Whats the best workflow for large projects?

As the title says; what is the best workflow for large projects; specifically feature length edits?

I have heard it said that ProRes has no generation loss (is this true at least for the first couple of generations)? If so would the best workflow be to cut the project in smaller segments, like so:

1) Break the project into small segments of 15 minutes or so. Edit these small sections, make basic audio edits, apply color grades and effects, and render and export them to high quality prores.

2) Once all of the small sections have been finished, import these clips into a new project, and do the final audio edits, soundscapes and music.

Obviously this means that the final large project is free from titles, effects and color grades, meaning it shouldn't be too taxing on the system, but the downside is that if you want to make small tweaks to the edit you will need to go back to the original segment, make the changes there, and reimport the whole segment to the large project.

Or is that just crazy talk? Whats the best workflow for a large project?

Just wondering if there's a reason you wouldn't edit each segment as a compound clip in the event library then create a project to assemble the final version in a fully editable form?

There is no best workflow, depends a little on the editors preferred style. I have edited three feature length films on FCPX, for me especially after the Ram memory leak was fixed, was to simply edit the whole thing using proxy and switching to optimized for outputs to directors, producers every once in a while. Before the Ram memory leak was fixed I was working with 30 minute sections and would simply copy and paste the timelines into one(no rendering of an export). I have to say FCP X works f***ing great for quickly testing out new cuts and ideas.

When the timeline gets bigger and bigger it will take longer for switchover from proxy to optimized to a point where I found it much faster to make a dummy event/project that I open and then change the optimized/proxy preferences(Thank goodness for Event manger X). Then go back to the events and project for the feature film.

Well yeah, that wold be the best case scenario for sure, but I have heard numerous reports of the whole system slowing down, becoming buggy, and taking an extremely long time to open when you have large projects (especially when there are effects, grades and titles involved).

There is a guy posting here on this forum right now who can't open a feature length project that he has spent weeks editing.

While I would like to think that FCPX can work with feature length projects; I'm just not sure I want to find out the hard way that it can't. This is taking into account that I am using a MacBookPro (Early 2011 model, 17", 8GB RAM) - while everything has worked flawlessly for me personally so far, I have to say that these have all been small projects. I will be doing a feature length project next year, but unfortunately I don't have access to anything more powerful. So I guess the question is about editing a big project in the least taxing way possible on the computer - with a preemptive strike on any possible hold-ups.

Has anyone here finished a feature length project successfully?

Just saw your post now Wildgiles - we were typing at the same time. OK; glad to know that you have already done 3 features; very good to know. What kind of system are you working on?

Guess I'm going to have to look at this Event manager X thing?

What about the question regarding ProRes; is there no generation loss with the workflow I mentioned?

On the Hardware side you will want at least 16gb of ram and a fast drive setup, I use 4 x3 TB in a Raid0 setup(pushes about 550MB/sec). I found duplicating the project with version # to another drive worked well (takes about 5 seconds)

You want to stay away from compound clips and added story lines as much as you can, I found they are bug prone.

The workflow you mention is more tedious and reminds me of the FCS 3 days. You will not notice any loss in quality with pro res 422HQ.

I did a 90 minute feature on a 16 Gig i7 MBP using proxy, original material (D5MkII H.264) being transferred to ProRes 422. One storyline. I even had few effects on a Adjustment Layer (a CineLook and a Widescreen filter) all the time. Plus other effects. Thunderbolt disk. No problems.
For all bigger projects I suggest to get Pro Versioner .

Move to Avid Mediacomposer?