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Best Practice: FCP Project locations
I love Apple, but it seems after five generations of FCP, they still don’t get how users would like to store FCP data.
Does anyone working out there think FCP’s confusing method is brilliant and desirable?
Ideally, what I would like to see is this: Let’s have a system drive that stores all my OS(s), applications, and users. Let’s keep this drive pristine and not write any other unnessisary stuff to it. It just seems to have less risk of corruption that way, and is easily backed up once a month or so, since it should only chage with software updates and the like.
Then, I have a projects drive that contains all my documents, images, all the client data, project data neatly stored by project name/number — one folder that has everything in it related to that project, sans the massive media files.
Then, a raid or some other such massive drive that holds all my massive video and audio files — the renders, all that jazz.
Backing up or archiving the project is a simple matter of burning the project folder to a DVD or DLT or some other long term storage. If I need to go back to it later, just pop the disk back in, retrieve the project folder and all the other stuff, open it up, redigitize the media from tape, and I’m back in business.
This is what I want. But FCP wants to put the project data on my system drive, in my user/doccuments/FCP documents/….and my media split into who knows how many folders all over. Geez, Apple, have you ever actually worked in the biz? If so, surely you must know how insane this arrangement is in what we like to call “the real world”
What are you guys doing that you find works well. I’m reading that some people are saying, just don’t fight FCP and use the defaults. I say, screw that!
Thanks!
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9 Replies
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[Scott] “This is what I want. But FCP wants to put the project data on my system drive, in my user/doccuments/FCP documents/….and my media split into who knows how many folders all over. Geez, Apple, have you ever actually worked in the biz? If so, surely you must know how insane this arrangement is in what we like to call “the real world””
That’s why you set your Prefs at the beginning of each project. When you assign your Scratch Disk, FCP automatically puts all the media into that drive. If you don’t, it defaults to the same drive as the application.
I have a Projects Folder I created on my system drive. I put all my Project files there.
For everything else, I simply select the Scratch Disk and let FCP create the Capture Scratch and Render Folders there. This keeps everything well organized. Just a few folders and within those few folders is a separate folder for each project. This allows me to easily throw away media / renders for a particular project when it’s completed without affecting anything else.
Is there something that’s not working on your end? It’s pretty straightforward and has worked well here for four years.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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I feel your pain somewhat, but agree that this is a workable system. You can easily direct things to where you want them to be and set up folders that embrace your workflow. One useful practice that I have started is creating a folder for the project itself called “(title) elements.” In there, I put the project itself as well as subfolders of things that will not be recaptured from tape once I go to restore and old project like motion projects, VO waves, slates, and any other elements that are not huge in size like video, but will be neccessary should I need to go back to this project in the future. You can put this folder anywhere you want and when you are done with the job, burn it to a CD or DVD, or wait until you have enough of these to fill a CD or DVD and archive taht way. This has worked for me and maybe it will help you sort this out. Good Luck.
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It is not Apple’s responsibility to keep you organized. They are not your personal maid/butler. Just like your house, you have to make your bed, put your clothes away and keep your house clean.
You have plenty of options using your system to keep you organized.
To do what you want, buy a 60GB HD and put your OS and FCP on it. On another HD all other apps you want. On another HD put your media files. On yet another HD, put any other files you feel are needed. To me, that’s less organized.
My one system drive with OS and ALL apps and other internal external HD’s have worked flawlessly from version 1.
Only you can determine you workflow.
Sorry if this sounds negative. Don’t take it personal.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Director-At-Large
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
[Scott] “Geez, Apple, have you ever actually worked in the biz? If so, surely you must know how insane this arrangement is in what we like to call “the real world””
Come on, Scott!
As a matter of fact, I happen to work in “The Real World” (the one on TV). We’ve had NO PROBLEM setting up our FCP/X-SAN system to do exactly what you’re complaining about. It helps to read the manual and learn about how you can set FCP to direct data to exactly where you want it to go.
mark
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The problem gang is this: I am not the only editor in this shop, and I am working with folks who do not come from a video background, but an IT one.
Jerry Hofmann, FCP Guru and Herd Leader in his FCP article in the premier issue of Creative Cow Magazine writes:
“Keep your project file on your startup disk in your User’s Documents folder….Final Cut takes care of all the sorting of different project’s media files, captured or rendered, putting them in folders that are automatically created and named the same as your project file, so why fight it?’The reason, Jerry, is that we like to back up our projects so when the client comes back and wants to update it 10 or 15 months later, we can pull one disk and load up not only the edl, but the motion effects, AE animations, PS files, Illustrater files, scripts, VO aiffs, music bed, and all those other elements we need to recreate the project. See, it helps the workflow to have all that stuff in one place, not in eight different folders. That’s why.
I’m not expecting Apple to houseclean for me, just to make my job easier. That’s theoretically why computers exist, imho. They should serve my needs, not the otherway around. Apple usually gets that. I didn’t create the bizare file structure that FCP defaults to. The point is, this is the default. Sure I can change it. But when my colleagues who get on the system once every few months to do some little project that I’m too busy to help with, the stuff gets stored all over the place. I have seen capture folders inside capture folders within the wrong project folders, and so on, because when they open FCP, it by defalult loads the last project, and they’re off captureing footage that gets stored in the wrong places. That’s not always helpful.
All I’m asking for is wheither there is a concensus on best practices. I don’t think it’s FCP’s default arrangement.
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[Scott] “Final Cut takes care of all the sorting of different project’s media files, captured or rendered, putting them in folders that are automatically created and named the same as your project file, so why fight it?'”
Jerry’s absolutely correct. FCP creates all these folders for you on your Scratch Disk. It’s still your responsiblity to assign the Scratch Disk correctly.
[Scott] “The reason, Jerry, is that we like to back up our projects so when the client comes back and wants to update it 10 or 15 months later, we can pull one disk and load up not only the edl, but the motion effects, AE animations, PS files, Illustrater files, scripts, VO aiffs, music bed, and all those other elements we need to recreate the project. See, it helps the workflow to have all that stuff in one place, not in eight different folders. That’s why.”
All of these are files outside of Final Cut Pro so why is that application going to manage these files? Just create a Graphics / Animation folder like I do or throw all of these elements into the project’s Capture Scratch Folder. This is all part of media management, and that’s your responsibility, not the app’s.
Just to recap my workflow.
System Hard-drive – I have a Project Folder. All FCP Projects stored in there.Auxilary Drive – I have a Graphics Folder. All Graphics for any projects are stored in their own project folder inside of here.
Media Drive – FCP created Capture Scratch, Render Folders, etc…. I put all my VO’s, audio files and sometimes my After Effects animations right in here. Sometimes I’ll create a specific animation folder for the project.
So I’m left with 3, maybe four folders to grab which all have the proper name of the project. These folders are located on 2 or 3 drives depending on how the project is set up.
Back up the project? – Grab the appropriate folders and back up. I never save the Render Files and only occassionally save the Capture Scratch media. I find it usually faster to simply re-capture the media.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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We have all our apps and OS on the system HD and store everything else on a G-drive quad external 800/400/Sata/USB drive. On the external drive we have a folder template that lists as follows:
AE Projects
DVD STudio Files
EDLs
From Client
Graphics
Music
Voice Over
AE Renders
Compressions
Final Cut
Stock Footage
Templates/PrefsWe just copy and paste to make a new project and name it according to our project numbers.
Each of these folders contain the various parts of the project. We add more if necessary, but usually don’t need to. We back up the EDLs everyday to the system HD or other drives like jump drives or our network server.
The Final Cut folder is where we designate the capture scratch.
All files are kept here and we back up those folders to DVD and also make a media manager copy backup which also gets burned to DVD.
I like to keep it all in one place (and make sure it’s backed up).
This method makes re-building or re-editing very easy. It’s not hard to keep clean, but it’s hard to remake something that was managed sloppy.
-Matt
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We have three Final Cut suites with AJA cards in our office. All suites have their own media drives. We are doing lot of short projects. That is many editors and many projects going on at the same time. Because we want to have backups so that everything is in one folder (called by project name) we are working like this:
-FCP project files are in one drive.
-Mediadrives have PROJECT (named by that project) folder and inside that we have all graphics, imagesequences, motion and shake files. We also have folder called “fcp_f”. Each projects capture scratch (etc) are here.When we make backups (DLT, Ultrium, firewire drive) we just drag FCP project to this PROJECT folder and backup this folder. We usually do not backup renderfiles. When you jump from project to project you have to remember changa your scratch disk to that spesific fcp_f (mediadrive-PROJECT FOLDER-fcp_f). This works for us but it still is quite pain. I am not sure if this is best solution but haven
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There is a great acticle by Jerry Hoffman on Final Cut Pro’s Storage methods in the first issue of Creative Cow’s Magazine. “Achieving a Rock Solid Final Cut System” is the name of the article. If you havn’t already I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you sign up for this magazine. It will will be well worth your time. I believe they have a PDF version of the first issue out as well. There will be more articles I’m sure along these lines in future issues.
-Nicholas Bierzonski
Editor/DVD Author/Java Boy
http://www.finalfocusvideo.com
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