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Relinking files from editor working at home
I am working on a reality TV show and some of our editors work from home, and some live across the country so we ship them an external drive to work from. So far with the story cuts it has been pretty easy to relink all the media when they send over their sequence. We have all the footage here on our server. Now that the edits are starting to include music and graphics it is a bit more complicated so I want to make sure I am doing this the best way.
The editors are now downloading music from an online music library, and creating graphics. So that media has to be transferred over to us with their sequences. So far I have been telling them to put their sequences and all master clips for any media they added into one bin, then send over the .avb bin file. I drop that bin into the avid project folder on our server, then open the project and the bin is there.
So my question is, should I have the editors locate the .mxf files for this media in their Avid Media Files folder and send it over, then copy it to our server and relink? Or should they send the original .mov or .aiff files that they imported into avid? That way I can import them on my end, then relink the master clips in their bin to the .mxf files I just created by importing.
Also if the editor does not send a bin with all the master clips in it, and only sends a bin with the sequence, is there any way to relink the offline clips in the sequence without having the master clips in a bin? (I am coming from Final Cut where you can right click a clip in a sequence and choose reconnect.)
Any other tips on how to do this best would be very helpful. Thanks
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2 Replies
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I do this often, mainly importing music, or using my SFX library, and adding some RAMPANT graphics.
What I do when I first get the drive is change the number in the Avid MediaFiles>MFX to “2”. This way, ANY new media brought in, or renders, are put in that new “1” folder. So when I send a cut, I also send the “1” folder that has the new media. I then change that bin to “3” because any new media I bring in will go in the NEW “1′ folder that’s being generated. And means I won’t send them redundant media.
Then I send them the bins of my cuts, and if they want the clips that accompany the new SFX or GFX, I send those in a separate bin as well. Thus far, worked fairly well. Any new “1” bin they get from me they rename on their end, or just empty the contents into their “1” bin.
Shane
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The way Shane described is a nice clean way to do it providing the editors take the time/remember to create the new folders.
Another way to do it is you can have them make an AAF using “Copy All Media” and point it to a ‘desktop’ folder. The folder will then have an AAF of the sequence or clips and an Avid Media Files folder with the media in it.
The easiest way to do AAFs would be to have them export the clips from a bin. They should just keep track of what they’ve already sent you and only send you what’s new since then. They can keep track numerous ways, having the ‘creation date’ column in the bin should work. The nice thing about doing it as clips is when you get the folder it will have an AAF of each clip so you’ll see exactly what you got.
If you go the sequence route, if they send the new sequence to you, you link and see if anything is offline, then send them back a sequence of just offline clips in it and they can export an AAF of that with media.
As to if you don’t get a bin with the master clips: There’s a couple easy ways to get the clips in the bin.
1 – Change the settings of the bin with the sequence in it to ‘Show Reference Clips’. The bin will now populate with all the clips that are in the sequence. Copy the ones you need into another bin and change the bin view back to not show the ref clips.
(1a – I think you can import the AAFs if you get the individual clips. I don’t usually have a reason to do this so I’m not certain.)
2 – You can drag the database file from the media folder into a bin and it will populate with all the clips that are in that media folder. I can’t remember if that file is made when you do an AAF copy media export. If it is you can just drag it into a bin when you get the media. If it isn’t, you’d have to copy your media over to your system, (re)build the database, then drag in the database file. (this method is something I usually use when I need to find out what the media is in a folder. Method #1 is easier for what you need to do.)
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