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Moving project and event w/ referenced media
I’m trying to figure out the best workflow for my situation.
In short, I want to find a work around so referenced media doesn’t need to be reconnected after moving it and its respective FCPX Project and Event to an external drive, any advice would be appreciated.
All my original media is sorted into subfolders by client/job within a master folder in Finder. Final exports also go to the respective client subfolders. When clips are imported into FCPX, I never use “copy files to events folder” because I don’t want duplicate files on my media drive (original media is already in triplicate (in total) on external drives as backup).
When finished with a project/event, I move it off of my media drive to an external (actually finished projects build up in the “not in use” folders created by Event Manger X until I need to make room). Using “move project and referenced events” will only move the referenced files and not the actual original media, as expected. Then I quit FCPX and command-drag to move the folder containing the original media and the final exports to the external drive, keeping all related material together and organized.
The problem is that the media is always offline when I open the project from the external drive. I thought FCPX would just find the media, it doesn’t (the reference links are still looking for media on the other drive). One solution is to “organize event files” either before or after moving but this just creates more work. It does not copy the final export files and leaves me with the need to selectively delete any original media files from the folder I had it in in the first place, before moving that folder to the external. A much more mindful and tedious process than reconnecting in FCPX.
I can reconnect media no problem, just hoping there was another way to do this without messing up my current organization methods too much.
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2 Replies
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If I am understanding your question correctly, then I believe that after you move the project with referenced events you need to then select the new events on your new drive (the ones that it sounds like only contain aliases) and go to file and then organize events. should copy the media for you.
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Hi Jacob,
Yes that does function as you describe. The problem with that is my folder structure containing the original files also contains final export files, images, documents, baked-in effects, invoices etc. etc. which are all related to the specific job and each may or may not ever be imported into FCPX. We’ll call it the “job folder”. It basically has everything related to a job, except the FCPX generated Projects and Events folders.
If I “organize files” at any point, it will COPY all the original media to the events folder just fine. Then I have to meticulously copy ONLY the files in the job folder that were not ever imported into FCPX, over to the new drive. Making sure that I get everything related without forgetting any files, while also making sure not to waste harddrive space by copying over anything that was already copied by “organize files”. Then have the confidence to delete the job folder manually… I hate the feeling “did I get everything? better look over it all one more time, OK trash it, better open the project to check its all online before emptying trash…” It’s a nightmare, draining time and brain power.
My main concern is to eliminate potential for human error, then its reducing mouse clicks.
I’m thinking that I can just move the job folder to the external drive first, then go into FCPX and relink, then “move project with referenced events. Then everything will be in its place, low risk of forgetting a file, low number of clicks and media online if I ever open that project again. Not quite perfect, but if I want to keep my “job folder” organization in tact, I don’t see any other choice. It would be cool if you could set specific folders to be “related” to an Event, and then FCPX would have the option to include it in the Move command.
Of course Im always open to suggestions.
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