Sequence and Project Naming Conventions

[Shane Ross]

Well…there goes me posting MY ideas then… you did it for me.

Hee.

Here’s my bin layout:

00_SEQUENCES
01_FOOTAGE
02_AUDIO
03_GRAPHICS
04_STILLS

And then I have sub-bins. I explain all of this in my GETTING ORGANIZED DVD. But that isn’t the point here.

I name my sequences PROJECT NAME, CUT TYPE (ie ROUGH, Directors, Producer, Fine…etc), CUT VERSION (v1, v2, v3), DATE and my initials. So…

Heartlines_Rough_v2_022212_SR.

But you got all that. Let’s let others chime in. Just do not EVER call anything “FINAL.”

Shane
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[Brittany Delillo]

Completely by accident hit the check mark “solution” button…

Thanks for posting Shane! I really found that blog post helpful. Sorry for stealing your thunder by posting the link…haha.

I too have my bins organized (though not numbered).

*SEQUENCES
AUDIO
FOOTAGE
GRAPHICS
VFX
_TRASH

And then extra bins within for individual scenes, Music, VO, certain graphics, etc. I really like having a Trash bin because I can dump things in there and not have to search through the finder if I need it again (though it is trash, you never know).

[Shane Ross]

No one ELSE is chiming in??!

COME ON GUYS/GALS! Share…

Shane
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Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Richard Herd]

Same basic bin structure. I’m not afraid of sub-bins, which seems sort of silly if you think about it from an “I used to edit film” point of view (silly image of a film bin inside a film bin inside a film bin).

anyway, I’m a SEQUENCENAME_v1_20120223 kind of guy. That means I like the year first, in the date part, so it’s in order. Why? you might ask? Cause the export date might change, for some other client reason, like “turn the music up here.” (In my head I’m thinking but that’s silly, but ok I do it anyway because they’re sending me a check.)

I know that SEQUENCENAME_v1_20120324 is a microchange.

In 2005, a client needed some footage from the late 90s. The guy I worked for had been in business for over 20 years. The footage was stored somewhere in the vault, an ominous place, btw. We had to go back to invoices and job numbers to find the archive. Point is: very important to put dates on everything.

[Abigail Ball]

I’ve improved my file naming conventions with all the suggestions listed above, many thanks. However, I have a question regarding edit versions and client viewing versions.

I work mainly in commercials where the clients generate many versions with all their changes (I suppose which client doesn’t?). I duplicate my current edit and put the copy in a sub folder called “*Client” within my “00_Edits” folder. I add the same colour label to both so, along with the version number, I’m reminded that they’re the same edit. I usually also change the ‘roughcut/fine…’ part to ‘client’. E.g. “MD_roughcut_v03_20121109” becomes “MD_client_v03_20121109”.

So, with that practice, I have a separate list of what my client has viewed without trawling through all my edits (and without just relying on a colour label to show which edits they’ve viewed). And my edit list has a complete version set if I want to go back quickly to a previous version.

This is perhaps a little fussy? What works for you when keeping track of what your client has viewed? Anything other than just appending “_client” to your edits?