-
Folder/file organization
I’ve recently been hired at a new studio that began as a Vegas Studio, running 5 Vegas machines but we are now transitioning over to a Final Cut Studio. I’m an editor/DVD author, but they’ve asked me to help figure out the standards for project organization. I’d love your feedback on my thoughts.
EQUIPMENT:
We have 2 xServe, one with around 2tb’s that we use for storing “smaller” files (standards doc’s, design files, powerpoint presentations, etc). This xServe is not optimized for large files.The 2nd xServe has 5tb’s of mirrored storage, completely optimized for large media files such as captures. We also have 19tb’s backup tapes on a robotic exabyte.
As I mentioned, we used to be a full Sony Vegas shop and we are transitioning to Final Cut Studio. 2 of the remaining Vegas machines are hooked into the Xsan with fibre, but eventually they will all move to a Mac Pro.
We then have 2 Mac Pro’s (connected by fibre), 2 Mac Book Pro’s & 1 iMac (connected through gigabit). We will be adding at least 2 more Mac Pro’s in the next few months.
BACKGROUND:
We specialize in quick turn around work, compressions, quick edits, quick graphics, etc and we need to get the whole team working consistently. Currently, we are being asked to work off our local drive and then move the project over to the xSan when it is complete. I do not necessarily agree with this because the local drives are not being backed up (unless the xSan can/is doing that). Then, our boss created a _working folder on the root of hte xSan which we would create a project folder inside of and work off of that. Then, when the project is complete, we would move it to a folder for each client.RECCOMENDATIONS:
The big question/debate is on the scratch drive. I am coming from the freelance world where I edit right to an external hard drive, per client. So, when I start a project , I am used to creating a folder inside of the “client” folder and pointing the scratch disk to it and saving EVERYTHING inside of that project folder. My recommendation is when a new project comes in, our project coordinator enters the project into our tracking system and at the same time, under the clients folder on the xSan, she creates a project folder. The project folder would also be sorted with a number of folder such as: ANIM, COMPRESSIONS, DOC’s, FCP, etc. I haven’t pinned down what these folders inside would be, but some of our editors are hung up on the scratch disk. They don’t want to take the time to open FCP and reset the scratch disk.We have one editor that currently captures all of her data to a single folder, with her name on it. All of her projects are being captured there, on the xSan, but her project files are saved inside of the project folder itself.
Additionally, our boss is concerned about hte xSan just piling up with data that is unused. He’d like us to work inside of the “working” folder and then when it is complete, we would just move over the actual files, to the client folder, that we used, consolidating it.
I’ve probably over explained this, but I just want to get some backup on this. Wouldn’t it be most smart to have a single folder for the project? Then, you could put as many smaller folders inside of that.3
If we are capturing to the same scratch folder each time, then that folder would just get bigger and bigger and have a mass of clips form different projects. Also, if you need to move the project off, perhaps to an external drive, then you could move the entire folder. If we saved to a single scratch folder I am not sure what we’d do, except use the media manager (which I am afraid of) to try and move it all.
I read this article:
https://www.bbgroup.com/lesson/fcp04_organization.html
And I really enjoyed it. I agree with this folder structure 100%. We would probably add a few more folders or customize the names, but I love the idea. I like how he has separate render folders which could be trashed if necessary.Anyway, if you have any other thoughts or ideas, please let me know. I am already structuring my projects in this fashion, with the individual folders inside.
I do a lot of DVD Studio Pro work and I will make a DVD folder and then even a DVD_build folder inside that can store my image files.
The only stumbling block is that the majority of our work is quick turn around stuff for departments in our company. Many people do not want to make a project file for a small project. I have been creating a _misc folder for each department and if it is quick than I can just use that, open a .misc FCP project inside of that and do the quick work.
Anyway, sorry again for the long post. I’d appreciate any feedback you might have. Thank you in advanced.
-
1 Reply
-
Well, I do have this tutorial DVD on how FCP organizes things…and on how to organize projects based on how it is most commonly done in Hollywood (both narrative and documentary):
https://training.creativecow.net/dvd_store/get_organized_fcp/get_organized_fcp.html
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up