Where do you guys store all the “Other” stuff?

[Shane Ross]

I let FCP install things where it wants to. I will not go about mucking up the way my NLE wants to organize things.

As for how to organize everything else, I do have a tutorial DVD on this subject, and it is sold right here at the cow (look at the ads on the bottom right of the screen…one of them is mine).

Here’s the link:

https://training.creativecow.net/dvd_store/get_organized_fcp/get_organized_fcp.html

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Jeff Carrion]

The defaults eh?

I wasn’t sure if having all that media on the system drive would harm performance or cause dropped frames problems, like having regular media on the system drive will.

“No TV and no beer make Homer something, something…”

[Shane Ross]

Soundtrack files…they are audio. They don’t suffer slowdowns like video does. Motion Files, Livetype files…you don’t have them playing back in RT on a video timeline. You use them in Motion, which you then export as a movie file…and THAT file is what you put on your media drive. DVD contents…again, used to build a DVD, not as media for playback. So there is no reason not to have them on your main drive. If you want to use a motion graphic as live video in your projects (like I have done), COPY what you want to the media drive and then use it.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[David Roth weiss]

[Shane Ross] “I let FCP install things where it wants to. I will not go about mucking up the way my NLE wants to organize things.”

Here, here!!! I’m with Shane on this one. Standardizing things is always a good idea. There is no compelling reason in these days of cheaper, faster and better hard drives to dink around with this stuff, not to mention the fact that one of the cardinal rules of setting up an NLE should be to assume that your system will one day be driven by someone else when you’re not around. So, having everything in its rightful place will make it that much easier for anyone to find the stuff where its expected to reside.

“No job is worth doing more than once…”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

[J. Tad newberry]

go ideas here Shane…but exporting movie files from Motion? i’m assuming you mean to be used on the timeline in FCP? i’ve always been just using the Motion file itself in FCP (though obviously suffering some horrendous render times), have also had trouble exporting a Motion movie with an alpha channel to super in on top of my timeline (lower thirds, etc.). i have at times exported a tga image sequence from Motion, then bring it into it’s own FCP sequence, and then using the sequence as the supered graphic, but if there is a better way to export an alpha-ed Motion project i’m all ears! : )

[Jeff Carrion]

Ahhh, yes, it all makes sense now! Thanks.

Now here’s the million gigabite question: I have a few older systems running FCS1 where I installed the “other” stuff in various places on their scratch disks. Is there a simple/uncomplicated way to re-install the stuff (Soundtrack, Livetype, DVDSP, and Motion media) in the default locations? This would free up all that space on my scratch disks that is being permantly taken up by that content.

“No TV and no beer make Homer something, something…”

[Shane Ross]

Mortimer…I haven’t done lower thirds with MOtion yet, so I haven’t had to deal with the Alpha channel…yet. SO I don’t know what to do about that..yet.

Jumpy…the only thing I can suggest is to remove FCP and all the components and reinstall…so you know they are in the right place. because the Motion stuff is installed in the computers Library…a little burried.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Pxlmvr]

For me, as far as file organization, I use the ‘Shared’ folder under ‘Users’ on your hard drive. That is the folder that everyone on the network has access to; no passwords needed. I create a ‘Projects’ folder there and inside that, ‘Current Projects’ and ‘Archived Projects’ folders. Current projects get a folder with client number or project number. Inside that folder, I set set up Audio, Graphics, Supers and Misc. folders.

I always render out Motion or Photoshop supers as Self-Contained Quicktimes or TGA files because I use templates. This way the original file never gets changed down the road.

[David Rowan]

This refers to the stuff you use in a project, and not all the extra system “goodies”

I work on lots of short daily projects. Whenever I generate LiveType or Motion stuff, or when I import graphics from other people, I put them in the same capture-scratch folder where my video clips are.

If I am starting a project and I don’t have the tapes yet, but I have some of the other materials, I will just capture a moment of nothing, just to force the system to create a capture-scratch folder.

When I have bigger projects I create sub-folders in the capture scratch folder for the project. Then I can just drag that folder into the project and it becomes its own bin (This is handy when I have a lot of stills and want to use thumbnails for them. I don’t usually use thumbnails for my video clips)

When I’m done with a project all the media is one place. I can delete it all, or back it up without hunting all over.

[Michael Johnson]

You’re not concerned about saving your project files to the system drive? I used to do that until my system crashed; lost everything. Since then, I have a second internal drive that gets all project files. Auto-saves go to a separate drive. And the project folder gets backed-up regularly.

System 1: G5 2Ghz DP, 1.5 GB RAM, OS 10.3, FCP 4.1, QT 6.4, AE 6.0, 2 TB Xserve RAID through a Vixel 335 Fibre switch, DVCAM SDI a/v and BetaSP Component through AJA IO, NTSC monitor through Videotek VTM100 through IO

Second System: G4 1Ghz DP, 1 GB RA