What is the ideal folder structure for raw media?

Hello,

What is the ideal folder structure for raw media (narrative film)?
I've been getting this in the past but I'm wondering if there should be more, maybe a date.

Day #
/ \
VIDEO Audio
/ \
Roll # Roll #

Formatting didn't really work, but you get my drift.

Personally I don't like the structure above. Because you will have many folders called simply "Video" and "Audio". Also, if you name your reels "Roll 01", "Roll 002" above, then your video and audio roll folders will have identical names. Identical names means that a mistake in operation could result in one folder overwriting another despite having different content.

I would do this.

Titanic Audio
|_ Sync Sound
|___Audio Day 01 Card 01
|___Audio Day 01 Card 02
|___Audio Day 02 Card 01

Titanic Clips 101 Camera Masters
|_Day 01 Card 01
|_Day 01 Card 02
|_Day 02 Card 01


Also remember to rename audio files individually, such as with a prefix "Audio_Day01_Card01_". Video cameras usually have a more complex system to reduce the chances of two files ending up with the same name, but many audio recorders don't. I spent about two weeks manually re-conforming a 30-minute short film clip by clip in September because they made this mistake with their first "editor", and all their dual-system audio reconnected to the wrong file when we changed editing stations, permanently altering the lengths of certain editing decisions and nullifying a great deal of their sync work. I had to rename all the audio files and then manually reconnect every editing decision to the new file to force a new clip-file relationship.


www.derekmok.com

Hey Derek,

Appreciate the response.

Yes. What Derek said.

I usually also add all essential metadata to the folder containing the card contents. So i dont ever call a folder "Card 1" or even "day 1 card 1". Why? In the Avid world, that is called the virtual volume. In the FCP7 world, that name becomes the tape name. So I treat that folder like a tape label, and call it "Titan_S1_D01A_C01" for season 1 shoot day 1, cam A, card 1 of Titanic.

For audio, it is slightly stickier because they are not treated like tapeless volumes but rather as files. So I usually rename the files to include project and shoot day metadata.

If the workflow requires EDL, which rarely does, then I will simplify the labeling to fit within 12 characters.



www.strypesinpost.com

I usually don't include the project name into those Reel folders because it makes the name a bit long and harder to navigate, but if you juggle projects a lot on a system, or have an unusually large amount of media (eg. three seasons of the same TV show), then the extra characters are worth it.

Rule of thumb for file management: You should always know what the folder/file is for, on sight, without opening it.

Another compromise is to come up with a prefix code for the project. For example, if I were tackling Breaking Bad, it might be "BBADS01_D01C01" or "BBADS01_DAY01-01". The prefix should remain completely consistent, right down to underscores and/or dashes, across the entire project.


www.derekmok.com

> The prefix should remain completely consistent, right down to underscores and/or dashes, across the entire project.

I completely agree. The dashes and underscores aren't for fun and I do search filtering quite a bit. For me, dashes replace spaces, underscores separate fields.



www.strypesinpost.com