creating a show open to reuse often

[Chris Tompkins]

If it were me?, I would create a project that just had the open and close in it and leave on the system.
Everytime U need it,…open that project and copy and paste it into your new show. We do this now with Show Leaders and grafx.

[Ben Insler]

Greg,

Are the open and close already in a final delivery format (be it Tape, Self Contained QT movie, etc), or are they still edited sequences in FCP. If they’re finalized and exported, I’d say keep them stored on your HDD in a separate project and just pull them in from that project when you need them (this way you don’t have to go hunting around on your HDD every time – you just drag from this container project into the current one you’re working on).

If they’re still edited sequences without a final output, I’d say output them to a Self Contained QT movie and then make a container project referencing the Self Contained final output movies. This way you’re always using the final output movie in your new edits. If the opener and closer are going to be exactly the same in every show, there’s no need to be pulling a sequence of edits back and forth every time. It’s tedious, more stressful, and allows for a much greater chance for error by not grabbing all the clips or changing something accidentally. With the Self Contained QT, once it’s finalized, it’s uneditable. Plus, it’s easier for FCP to deal with one single clip than 70 edited together… if you feel the need for extra convincing. If you need additional elements like transitions going to and from the opener/closer or credits, build those into the container project as well so that you have them on hand.

Hope that helps,

Ben

[Greg Ball]

Ben: (Are the open and close already in a final delivery format (be it Tape, Self Contained QT movie, etc), or are they still edited sequences in FCP.)
They will be edited sequences in FCP. SSo perhaps the self contained QT would bbe the way to go… Thanks for your suggestion.

[Walter Biscardi]

I keep all re-used show elements in a separate project ready to go. Then when I start a new episode, I drag and drop what I need from the Elements project to the new episode project.

For one show, all the elements are simply graphics or pre-built so I don’t keep timelines. For another show, we create new opens / bumpers for each episode using a standard graphics package on top of the video. For this show we keep timelines so we can simply drop the new open / tease footage behind the graphics package.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Ben Insler]

The other thing you could do is nest the sequences for the opnener and closer in your show sequences, but I’d still recommend outputting a final version to ensure consistency and peace of mind.

-Ben