Sharing Projects? Think Different with FCP

I hear it everyday from AVID editors, “ …But FCP can’t share projects!” My response is always the same, “So what! FCP doesn’t have to”.

If you’re accustomed to the Avid/Unity networked workflow, you’re probably thinking, “this guy is nuts… and misinformed”. I may be nuts, but I have years of experience proving that multiple editors can all work on a single show using the same media from the same shared storage and still make it home for dinner at a reasonable hour. It can be done, but you’re going to have to think differently.

The Back Story

Nearly four years ago our company switched from an all Avid/Unity shop to an all FCP/Xsan shop. We had been operating two separate Unity systems with 24 seats each, creating many hours of reality TV programming for the likes of MTV, FOX, NBC Syndication, and E!. Our success enabled us to buy our own equipment, so we did a ‘clean slate analysis’ of the best post solution for the company. Remember, four years ago Avid was still riding high, and their business plan seemed to call for ignoring FCP like a precocious child clamoring for attention. They also seemed to ignore all but the largest clients, saying in effect, “you will buy Adrenaline and you will like it”. Well, I didn’t like it, and I didn’t buy it. We chose FCP and the ’still in Beta’ Xsan. Like anyone coming from an Avid environment, my immediate question was, “how can we maintain our multiple editor workgroup with FCP?” The answer turned out to be quite simple.

Projects vs. Timelines

Avid is a project-centric system, organizing all media, edit decisions, and elements into a single project. With FCP, it is the timeline that counts and the project is much less important. The media, music, graphics, etc. can come from anywhere or any project. In fact, we essentially ignore the project concept and organize media using the basic Mac file and folder structure. This is the essence of FCP’s strength: media can live happily outside a project. Therefore, in Avid terms, your entire SAN becomes the Project.

Think about this. You now have instant access to any media that exists on the entire SAN. (Tip: Try using Leopard’s Cover Flow feature to browse media, it will forever change how you search for shots!) We typically have 4-6 shows destined for different networks in progress simultaneously with multiple episodes per show in editing and up to four editors working per show. At peak times, that is almost a hundred people accessing two separate Xsan systems. Trust me when I say if this workflow didn’t work, we couldn’t possibly handle this volume of work.

Organization is the Key to Creativity

Starting with the digitizing process, we begin to manage our media. Like any well organized show, we use a logical clip naming convention that easily identifies the media by date, camera, load, and show.

508A07YS
This would be footage shot on May 8th, A camera, 7th load, from “Your Show”.

Unlike Avid, FCP uses the clip name as the filename for all consequent media management. Therefore, it is essential that once this clip is named, it stays as is. No changing the name to ‘CU Bill enters room’. We actually have signs up in all editing rooms reminding editors NOT to change the clip names. If they want to add descriptive info, they are free to use the ‘notes’ column. Unfortunately, FCP version 6 added a feature that enables editors to change the name at the Finder level from within FCP. In a workgroup environment, this is really bad! We have made sure that every editor knows NOT to do this.

On most shows, we digitize with an ‘all in the bucket’ approach, digitizing every frame of anything shot. However, some of our shows shoot massive amounts of material, and thus they are selectively digitized based on story notes. In either case, an editor will need to access this media to work on their own specific episode. This is where a significant difference between FCP and Avid comes into play.

But Where’s My Metadata?

Markers. Comments. Subclips. These are time honored tools that many editors simply can’t live without. Unfortunately, these metadata items can ONLY be created within an FCP project and are not attached to the basic QuickTime files. The key to sharing this info amongst a team of editors is FCP’s ability to open multiple projects simultaneously. For example, an assistant will create a project called ‘B-Roll’, ‘Music’ or ‘Interviews’. This project is saved to a common area on the SAN accessible to the entire team.

An editor starting work on an episode will first find on the SAN the latest project containing shared items and copy that to his local system. He will then create another project specifically for his episode and copy across the relevant clips. It is within this ‘personal project’ that all of the metadata is created and retained. If another editor wants the same folder and file structure, they can easily use a copy of that project and go to work. Typically, any editor will have 3-6 projects open simultaneously, some common, some unique.

Sharing Timelines: Work Locally, Share Globally

My mantra is to back up everything three ways: locally, globally, and ‘mobilely’. Locally means to your local internal drive. Globally means to the SAN, and ‘Mobilely’ means to a USB drive. When editors do this, their work is instantly accessible to anyone else on the SAN. Depending on whatever show an editor is working on, there is a logical folder structure in place to save their work.

Practically speaking, this means that you do not need to pass huge projects back and forth, only economical, slim projects containing little more than a single timeline. Think about this. Even with Avid, only one editor can work on a timeline at a time. Otherwise, you’d be chasing each other’s tail, overwriting each other’s changes. The same is true with FCP, but the management is manual, not automatic. Which brings me to my next topic: keeping track of versioning.

Versioning: What’s Current?

This is really quite simple. The highest number wins. We use a file naming scheme that identifies a cut as follows:

YS2108INT3
That would mean: Your show, Episode # 2108, Internal cut 3.

If this episode is being shared by other editors, then they would add additional info to indicate which part their working on (act 1, etc). With this plan, and the date & time info in the creation column, there’s never a doubt as to which is the latest version. This is a manual process, and requires that editors do pay attention to the filenames of the sequences that they create. This is no different from Avid however in that confusion of sequence names can cause confusion of versioning. On either system, it is the responsibility of the editors and their assistants to make sure that the information in the filenames is accurate.

So what’s the difference?

I acknowledge that FCP requires a more manual approach to media organization and versioning. However, I would argue that the same attention to filenames and structure is required for any Avid project of similar size and complexity. The only difference is that with FCP, that organization takes place at the Finder level and not within an FCP project. The ultimate outcome is the same: Multiple editors are easily able to share the same media and work on the same episode simultaneously.

Conclusion

When an Avid editor says, “But FCP can’t share projects”, in my mind it really means that they have not taken the time to truly explore the differences between these two systems and realize that there are many ways to skin a cat. Project sharing with FCP really comes down to media sharing, and that can easily be accomplished by passing timelines back and forth. A carefully thought out file naming structure goes a long way towards keeping everything organized and is the key to making this work.

It is interesting to note that Avid’s Interplay uses this global approach to referencing media. My understanding of this product indicates that Avid is moving away from their inherent project-centric workflow and experimenting with more of a file-based organization similar to FCP.

There is no reason that you can’t duplicate the workgroup environment of Avid/Unity using FCP/Xsan. I’ve been doing it for the past four years and haven’t missed an air date yet. Good luck!

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