of what you are doing and where things are coming from.

Thanks for your help.

Firstly, I'm trying to clean up the mess left by two people before me and I'm endeavoring to do this with limited knowledge. The QT clips are in an "ARCHIVE FOLDER" on an external drive. Clearly they are just referencing the data which is elsewhere. There is little or no size given to the folder. My idea was to use Media Manager to get the data and transfer it over to another hard drive to take to another editing bay.

I think what's happened is that someone thinks they've put all the data on the external drive but certainly did not follow a Media Manager procedure or anything like that. In fact, I grabbed the QT clip, dragged it to another drive - it plays in there and still shows no size so it's reading the data from somewhere else.

I need to figure out how to find where the data is that these QT clips are referencing. I hope this is a bit clearer. All I can tell you is that when I select the clip, it opens up in a QT player, I need to find that data and get it back into FCP so that I can get it into the Browser and by opening separate Finder windows, use the Media Manager to get the data from one computer to another.

Sheryl

> I need to figure out how to find where the data is that these QT clips are referencing.

Read my earlier post -- APPLE-J will reveal the location and name of the media being used by a reference movie. If you have a high number of non-self-contained clips you're trying to make self-contained, try Batch Export from FCP.

You need to read up some more on correct terminology...the way you're describing your issues is very confusing and can mislead us, impeding our recommendations.


www.derekmok.com

Yeah, or if they are aliases - and you will know this because an alias file has a small black arrow in the bottom left hand corner of the file icon, then you can right click on it and select 'show original'.