B-Roll Database Template

[Bill Davis]

Mike,

Since this is the FCP-X forum, might I enquire why the pretty seriously robust database tools inside X’s event browser can’t do what you want to do right within the program?

What is it you’re trying to do via search or sort that you can’t accomplish with keywords, keyword collections and smart collections inside the program?

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Dave Jenkins]

I agree with Bill, the first time I saw FCP X I thought if nothing else what a great place to organize file in a database style. However if FCP X doesn’t work for you take a look at Filemaker 12. I use it to track all my jobs but I have never tried to use it as a video database.

https://www.filemaker.com/products/filemaker-pro/

Container fields in FileMaker Pro allow you to store any type of file in your database including photos, videos, music, documents and more. In FileMaker Pro 12, container fields have been re-engineered to improve database performance and make your solutions even easier to use.

Dajen Productions, Santa Barbara, CA
MacPro Two 2.66GHz Quad Core – AJA Kona LHe
FCS 3 OS X 10.7.4
FCP X, Adobe CS6, Logic Pro, Squeeze, Filemaker

[Bret Williams]

I like the idea as I’m in the same boat. We’re starting to do more of our own productions vs just the post where I sent the media and project off with the client and they were responsible for their own methods.

But wouldn’t the events need to stay online to be searched? I fuss that would be doable, but still need to see something, and even proxy takes up valuable space. If X could keep a thumbnail even when media is offline that would certainly help.

But in either case, it requires you to use and access FCP X to search vs any pages on just about any system anywhere. What about printing a list of search results?

[Eugeny Korkhin]

Hi, Mike!

One of the answers is right by your hand. And it’s free! You can use your Mac built-in features to easily search through your footage.

Here’s the template:

New footage goes into new folder (name folders as you prefer; It’s like the “Reel” name).

Corresponding descriptive text file goes into special folder (DB, Database or whatever). The name of the text file is “Reel name + Keyword of your choice (Place, Client name, Project name or whatever you want)”.
The content of the text file describes the footage it relates to.

Spotlight search this folder and you end up with the list of “reels” containing what you’re looking for. And don’t forget that you can search using several keywords to narrow the results even more:

Hope that helps.