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Saving Projects or Sequences for versioning (workflow)
Hi again everybody,
I’m trying to solidify my workflow, and I have a question or two about your preferences.Typically, every time I make a substantive change I save a new version of the project (Project_01, Project_02). I’ve recently started to import my camera originals through log and transfer (as opposed to converting them in Magic Bullet Grinder and then importing by dragging). This, however, creates a problem: If I decide to import more footage once I’ve reached a later project version, won’t it create a new folder in my capture scratch? That seems like it could be really disorganized. My plan is to use a custom path in the log and transfer preferences to tell it to use the initial folder within capture scratch.
Does this seem like a reasonable workflow? I’m about to start work on a project that is made of many short videos, so I’m trying to get as organized as possible.
I also keep one FCP Documents folder where all of my media goes, outside of each project folder. A friend of mine does it the other way (an FCP Documents folder for every project)–is the world as split on this as the forums seem?
Thanks,
JustinVideo editor, animator, composer, producer
SarasotaTheBand.com -
4 Replies
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That too will create a plethora of folders. The fix is to save versions if you must, but continue to work on one project file. That way no folders are created for later versions when you render or import video.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann
Current DVD:
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Make one project that is your CAPTURE/IMPORT project. Use that to import the footage. Then, on the finder level, drag the footage to where you want it to go…organize on that level. THEN, bring it into FCP into the project you want.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
As for most things Apple, I often find life easiest if you bite the bullet and adapt to the way Apple sees things. As for versioning, you don’t duplicate the project. You will create a mess of the render manager, capture scratch folder, maybe even the media manager. wherever you point the capture scratch, it will create a capture scratch folder, and within that project sub folders. It’s done this way so you can’t accidentally point a project to capture to another projects capture folder. They of course neglected the fact that you can have multiple projects open at once and very easily capture to the wrong project accidentally, but if to try to do it on purpose, sorry!
Comsider the project name sacred. If you need to version- I suggest duplicating the sequence within your project and naming each seq V1, v2, etc. this makes deleting render files specific to older versions simple in the render mgr. and old versions are immediately available.
FCP saves backups of the entire project at intervals of your choosing, and can be accessed through the file>restore command.
I keep my project on the system drive in a project folder along with ps files AE projects, scripts, jpegs, etc., and the auto save goes to another drive. Periodically I duplicate the project folder to the other drive as well. I keep TC media (capture scratch) on a drive that optimally is raid 1 or 5. But it can always be recaptured. In addition, my system drive is backed up to time machine. I usually have a third folder where I keep all rendered animations. Probably same drive as capture scratch.
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I’m with Shane … capture your footage using one project, then organize on the finder level. I make subfolders for each camera reel and put them all in a “REELS” folder, which lives inside a folder I’ve created for the project’s media. Then I drag and drop the folders for each reel into my main project. So everything is already sorted and ready to go.
I frequently version up timelines, usually before a major creative change. I also version up projects themselves (using the “save as…” command). I think this helps to keep the project file “healthy,” by forcing FCP to re-write the entire database from scratch. It also allows me to periodically prune old timelines within the project, in order to keep the file size manageable. I know I can still find these deleted timelines in old versions of the project — without having to hunt through the autosaves (which may or may not still exist). I haven’t had any issues with the render manager but I also don’t have particularly render intense jobs, so I’ve never felt compelled to keep the render folders organized at all. I just periodically delete the render files wholesale whenever the folder gets too big. (with the exception of renders from the newest timeline).
And I also keep the FCP project files on the main system drive, so they get backed up to my TimeMachine disk. I also keep backups on “the cloud” and a USB flash drive.
HTH,Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto
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