Media Mgmt and Project Templates

[Marisu Fronc]

Alex-

I’ve been doing it that way and it seems to work okay – I keep everything set to “same as project” and save the .pproj file in the root of the master project folder. All the captured video ends up in the root of that directory, it’s true. However, Premiere creates folders for media cache, autosaves & preview files. Everything else I need I import from folders nested inside the master folder (ie: scratch VO, final VO, graphics, etc)as they are coming from other people/places. It has worked okay for now, the only hitch is if you consolidate a project all your sub-folders disappear and everything ends up in the root directory.

slainte,
marisu

[Alex Udell]

So say you are starting a prject from scratch..

wht are your exact steps?

thx…

Alex

[Marisu Fronc]

Alex-

I make a project folder on my selected hard drive (I usually have a dozen or so things in progress at the same time so they usually each have one or more disks of their own) labeled with the project tracking info (job number, project name & catalog numbers, starting date). Then I create a new project and and select that folder as the location – I name the project the same as the folder – except the date field which changes with each day’s save – I also add major step tags to the project name at different stages (ie: 1st eval, for VO, english final, spanish final, etc).

I set Premiere to direct everything to same as project (this folder). I create bins in project window named by reel and brief description (ie: 02483 Agnes home & restaurant) and log into the appropriate bins then batch capture. As I capture media it goes into the root of the project folder. Then I copy other folders into that folder with non-capturable sources (grapics, music, sound efx, scratch VO, final VO, etc). Any files I reuse from other projects are copied into the directory into folders with the name of their original project and then imported into Premiere folder by folder. Premiere automatically creates folders within the project folder for autosaves, media cache and preview files. It’s a bit time intensive on the head end, and is still a work in progress, but it’s the only way I’ve found to efficiently deal with the huge masses of material I’m dealing with. When the project is finished the entire contents get backed up to an Ultrium tape and any generic footage shot for the project is copied into stock footage bins on stoack hard drives categorized by shot type for easy retrieval (hopefully) later.

slainte,
marisu

[Harm Millaard]

img

This disk setup has worked fine for me.

Harm Millaard

[Alex Udell]

Harm…

Now that is interesting…

and probably could work IF you only have one project on line at any given time.

Alex

[Alex Udell]

Hi Marisu…

Thanks for the very detailed reply.
Makes a lot of sense.
For some reason I feel weid about having project files and media in the same folder…but sorted by type I guess stuff is not to hard to find.

Regarding:

“any generic footage shot for the project is copied into stock footage bins on stoack hard drives categorized by shot type for easy retrieval (hopefully) later.”

Have you considered tagging your clips with Adobe Bridge? I’ve started looking at this. Seems like it would work well.

Alex

[Marisu Fronc]

Alex-

I considered it – and (for the time being at least) have rejected it – Bridge has too much instability for me – extremely slow to open, even slower to bring up thumbnails and has an alarming tendency (meaning it does it EVERY time) to suddenly lock up and/or crash. Besides, I’d still need the drives so the stock categories can be swapped between users so they can pull off their selected shots (for example, I have several drives worth of food shots – good food, bad food, action food, etc that I pull from whenever I do a nutrition show). In reality we need a GOOD, usable and searchable database with lo-rez proxies, but until then this is working in the interim. I have been doing all my sorts/searches in windows explorer (ha) by thumbnails – it doesn’t hang or crash on me like Bridge does and I can usually find what I want relatively quickly (well, as quick as looking at that many of ANYTHING can go)

We are searching for a SAN solution which will eliminate the need fot separate drives (YEAH) but so far, no joy – our first attempt failed dismally and now we’re looking again for a solution which actually will work for us!

slainte,
marisu

[Harm Millaard]

Actually, on my E drive, which contains my captured clips, I currently have several projects under way.

img

I haven’t adjusted the icons for all of these folders yet. I realize you want a kind of template. My workflow is to capture all my clips to my E drive, in a directory ‘Original clips’ and then the name of the project.

Harm Millaard

[Harm Millaard]

In addition, here are my preferences for setting up my scratch disks:

Harm Millaard

[Alex Udell]

Marisu…

I can see how brisge wouldn’t be very effective without a SAN

Facilis Terablock – I love this SAN.

Simple and easy setup and maintiance.

Basically acts like local storage that everyone can see.

Thanks for all the insight…

Alex