how do you manage your video clips?

[slug420]

I am new to mac and have been eager since before I bought my mac almost a year ago to begin doing some simple video editing with pictures, mp3s and clips from my mini-DV camcorder.

So now I am getting into actually doing it and I am wondering how you guys go about managing your video files. This is a 2-part problem really, first how do you manage the files themselves to keep them organized, sortable, accessible etc - and I have posted another thread in the "mac for beginners" area for that.

I am interested in hearing your advice on how to manage the files but am also posting here for more specific input on how you manage video clips. For example do you keep a spreadsheet tracking what DV tape you imported - what clips you got from that - along with a brief description of what is in each clip? Or do you use comments on the files themselves so you can see the info in finder? Or do you import everything into FCP and then add comments and other info in there?

I am starting by using imovie to import clips from my mini-dv tapes..then dragging those clips to the desktop and renaming them to something that makes sense. For example I have film of a couple concerts I will be working with so the filenames are GorgeN1-1.dv so I know this is the first clip I have from night 1 at the gorge....but beyond that I am not sure what the most effective/efficient way of managing all these clips is.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[-DH]

The way iMovie and FCP handles clip organization is very different between the two apps.

In FCP, editing is non-destructive, meaning that your captured or imported clips remain the same regardless of what you do to them in FCP. Clips can be organized in Bins in the Browser, without affecting their actual location on your hard drive(s). Keeping organized is something you can do right in FCP - no need for any external programs. As long as your tapes are label sufficiently and you log properly, you'll be able to recapture at any time should the need arise.

This tutorial is available from Shane Ross: http://store.creativecow.net/p/63/getting_organized_in_final_cut_pro

-DH

 

[Bogeyman]

How you manage your clips is really situationally dictated. DH gave you some really good advice and I'll second it. One thing to consider, though, is long term storage once you've finished the project you're working on. If you capture a whole tape at a time, you're going to eat up a lot of drive space. Avoid it if you can. Log and capture only what you want to work with and label it really well. What I try to do to keep my drives clean after I've finished a project is drop all the useful or choice b-roll for that project into one timeline and and export in hunks as a FCP or DV movie. Once I've done that I'll burn them onto data DVDs for storage and future use. That, obviously, means you need to label your DVDs very specifically in order to know what you put where. Again it depends on what your needs are. Once all of my useful b-roll is safely on a DVD and I'm know I'm not going to get around to using the DV clips, I throw them out and organize my capture scratch folders accordingly.