Your project is done. The client is happy and their check has cleared the bank. It's time to trash that old project and get ready to tackle something new.

Except...

As your client was walking out the door for the last time, they said, "This was really great. And, in six months, if I get the budget, I'm going to come back here and re-edit some new pieces."

Great. Now, instead of trashing everything in sight, you need to archive your project just in case they come back.

What do you do?

Well, archiving a project is a lot easier if you take time to get it organized in the first place.

That's where this article can help; because organizing your project can be broken down into three easy steps:
1. Organize your project BEFORE you start
2. Stay organized during your project
3. Knowing what to archive when the project is done

ORGANIZE BEFORE YOU START

There are lots of different ways to organize a project. This is my system. It works for me. And, if you don't already have a system, this will work for you, too.

If you are serious about your editing, you'll have at least two hard drives: one for the operating system and Final Cut Pro (called the "Boot Disk") and a second hard disk to hold all your media.

On your boot disk, create a folder called, "FCP Projects." This folder will hold all your non-timecode-based project files. If you are the only person using your computer, you can put this in your User folder, or anywhere else you care to store it. If other people also use your computer, store this folder at the "root" level, that is to say, at the same level as Applications and User, because that way, everyone can have access to the projects stored in this folder.

On your second drive, create a folder called, "FCP Media." This folder will store all your timecode-based media.

As soon as I get a new project, I give it a name and create a new folder in the FCP Projects folder on the boot drive. For this example, I'll call my new opus: "My Project." (For the obsessive amongst us, you would replace "My Project" with the ACTUAL name of your project.)

Now, open Final Cut Pro, and go to Final Cut Pro -> System Settings and set the Scratch Disk to the new FCP Media folder you just created.

When FCP captures media, it automatically creates a new folder inside FCP Media > Capture Scratch named after your project file. This makes it VERY easy to find captured media on a project by project basis, because it's all sorted by project inside a single, FCP Media, folder.

If I am creating a project that will fit to a single hard disk, I will create only one "FCP Media" folder. If the project will require multiple hard disks, I create a folder called "FCP Media" on each hard disk, then I point the Scratch disk to each FCP MEdia folder on each hard drive (you can only have one scratch disk on a hard disk). Final Cut Pro version 4 allows up to 16 scratch disks.

If we go back to the Finder and open the FCP Media folder, we can see that FCP put at least three new folders inside:

• Audio Render Files
• Capture scratch
• Render Files

(You may also see another three files: AutoSave Vault, Thumbnail Cache folder, Waveform Cache folder, depending upon how your other System Settings are set.)

Best of all, I only need to create the FCP Media folder once. After that, the automatic filing of Final Cut keeps all the different media files for all my different projects in their own separate folders -- all in one place.

The whole process takes me two - three minutes at the start of each project and now I'm ready to start work.

STAY ORGANIZED DURING YOUR PROJECT

Here's the drill: all timecode-based media gets captured and stored in the FCP Media folder, on the second hard drive. All other files -- graphics, music, sound effects, memos, schedules, everything -- goes into the FCP Projects > My Project folder on my boot drive. Playing music or sound effect files on the boot disk is generally not a big deal because the bandwidth they require is small compared to video.

Critical to the whole archiving process is that as soon as a production tape is shot, I give it a reel number and write it on the tape cassette. All my tapes have UNIQUE reel numbers. For my personal tapes, I simply number them. For professional projects, I give them a project name and reel number: for instance, "WC04_01," where the project name is to the left of the underscore and the reel number is to the right.

Then, I am religious about making sure I add the correct reel number to every clip that gets logged or captured into Final Cut. And, remember, because of how we set the scratch disks, all captured media gets stored in the FCP Media folder on the second hard drive.

Another thing I am religious about is bringing every clip I plan to use into the Browser, rather than dragging it directly from the desktop to the Timeline. This means that every clip in my project shows up in the Browser.

Using this organizational system, ALL the elements of a project are in one of two places: the Media folder or the Project folder.

ARCHIVE WHEN THE PROJECT IS DONE

When the project is done and everything has been output and approved, you are ready to archive. The question is, "What?"

Again, here's my suggestion: Don't archive media. That's what your original camera source tapes are for. They are small and last for at least 20 years.

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As a side note, when I was working in broadcast with 1" and 2" tapes, I was taught to NEVER store tapes on their side. Always store them on edge. For the short-term, how they are stored won't make any difference. Longer-term, however, storing tapes on edge decreases the effect of the earth's magnetic field and any potential oxide shift due to gravitation pulling on the oxide of your tapes.

I'm sure that tape stock today is better than 20 years ago. And the size of tapes and strength of the signal also tend to minimize these adverse effects.

All that having been said, I still store all my tapes on edge and away from heat and light. Oh, and I make dubs of all my most important work every 20 years or so.

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