How do you like to organize your raw footage and editing workflow?

Hi,

How do you organize the raw footage you receive and what is your editing work flow until picture lock? Here's how I do it but I'm always interested in more efficient ways.

1. The raw footage is delivered on a hard drive. On the drive the raw footage is separated into folders with the Project Name 1,2,3... While the audio is in it's own folder.

2. Convert the raw footage to Pro Res and maintain the file structure. So if there was Project X 1,2,3...now it's Project X pro res 1,2,3...

3. I bring the pro res footage and audio into FCP. I create a new folder named synced, and begin to sync the audio and place the synced footage into the new folder.

4. I then go through the footage with the aid of the script, and separate the footage into scenes. I create a folder for each scene i.e. 1. Park - all footage from that first park scene will go into the folder. This is repeated for each scene.

5. Up till this point the name of each clip is whatever the raw footage was. I then go through the footage for each scene and rename each clip including the slate number i.e. 1A. WS of park, 1B. 2 shot Joe and Nanci, etc...

6. Whew! That's a lot of work, now I'm finally ready to edit. I create a sequence for each scene and edit each scene individually.

7. Once I've done a rough of each scene, I then copy the footage from each sequence and paste them, end to end into a new sequence for the rough cut. Now, I finally see the whole film assembled, and because each scene affects the others, I may notice problems I didn't when working on the scenes individually. I try to fix those and finish the rough cut.

8. Send it off to get feedback, I then begin the 2nd cut by duplicating the rough sequence and continue editing and refining it. I don't go back to the individual edited scenes, I just use the rough cut sequence now. Once the 2nd cut is complete, I repeat step 8 with each new cut until picture lock.

How do you approach it? How can my process be improved? My process is mainly based off short film work but I'm curious about features, music videos, commercials, TV?

Thank you very much, I love this forum.

Just to plug a product I make...I have a WHOLE DVD that covers how to organize your footage in FCP.

[training.creativecow.net]

I made it when FCP 5.1 was out, but nothing really has changed in terms of how to organize things.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Yes, definitely pick up Shane's DVD. It's the bible of project management in Final Cut Pro. I still use it as a reference guide.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

I think this is a very broad question, because workflow is often determined by so many factors that change from job to job.

For example - the shoot type - is it a documentary shot over three years on various types of tape? A 30 second commercial shot on RED? A fast turnaround weekly show shot tapeless? A feature shot on film? One of six wedding videos shot on HDV by your company this week? A series of DVD rips being compiled for youtube?

These things - capture medium, delivery medium, storage sizes, turnaround time, whether the project will be going out to sound, graphics or colour or staying in-house and even the genre all make a major difference to how you will organise your media and your project.

Then there's also things like whether or not other people are working on it - will it live on a central server? Be on external drives and moved from station to station? Stay only on an internal on one computer?

So it's very hard to answer. I work on all kinds of projects and often have to design workflows as we go to optimise what we're trying to achieve. I think in the end, what works for you and your situation is the best possible workflow.

Of course, there's never harm in asking to see if other people can see places you can improve. I like reading other people's workflows, and storing how they do things for those times in the future when I need a similar one quickly.

Also, one important point- keep it consistent. If you're handing the project over, make sure it is organized! It sucks to spend half a day doing spring cleaning when you just took over a project, then the media goes offline because some stills are on the desktop of another machine.



www.strypesinpost.com

I would like to invoke the BUS theory of project organization:

Your project and all it's files should be organized in such a way that were you to be hit by a BUS on the way to/from work, some other editor could get your drives and be editing within an hour. Everything labeled well, dated, backed up with notes. Labels that make sense to more than just you
(ScrewYou_FinalFINAL_RevFINAL03Mix what!?)

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

I use the "nine month" theory: If you're looking at the files after nine months of inactivity, can you still tell what's what without opening every single file?

It works out to the same thing Andrew's talking about. The ability to understand the whole file structure just by looking at folders and file names in OS is a great barometer for whether your file-management system is working.

Oh yeah, one small but very useful tip: Never use the word "final". When the client/producer changes his mind for the 12th time, you'll be stuck with the word "final" on many things that aren't actually final. Use version numbers and date/time stamps.


www.derekmok.com

Ok, well let's just focus on narrative film and if anyone has any comments on my workflow I'd love to hear it.

Again, I'll plug my DVD that has specific workflows for narrative work...


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Shane's tutorial AND PluralEyes for your double-system audio work.


- Loren

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