2009

Ultimately, good organization will help you and your collaborators spend more time
being creative. For more information, see:
• “Organizing Ingested Media, Project Files, and Other Assets”
• “Organizing Your Project Within Final Cut Pro”
• “Organizing and Sharing Assets Using Final Cut Server”
• “When Is Cinema Tools Involved with Media Organization?”
Organizing Ingested Media, Project Files, and Other Assets
Asset organization begins when you first start ingesting or importing media for use in
one of the Final Cut Studio applications. Ideally, the goal of any organizational strategy
should be to centralize every media file used by your project within a clearly identified
set of directories associated with that project, located on a reliable set of storage volumes.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind.
Keep your files on a limited set of volumes
Keeping all of your project’s assets on one storage volume (or on a limited set of volumes)
makes it easier to search for and relink media whenever the need arises. Typically, the
storage volumes used are one or more hard disks or disk arrays that have been identified
as scratch disks in the Final Cut Pro System Settings window.
Create a clear directory structure to sort the different types of media you’re using
When gathering your media together, create a carefully named set of directories with
which to sort the different types of media you’ll be using. For example, you might create
separate directories for audio files, still-image files, Motion projects, stock footage
QuickTime files, and Final Cut Pro project files. This makes it far easier to locate specific
items than if you simply copy everything into a single directory as a jumble of files.
Organize your media before you import it
It’s a good idea to organize all media files you copy onto your hard disks before importing
them into one or more of the Final Cut Studio applications, to avoid having to fix broken
links when you reorganize your media later.
Organizing Your Project Within Final Cut Pro
Because Final Cut Pro projects often serve as the hub of all post-production activity, you
should make a point of keeping the Browser organized whenever you ingest media into
a project. Features that are available for organizing clips in the Browser include bins,
informational columns, markers, and logging information. This section presents a few
organizational tips to keep in mind. For more information, consult the Final Cut Pro
documentation.
45Chapter 2 Ingesting and Organizing Your Media