archiving

What's the best way to archive a project without keeping any of the raw footage? Is this a silly question? Is that what happens when you delete everything but your project file? I need to free up disk space but would like to keep the frame or skeleton of the project for archiving.

If you have the camera tapes and you captured using timecode and you know what each reel was, then yes, you can just keep the skeletons and, if you need to, recapture all the media later.

I always also keep a master copy and a textless master with split audio on tape. That means no graphics and the audio is split on to different tracks, so that you could quickly recapture it and, say, replace just the voiceover with an Italian version, and do all the titles in Italian, without having to rebuild from scratch.

Whoa, thanks for the quick reply. All of my pieces are laid off to digibeta with split tracks, yes. This is kind of a CYA exercise and just really something I want to know for my own professional benefit and experience.

"Skeleton" meaning just the project file ie the render files and raw footage can all go?

Yep. Just the project file. It's also a really good idea to make a disc of any graphics or music you used, or anything else that went into the project that isn't video or render files.

What does CYA mean?

C over Y our A ss



I work in a post house where I'm the anointed FCP editor in a forest of Avid and Unity so I'm learning as I go along. All the music is canned and shelved in our library and there are no graphics to speak of other than what's already backed up on our graphics reels. I manage all of my own projects and disc space, thus these funny questions.

I didn't think it was a funny question at all. No way you can know this stuff with asking, or trying it yourself.

> All the music is canned and shelved in our library and there are no graphics to speak of other
> than what's already backed up on our graphics reels.

Here's the problem though: Even if you take the exact same CD, extract the entire track as you did during the first edit, and name the file exactly the same, the AIFF or WAV you make still won't necessarily reconnect with your editing decisions. Possibly because AIFFs and WAVs aren't actually timecoded, and making a new file means that data will be written to different sectors even if the content is the same. So audio files still have to be backed up.

Graphics are different -- as long as you backed up the exact same file, you'll be okay.

If you don't do archiving on a regular basis, after you backup one project, you should try to test it by recreating it right away using only the elements that were backed up. If you're missing things, you should try to find out after one project, not after applying the flawed method to 50 projects only to find a flaw in the procedure. And of course, don't delete the original, complete files until a successful test is made!


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Great point Derek. I knew I posted here for a reason! Thanks

>Even if you take the exact same CD, extract the entire track as you did during the first edit, and
>name the file exactly the same, the AIFF or WAV you make still won't necessarily reconnect with
>your editing decisions.

That's an interesting point. I've actually converted sample rates on a music track i was using, and with the exact same name, it synced just fine after a reconnection of media.

> I've actually converted sample rates on a music track i was using, and with the exact same
> name, it synced just fine after a reconnection of media.

Yep. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. If just 20 pieces of edited music were scrambled, it's painful enough!


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