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General Ingest/Logging doubts for large amount of footage !
Ok I’m a beginner..and I know Media Management is one of the most important things in order to work in an organised/efficient manner.
Though this is in the Premiere Pro forum,it applies to all NLEs :So lets say you have to edit a project with a large number of video clips ..Let’s say there are around 200 video clips in the SD card of the camera .
So this is what I would do :
1. Once I’ve put the SD card into my laptop , I open my NLE (I use PP)
2. Then I open a new project.
3.I will then import ALL of the contents/video clips from the SD card into PP.
4.Then I will click on EACH INDIVIDUAL CLIP ,and see what’s the content, and I will open a NEW BIN and send all the clips that I actually think I will use ,after going through the entire list of video clips.
5.Now in the new bin that Ive made with the clips that Ive decided to use, I will rename each clip /add some description for EACH clip such as ‘ Girl sitting in park- ls’ ,etc to help me easily identify what are the contents of the clip.
I will do this for ALL of the clips in my New Bin6.Now that this laborious process is done. I can finally start editing.
So obviously,it’s clear that I’m a beginner ,haha.
So Experts/Professionals PLEASE tell me how you work /manage media .
(I don’t know much about shot-logs)Any advice will be much appreciated !
Thanks !
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5 Replies
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[Shravan Ram] “1. Once I’ve put the SD card into my laptop , I open my NLE (I use PP)”
You got off on the wrong foot right from the start. The FIRST thing you do is back up that card…twice. Because you don’t edit from the SD card, you use that again and again.
Step 1: Backup the card to an archive drive. If you were in the field, you archive to two drives, send one to production, keep the other. In case the one you send fails. Back at the office the archive then to a PERMANENT archive drive.
Step 2: Copy the card backup to your MEDIA drive. Your archive drive and media drive need to be two separate things.
Media drives are what you use over and over while editing. Your Archive drive is where the footage will permanently be located. If you shot on tape, you put the tape on the shelf. With tapeless, you need to archive to a drive, and put that DRIVE on the shelf. But you need redundancy, as drives fail, so you need to CLONE your footage to another drive. Two drive backup. Unless you want to Archive to LTO tape.
So the steps are
1: Backup the SD card to an ARCHIVE drive
2: Copy the media to your MEDIA drive
3: Use the Media Browser in PPro to bring the footage into your project.
4: Log these with pertinent information that’ll help you locate it later.
5: Now, what I do is have bins for every card, and then I copy the clips from these into separate scene bins. This way I can look for the footage via card, or date (I label card backups by date)…or I can look by topic or scene. Typically I’ll have producers who go “I know we shot that on Tuesday, April 29…” So I look there. Or they’ll say “I shot that footage in the swamp” So I look in the bin where I put the swamp footage.
6: Edit
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
That was very useful indeed !
Thank you very much
Also:
1. So all editors spend a HUGE amount of time before the actual editing begins – to organise media, go through each clip ,add metadata/description etc and sort out all that right ?
2.So the standard method is to have 2 copies of footage: Archive- which will not be touched , Media – form which we’ll actually be working.
THANKS !
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[Shravan Ram] “1. So all editors spend a HUGE amount of time before the actual editing begins – to organise media, go through each clip ,add metadata/description etc and sort out all that right ?”
If they don’t have assistants, yes. And this is a really good way to get to know your footage. A good editor knows all the footage they have.
[Shravan Ram] “2.So the standard method is to have 2 copies of footage: Archive- which will not be touched , Media – form which we’ll actually be working.”
THREE copies better. Two archive drives, and one media drive. Unless you archive to a more stable format, like LTO tape.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks a ton !
Very useful for upcoming editors like me.
Now I’ll definitely start organising media in a better way. -
not technical note here…
One thing that has changed in the age of tapeless…
during the ingest phase is that…
when things were on tape…you used to see (or someone did) the material as it was coming in.
so there was a real familiarity with the source.
In some cases the fist pass culling done during this process meaning, you simply wouldn’t digitize from tape what you would not use.
now usually you end up material that you really have to get familiar with from 1st look inside the project.
Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX
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