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Corporate Video Folder Structure
This is my first post around these parts, so please forgive any errors I may make…
I work in 3D animation, but the company I work for began taking on corporate video jobs for shows and events a couple of years or so bacl; this has gone pretty well, we have hired good contractors and developed some good relationships, however we have found a total lack of coherence when it comes to folder structures, and as this has become more than an occasional sideline it has started to be an issue.
What we are looking for is a sort of industry standard that we can have laid out on a HDD prior to shooting, so when it comes to archiving everything is uniform and easy to find.
What we currently have pencilled in is:
PRE PRODUCTION
– Research
– Contracts
– Client Supplied
– Concepts
– Storyboards and AnimaticsFILM
-Rushes
– Converted Footage
—Interviews/ Dialogue,
—GV’s)
-Graphic assets
—motion graphics,
— image files
-Audio
—Music
—Foley
—Additional location audio
-Project files
-Exports
—Draft Exports
—Final Exports
-Render ScratchVFX
(Our standard VFX structure)FINAL DELIVERABLES
CLIENT LOGOS AND SHARED RESOURCES
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My question is, have we missed anything/ done anything very silly that we may not have realised or been aware of?
Many thanks in advance.
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4 Replies
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Wow. Great layout.
The only thing that comes to mind is including a brief document explaining your file structure, so if someone else needs to work on your files, they will know how to work with your layout structure.
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I would add something to the structure which gives you an indication of what has gone to the client for Approvals, maybe just an Approvals folder which allows for a Sent To [Client] folder, and maybe a Sent From [Client] folder, so that any final additions to the project, such as essential graphics or elements the client overlooked or changed their mind on, can be easily tracked.
And if the project is particularly complex, you may want to put a .txt “notes” file in each subfolder, so that the flow of the project is clearly outlined – this also helps in the “post-mortem” stage of the project, after it’s finished. You can go through the flow and see where things went right or wrong, and whether you could have maximized profit/efficiency somewhere.
I assume you log your time – I use Easy Time Tracker Pro, and run timers on all phases of my project, then generate reports for Work In Progress, the a Final Report, broken out by dates and each phase of the project (Research, Pre-Pro, Pro, Post, Encoding, Delivery, etc.. It really helps get a handle on things. And of course I have folders for the Invoices and Reports associated with the project.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Thank you very much for your time. This is all great advice which I will look to be implementing.
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One last thing…
How do you handle text assets ?
i.e. Editable text that appears on screen
I normally keep these as separate text documents, with the same naming/ID conventions as the storyboards.
I also work with text that has been formatted as editable Fireworks PNG files, where Fireworks keeps the text as editable meta-data that is part of the PNG file, and is rasterized on the fly when ever the file is saved.
These text PNG graphics are then linked to my NLE project files ( text is laid out using full video resolution on an alpha-channel background ), which are simply dropped into the NLE timeline. All the links are automatically maintained, so if the external PNG files are updated, the NLE timeline automatically reflects these updates.
Working this way, it’s handy to be able to give someone folders of project text assets to updated, and all you have to do is copy the updated Fireworks PNG graphics to their respective folders, and your NLE timeline is ready to render an updated video file.
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