Media Management help

Hello!

I am sure this has been asked before, and I apologize.... I have tried the search function and I'm not finding the exact answer to my question....

I have a mess on my hands.

I am mainly a Pro Tools/Avid editor who has been tasked with helping a documentary edited in FCPX make its way through post.

The film is currently split into 9 projects and spread over what looks like many events over several hard drives. It looks like some media is inside the event folders, and some media is referenced with aliases.

I want to consolidate and organize the projects/media/events down to a single external TB drive that I can work from.

Is the workflow:

1. In FCPX: Duplicate Project from source drives to destination drive and select "Duplicate Project and Used Media"

Do I then need to go back and "Consolidate" the media on the destination drive if there are aliases or will the duplicate get the source files in one go?

Thank you!

When you select "Duplicate Project and Used Media" your Project file will be copied over to your external drive. At the same time a new Event will be created on that drive and all the media used in that Project will be copied over to the new Event. There's nothing more you should do.

Of course you should check if the duplicated Project on the external drive effectively opens and has no missing media.

As you have 9 Projects you will end up with 9 new Events on your external drive (one for each Project). You could merge these 9 Events into one single Event, but that's not really necessary. Having one Event for every Project is perfectly workable.

Some side notes:

1. Be aware that when you use "Duplicate Project and Used Media" FCPX does not trim your media like in Avid. It copies every entire clip that has been used in the Project. So if the editor has used let's say 5 seconds of a 5 minute clip in the Project the entire 5 minute clip will be copied over to the duplicated Event.

2. The only caveat you could have in this process is when the project has been badly prepared and you have files with exactly the same file names spread over different Events. This happens especially with footage shot on certain DSLRs and handy cams where clips on different cards can have the same file names (e.g. MOV_0034) and no date/time stamp.

When you import clips with the same file name into an Event FCPX renames the duplicate file names, so that's no problem. But when you import clips with the same file name into different Events the files do not get renamed. You can see the problem coming...

If a Project uses media from different Events and inside these Events there are clips with exactly the same file name you won't be able to consolidate the media for that Project into one new Event because you cannot copy over different clips with exactly the same name into one folder. This will change in the next update, but I just wanted to mention this as a precaution. If the project has been well prepared and you don't have clips with the same name in your Events you will have no issues.

If you have any further questions don't hesitate to post back.

- Ronny