Appendix 1

The Filmmaker’s Guide to Final Cut Pro Workfl ow
somewhat large, but usually fi t easily on a DVD-ROM. This DVD can be stored with the digital
videotapes and, even years from now, the project can be rebuilt and reedited.
Titles, graphics, and audio media may come from a variety of sources or have been created with a
variety of applications. However, they should all be placed here in these two folders.
The Final Cut Pro projects folder should have individual folders inside for each project. Along with
the project fi le, you may have EDLs, XMLs, batch lists, cut lists, and other reports exported from
Final Cut Pro.
Backing Up
It is essential to make backups of all critical fi les. When a drive crashes, it can destroy months of
work and cost thousands of dollars if there are no backup copies. The entire project can be backed
up to a second drive. However, as the project is huge, this will take a great deal of time. And this
may lead to not backing up as often as needed. Not all fi les need to backed up all the time. Here are
some general rules:
• Final Cut Pro Autosave Vault: This contains automatically generated backup project fi les. However,
it will do you no good at all if it is saved on the same drive as the project fi le and that drive goes
down. You can set Final Cut Pro up to save these backups to a different drive, but if you need the
project to be totally portable you will want to make backups of the Autosave Vault and current
project fi le often.
• Capture Scratch: This is a huge folder and can take a long time and use a large amount of drive
space when backing up. As long as the original videotapes are stored in a safe place, these can be
your backups. Even if the media are lost, it can be recaptured just as it was in the fi rst place. Even
reversed media can be recaptured and re-reversed.
• Various cache and render folders: These contain only media created by Final Cut Pro. They can
be rendered; however, it may take quite a bit of time. It is not critical that they be backed up. In
fact, anything exported from Final Cut Pro can be reexported as long as the project fi le is intact.
• Cinema Tools database: This is critical, and while it can be regenerated, it makes much more sense
to make backups of it whenever you make any changes to it.
The entire Pro Tools project is critical, media as well as the session fi le. As recording in Pro Tools
creates some of the media, this is the only copy of this media. Always back up the entire Pro Tools
project, audio fi les as well as session fi les, any time you import or record any media.
Organization has always been key in postproduction. When movies were cut on fi lm, an assistant
editor was expected to fi nd a one frame trim from a shot and do it in just a few minutes. The computer
has made this simple, but has led to a new problem, lost media. File origination and backups
are essential.
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