This post is part 2 of a series. For part 1, click here.
Here are some more organizational tips to improve your assistant editing workflow.
4. Store all imported files in a folder on your desktop.
Usually all of the graphics and logos I’m given are on their own CD, and the stack piles up pretty quickly. When it comes time to re-import everything at full resolution for your uprez, you’ve got to hunt through all of the CD’s to find each file. If you copy all of the files to a folder on your desktop first and import them from there, not only will they all be in one convenient place; Media Composer should remember their location and automatically re-link from the Batch Import main window. How convenient! Putting everything in one folder will also help you avoid the mistake of accidentally naming two files the same thing, leading to confusion down the line. If you’re conforming the show on a different system, you can easily burn a CD or DVD of the files in your desktop folder to take with you.
5. Come up with a standard tape and clip naming system.
You might not get the luxury of deciding on a naming system yourself if you’re not the lead assistant, but you should make sure your whole post production team is on the same page – standardization of some sort is essential. It helps to include the show name, shoot date, camera letter, and tape number on all your tapes. For example, the first “A” camera tape shot on 5-12-08 for the show “Living Large” could be labeled “08LL0512A01″, where 08 is the year, “LL” stands for “Living Large”, 0512 is the date, and A01 indicates the first “A” camera tape of the day. Acquired footage tapes can be labeled incrementally with the prefix “AF”: “AF001″, “AF002,” …
For clip names, I always indicate the camera, a brief description of the clip, and a number increment. For example, “Cam A – John rides on tractor.01″. For B-roll, it helps to indicate the location (interior/exterior) and time of day (day/nite/sunset/etc.) so the editor can easily hunt for a specific type of shot: “Broll – Ext – Day – Outside of house.01″. Other information some people like to include in their clip names are tape name and shoot date; you can include whatever is most helpful for you, but be consistent.
Make sure you create a separate bin for each shot tape you digitize, and name the bin the same name as the tape.
6. Create custom bin headings for useful information.
Avid has a slew of bin headings (which can be activated or deactivated in the bin hamburger menu under “Headings…”) that are all useful in various situations. You can also create your own headings and enter any data or notes you need to help organize your clips or sequences. Simply click in the blank space of the heading bar in any bin and begin typing. Once you add information you can sort your bin according to this new information. You can add a “comments” heading and indicate which sequences have been output to DVD for viewing, or which clips were included in a particular sequence. For music bins, add artist or album information, or notes on clearance issues. If you think you will be using that particular headings view again, you can name it and save it to your user settings by clicking in the area next to the hamburger menu at the bottom of the bin.
May 15, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Sound advice Tim.
However, although using seperate bins for every tape is standard practice (that’s how I find all my rushes organised when I arrive at a new job), I have a different system. The first thing I do after installing my settings is to move all the rushes into a single ‘rushes’ bin. This means I can flip bewteen the timeline and through all my rushes without using the mouse. By using ‘Match Frame’, followed by ‘find bin’ and then using the arrow keys, I can easily flick between sources using the keyboard.
Keep up the good work.
May 28, 2008 at 11:38 am
sawdust says : I absolutely agree with this !
May 28, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Because creating additional bins doesn’t really add to any overhead, I usually keep several bins of dailies — normally, one divided up by tape numbers, another by scene numbers, and others divided by whatever I may need on a given film (shoot days, et al).
James’ idea is good though it would might be impractical on a film with a ton of clips. I have to say that I rarely find it difficult to get a good find bin result, since the Avid will open up the appropriate bin, so this isn’t a strong need of mine. But that’s just how I work. The beauty of an NLE is that you can create a multitude of bins for whatever your particular needs are.
May 28, 2008 at 8:45 pm
[...] makes this all possible and goes on, in a three-part blog entry (part one is over here, part two is over here, and part three is over [...]
May 31, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Tim,
I used to do something similar to your tip #4 where I had a folder on the Unity (I mostly worked on shows w/a Unity) that had all the gfx in it, but I took it one step farthter. I number each disc and made a folder that corresponded to the disc number to put the contents from that disc onto. That way it was easy to track back to where an element came from if need be.
September 5, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Never story anything you care about on your desktop. It’s too easy to move them around and loose track of them. Only store things on the desktop as a temporary location … perhaps while moving it somewhere else.
#4 Establish a folder hierarchy on all your disks with a place on each to keep imported files. Create a folder with the project name to contain all the imported files.
#4a Name all files with a unique name that identifies what it belongs with. If it’s part of a project then the name should start with something that identifies that project. Perhaps a three of four letter prefix.
When I worked on a periodic show called “Shades of Life” I used SOL as the identifier. The reusable elements started with SOL-LIB and the files unique to an episode included the episode number like SOL-098. This permits me to know what every file is no matter where I might encounter it on any hard drive.
Peace,
Rob:-]
December 22, 2008 at 10:25 pm
[...] Leavitt, over at the ever valuable blog View From The Cutting Room Floor, has a great definition of what an assistant editor’s job is on a blog post: “Anything that [...]
May 1, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Hi,
Not sure where to post this but here goes: I’m trying to create a tape list for an online.
Thanks!
Bb