[Loren Risker]

I can’t think of a good way to show the method in screengrabs, so I’ll try to do a screen recording session this weekend.

In the meantime, if anyone would like to describe a typical raw footage scenario you encounter I can help you break it down the way I would do it.

[Loren Risker]

I rarely use markers, I use keywords for everything. I pretty much just use markers to identify problems or to make notes on the edit.

I’ve done a few similar short formed docs on bands/musicians recently and I’ve come down to this workflow:

I make an event titled something similar to a project. That way when I archive I have one event folder and one project folder.

Every clip gets a keyword based on date or location, so that way I have a 4-5 location bins based on when/where I shot that has everything in it.

I find each project has like 3-4 broad keywords that I’ll come back to – usually interviews, b-roll, performance, graphics. I think having very few broad categories as a starting point is essential. Sometimes I’ll even start editing after I’ve divided it into just these broad categories. It’s very easy to go back and continue to break it down, and if I’ve started a scratch edit it informs what keywords I’ll use for subjects later on.

Then I’ll go through the interviews and make a keyword for every answer I’m given called “answer.” If a subject is talking to the camera, it’s called an answer. I also keyword it with whomever’s name is in the shot. If it’s an obvious subject I know I’ll want a segment on, I’ll add that too. I favorite my favorite quotes, but I know in my “answer” bin I’ll have everything everyone has said broken down into bites. So for example I might call one “answer” clip – “the knockout san francisco, answer, steve, tony, record release” and I know I’ll find it when I look through the location, the answers, the members, or the subject.

Then I go through everything except the stuff I’ve already identified as b-roll and keyword anything that could also be b-roll, so like fiddling around in between performances, actions happening during interviews, etc.

Then I go through all the b-roll and keyword it as much as I can. I keep in mind the keywords I used for the “answers” and try to use a keyword relevant to any “answer” I also favorited. For example if they talk a lot about a particular show, I make sure to label any b-roll from that location/show.

Then it’s all smart collections from there on out. Smart collections are the main reason I use FCPX. When I start editing, there will be some theme that will be an obvious one to work on. So let’s say I know I want a segment on “record release,” then all my interview answers and b-roll are there in a bin called “record release,” and I’ll start by only showing favorites. Or even better, if I’ve already put too much of one person in, I’ll just only look for favorite answers from a band member that I haven’t used much of yet. So smart collection that combines keyword “answers” “tony” “record release” and show only favorites.

I find if I’ve keyworded thoroughly, which usually takes 2-3 passes, then the edit goes very quickly. I’ll generally take one of my favorite bits I caught, something funny, or a stunning shot, and then it’s very easy to work backwards. It’s because of the keywording that I actually dread going back to FCP7 for doc editing anymore.

[Loren Risker]

Definitely not accurate. Projects and events can be copied to another drive, and opened on another computer. Once the media folders are copied, then all you have to do is replace the event and project file, so it can be very portable.

I edit on 2 computers, my work and my laptop. I keep my project and event on an external drive, which opens fine on both machines as soon as I plug in the drive.

[Loren Risker]

In response to your second question, you can just remove the Render Files folder when copying projects, it can all be re-generated when the project is reopened.

[Loren Risker]

Both run fine on my machine, just can’t run them at the same time. I think the advice to partition your system drive to run 2 copies of FCP is ridiculous and not practical for most people.

[Loren Risker]

I like converting to proxy only on ingest to save time while I edit. I throw away 60% of my footage before I even edit but after I sync it and watch it once, so I agree that converting everything to prores is just a waste of space. Since FCPX knows where my original footage is and knows what my edits are, I wish I could just click a project and select convert only used footage to optimized.

The way I do it now is identify the clips that I know I’ll be using after I’ve done some work on the proxy and transcode those to optimized, but it’s still not as efficient as it could be. Disk space is huge for me. I’m on my 5th 2TB drive of just raw files, if all that was also stored as optimized I’d be in trouble.

[Loren Risker]

I’m getting more beach balls then I should be, but nothing like you sounds like. I can go for quite a while on my macbook pro, did you ever take a look at those console logs and see anything suspicious?

[Loren Risker]

I just put my event backups in a folder called fcpxbackups so FCPX doesn’t find them.

[Loren Risker]

I use an external powered USB 2.0 drive. Its good enough for me for now but if I was getting a bus powered I’d definitely want a 7200 rpm drive. I just do prores proxy then do the finishing on the tower with prores HQ on the internal drive.

[Loren Risker]

David,

I’m not sure about best practice, but here’s what I do:

I normally just use the same external for both, and then also keep up daily backup copies on my macpro in a backup folder.

If you’re starting on one drive and moving to the other, you can just keep copies of the original media and transcoded media on both drives, then just the project file and event file to whichever drive you want to move to. Work from your new drive/laptop, and when you want to move back just copy the project file and event file back over. That way it doesn’t take awhile to transfer.