How to deal with huge old stockpile of footage ala "Mr. Brainwash"??

It's a common problem, legacy clips and legacy projects. At least you've got them on a disk. ton's of mine are on 3/4" and betacam. Irretrievable, utterly lost.

A showreel is only a few minutes long so you can delete hundreds of hours of your terrible or useless material. Don't save anything you don't want or need. How do you know? Good footage is always good and bad footage is always bad. Even if someone thinks it's hip or stupidly edgy, it's still out of focus or poorly composed or wobbly or improperly exposed: it's always bad video. The only reason to save bad video is if you have a specific purpose or it or it touches something inside you, like it's the only shot of your friend who is no longer with you.

Open the original projects in the legacy software if you can. Export the finished project to a fresh movie on a new drive purchased for this process. If you can't open the legacy software, open the clips, one at a time, in Compressor and transcode to ProRes422 LT.

may be a bit abstract what I'm telling now… but I try anyhow:

• when you import from a SDcard (or back-up of a SDcard) you can select what to import, what not; for 'files' FCPX doesn't give this option, you have to use this handy tool

http://www.spherico.com/filmtools/X-Files/VirtualCameraCard.dmg

which 'converts' files into 'cameras' …

Hint #1 => if you know what to keep and what not, import smart!

• use paper&pencil: What in the end should the final project look like? What highlights? What makes a clip special, that is allowed to be part of that Project? Write down criteria.

Hint #2 => work backwards, from final project to keywords

• in FCPX you can apply keywords to a clip, part of a clip, several keywords for one clip, overlapping 'zones' of keywords;

Hint #3 => don't think in shallow 'drawers' (one clip = jst one folder; tags are much smarter)

• then, FCPX creates automatically 'playlists' - if one of your keywords is 'Interviews', click on corresponding playlist - tadahh!

Hint #3 => learn to use FCPX mighty 'data-base features', invest 20$ into Lessons for FCPX << link to AppStore

• FCPX allows to create smart-lists - combine criteria, e.g. "outdoor + interviews" to filter clips.

HInt #3 => no need to organize manually; FCPX is faster than you 😉

So, it's all about organizing the clips; here, pro Michael Graber explains his sorting schemes

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/tutorials/1436-log-like-a-ninja-in-final-cut-pro -x-with-michael-garber

… and 250 GBs isn' that much 😝

whatspo wrote:

… should I go ahead and chop up the legacy clips into more manageable bits in their present format (using iMovie, which is what I had been using before and thus more familiar with)? Then follow your advice about "importing smart" and start moving only the segments I need into FCP from there?

hmm, well, don't you do the work twice?

Watch and select in iMovie, then, to apply tags, watching/selecting again?

That 'smart importing' was some general advice, esp. meant when importing from SDcards.

In your case I would … :

Just dump the full 9 yards into FCPX (on an external hard drive!, 250gigs is nothing, you get actually 1TB/usb3 for under 60€), and spend a week tagging everything...

Before you start:

For beginners of FCPX I highly recommend Lesson for FCPX << link to Appstore*, from rippletraining.com

It gives you the right start, understanding the concept of this tool...

And, perhaps, don't start with your über-Project, make a test for a start, small, easy, just for the trashcan.

... which reminds me. a shoebox of tapes waits in a closet to be 'processed' 😝

enjoy movie making!

* Disclaimer: I don't particpate recommending this product, just a satisfied customer.

whatspo wrote:

… I already have the files on an external HD in an iMovie Events folder, with about 50 subfolders containing individual clips for each shoot that I did.…

I'm sure there is a "Best Practices" for importing here, …

I have to confess: I have no idea...! 😮

But The Mothership says:

http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.1/?lang=en#ver41812c7c

and

Final Cut Pro X: Import from iMovie

Problem is: old .dv material is handled by both apps; but if you import AVCHD or .HDV, both apps have a diff. strategy:

iMovie converts automatically into AppleIntermediateCodec/AIC.

FCPX can read & handles this old format.

… unfortunately AIC is not the 'best' option to handle modern codecs in FCPX - media as AVCHD are processed natively = not converted.

So, in terms of quality, best practice would be to import from the Archives ("Wot archivezz??" ) ; or from manual backups from the original SDcard. I guess, you hadn't 😝

Keep in mind: FCPX is at first a 'data base'

I have no clue, what happens to a clip, recorded 04/11, imported (converted) 04/14. and finally gets imported into FCPX today... what meta-data has such a clip?

OK, you can adjust wrong meta-data, but with -zillion of clips that is terrible job.

Again: try it, with much smaller scale. Use some smaller iMovie project, try to import it into FCPX and look what happens; maybe it works fine, and my Angst was arbitary. Or it gives a mess…

I never tried, … I import from originals.