Library structure advice

Hi everyone,

I've just started a new job in a city tourism department, producing all of their digital media to promote the city and will be using FCPX to house the footage and edit. My question is how to set up the structure of the library to meet my needs?

I can see two possib;e options...

1) One Library called for example, CITY which will have events like ACTIVITIES, EVENTS, NATURE, BUSINESS, ATTRACTIONS, EDUCATION etc and under them folders (or keywords), for example EVENTS might have keywords like NEW YEARS STREET PARTY 2017, LANTERN PARADE 2018 etc. From there I could create projects under that library and pull clips out from each event so save duplication?

2) Just keep creating new libraries per project. For example JIM'S WILDLIFE TOURS as a library instead of an keyword? But I'd build up potentially hundreds of libraries, doing a lot of duplication when having to pull clips from different libraries at least least I could be mobile... (see below)

To me option 1 makes sense BUT I have had issues in the past where a library has become corrupt and to have that happen to one huge library could be disastrous! Sure the footage is still there but I'd have to go back and create all the events and keywords again. The other thing is I will be working on the road and from home a lot from an external hard drive and I cant exactly copy the whole city folder onto the hard drive. I'd be forced to make new libraries when working from home after filming an evening event to edit a quite turnaround, then it just gets messy when I bring that library into work.

Hope that all makes sense. Look forward to hearing your ideas!

The all-in-one, everything-at-hand is tempting … but:

When do you need everything EVER recoded in ONE project?
ok, for some highlights reel … but even then, you need just the highlights, not every take&sequence = add in each event a Highlight collection…

Alone for safety reasons I would prefer a 'Lib per job'-structure …
Or, … calculate how much material per year you collect … all in one 'file'???

my chips on #2

Two words: external media. Keep your media in an organized structure outside your libraries, then multiple libraries become easier to manage and less of a problem when media has to be shared across libraries. A single bloated library will get slower and slower to handle.

Quite often I imagine, Karsten. I'll be making multiple 'highlight' type reels are a number of markets, all using footage from a range of libraries if I do option 1.

Do you mean not to select 'copy to library' when importing but to store everything on external drive and link to it from there? I'll need to think about that and test to see if it'll work for me.

One very good solution to meet previous advices would be to store everything outside of libraries and still have it easy to access would be to use KEYFLOW PRO a MAM with great characteristics for use with FCPX.
itunes.apple.com/app/keyflow-pro/id981398180?ls=1&mt=12
I have been experimenting this MAM and it offers so many advantages for long time span projects on top of being able to LOG everything Keywords, Favorites, markers .... and they are all transfered in FCPX when draging or sending to ...
It also offers a unique "Proxy" workflow using their "preview files" then to seamlessly relinking to the Original .
WOW I really like that software , sorry

600se wrote: … all using footage from a range of libraries ….

but, again, you don't need EVERY shot…
But 1) you think about structure of your setup BEFORE start = excellent/smart move … and 2) follow advice about 'ext. storage' and usage of a MOM…

guess, in a minute, Axel will join this thread too…

Karsten Schlüter wrote: guess, in a minute, Axel will join this thread too…

Axel just came back from work.

I never was in such a situation, but I find this question interesting. Toms answer sounds very reasonable. For me, a Library should contain the clips - just the clips needed for the current project - , not just links to them. I find it very comfortable that it's a bundle. So even if I probably also had made external folders (i.e. with Kyno, also with tagged clips) and therefore can leave files in place, I copy them to the Library anyway. But that's just me.

Thank everyone for your thoughts.

I agree with Axel, I do feel more comfortable knowing that all of my clips are contained in one library for each project, however I'm just not sure how practical this will be. I imagine over time if I do this approach I'll have hundreds of libraries and I know there will be a need very often to create videos that use clips from all of those libraries which will result in messy duplication.

Is using one mega-library really that bad? I think by nature, this is how FCPx intend us to use them. One biog library that houses everything, separated by events. To me it makes more sense, however doing it this way I lose out on being mobile - being able to quickly copy a project to work on at home.

Hmmmm....

One Library per production is how Apple teaches FCPX in the authorized training. But you can do it any way you want. It is a flexible system.

From personal experience working several TV shows, each Library per production is how I choose to work. I found early on with FCPX that one massive Library can be harder to handle than multiple smaller Libraries.

The biggest factor I take into account is the frequency of jobs you will do for the client.
If I do a monthly video for a client I will make a library for "Client #1 2018" and the events are each months shoot, with a project for the edit.

That helps keep things neatly organized and 12 shoots generally won't overload a library. (Unless there is a large amount of content). In that case I might break it into 1 library per quarter, etc.

It is very easy to reorganize a library if it starts to bloat too big as long as you are smart about making an even for each shoot.

For example.....if I started a 2018 library for a client on the pretense that we would make an event every 3 months.......and suddenly it becomes monthly, I can simply drag events to a fresh library and delete them from the original library. All clips in that event that aren't associated with projects from other events will delete as well.

Everyone's workflow is different.....but thats why I think that smart event organization is more important than having to predict the right library setup.

600se wrote: ...Is using one mega-library really that bad? I think by nature, this is how FCPx intend us to use them. One biog library that houses everything, separated by events. To me it makes more sense, however doing it this way I lose out on being mobile - being able to quickly copy a project to work on at home...

The general principle is you want all content related to a production in a single library. Otherwise you are copying duplicate data between libraries. Also you cannot search across libraries, and keywords and smart collections don't work across libraries. So if related material is split across libraries it can get difficult to find and manage.

OTOH putting unrelated material in one library can make it unnecessarily large and complex. That said, the limits on library size are very large -- I'm working on a 20 terabyte library (total of media and proxies) although it uses all external media.

What Tom mentioned is another possibility. If you use external media you could have several libraries referencing various branches of the same media tree.

Regarding taking content with you for mobile work, one way is using a "proxy only" workflow whereby you take external proxies on the road. Another way is just copying your work event to a "transfer library" and take that. These are all described in detail in Ripple Training's Media Management tutorial. Some of these procedures can get quite complex so it's good to study closely any workflow before you commit that to production: www.rippletraining.com/products/final-cu...-final-cut-pro-10-4/