Need tips for editing Home Movies (Storage and Organization)

So i keep all my personal videos, like home movie stuff, saved in Photos app. like stuff i shoot on my cell phone throughout the years. Not my actual freelance work projects.

I want to make some home movie dvd's for my family now since i have a kid. i want to make a habit of doing it every year, so my kid will have a copy of this stuff.

My workflow so far is this...

1. create a smart album in Photos that generates ONLY videos between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015.

2. Create a library in FCPX to import all the clips and create a timeline to edit out clips i don't want.

3. Drop the 'Date/Time' title onto my timeline every once in a while to give context to the viewer what day it is.

4. Use the Photos and Audio sidebar to access my 'Photos' smart album for 2015. Import footage from there.


-This all works so far, but my big issue is bringing in the videos in FCPX via the Photos and Audio sidebar, where it can look inside the 'Photos' app for me. It's nice because it's easy to get to, but the problem is that it copies all those video clips into my Library. it doesn't give me an option to leave them in place. This ends up taking a lot of space up on my computer by duplicating all these video clips that i already have on my computer.

Is there an easier way to bring these clips in? I can't find them inside the 'Photos' library folder when i open its contents. I just hate having to duplicate all these files and wasting space on my hard drive for this.

FCPX can not "leave in place" inside the Photos Library nor the iTunes Library. I created an FCPX Library called "Personal Work" and store all of my personal video in there. I don't let any video go to Photos. I figure, I'm going to edit them inside FCPX, why bother with Photos? I create an Event for each "event" I shoot my wife and kids and dogs and stuff. Keyword who's in what video, where it is, etc. When it is time to edit something up, Library level smart collections make finding what I need a snap.

But no, there's no easier way to bring them from Photos to FCPX, and FCPX will have to create its own copies. No way around that.

I just do that so I have all my home movies and home photos in one spot. If i want to say "hey, lets look back at our childs first christmas!", i don't want to go open up Photos, look at all the pictures, then go open up FCPX, find the videos, and watch like 3 random videos. I like to be able to watch the videos in order with the photos. It serves a great purpose to have them all in Photos. Also, since they're just home movies, i feel like they fit fine in Photos. I don't need to put my home videos in a professional editing software just to view them. I'll take stuff in FCPX when i need to edit something, not just for viewing.

That's just how I think of it. All our personal home videos and photos in one spot. Not to mention, all the stuff you mentioned for organzing them in FCPX is done in Photos by simply 'importing' them. It's arranged already by date and time. you could even just shift click all your christmas photos/videos and just hit 'Alt+K' and type in 'christmas' as a keyword, and done.