Post-production is the final frontier to any and all video projects. Not every project is blessed with logged, slated or even organized footage. This is particularly true if you work for a busy company, part of a smaller team, or as a freelance editor. Because of this, it is most crucial that as an editor you construct your project cleanly and maintain that organization until the project’s end.
Think of your editing project as a puzzle - you start with a bunch of pieces that you have to build together in order to make one final picture. Some people may open the box, dump out all the pieces and start constructing it. While this method isn’t wrong, it is inefficient. Clutter and upside down pieces don’t allow you to see the puzzle as a whole and leads to wasted time. My method is to stop and take some time to organize everything on the front end. Instead of trying to put the “puzzle” together right away, take the time of turning over all the upside down pieces. This process may be a little time consuming and boring, but it pays off in the end.
Before importing your footage into your project and starting on the edit, take some time and set up your project first. I like to start by making sure my workspace is setup to my liking and then saving it as a preset. That way if you open a project elsewhere that changes your workspace, you can simply click your preset and it will be set to your preferences for now and all future projects. I edit in Adobe Premiere, so anyone who edits outside of that program may have different methods of presets and functionality. No matter the program you are using, I still recommend using this process.
The next step I do is making four root folders or bins and labeling them.
These four folders should be your root folders, and everything else will live inside these main four root folders. After the root folders are made, I make subfolders for each category. I do this because it makes the organization of the assets easier after importing them.
I make these subfolders at the start because these are most suited for the projects I edit. Depending on the type and size of the project there may be more subfolders for different needed categories, but this is where I like to start.
At this point I am ready to import my footage. You can import all your files at once, but I like to do it one folder at a time. That way I don’t have all of it to go through at once. Also, when I import my assets I make sure everything is outside the root folders so I’m aware of everything that still needs to be organized.
Now that a folder is imported, I move to organizing them. Depending on your preference and level of organization, this may lead to a few more or a lot more subfolders. I also like to make a new folder window and switch my view to Icon mode so I can quickly scrub through clips without having to individually click one and move my mouse to another window to scrub. Then, I place it next to my project window in list view because it just makes for quicker organization. I go through my clips and break down my B-Roll by scenes. I try not to make too many subfolders where it can get confusing, but enough to make sure they are separated.
Now everything is imported and organized in my project. It may have taken time, but now comes the fun part which can be done with ease because your project is organized.
Want a pro tip? I like to create multiple versions of each project. Think of this like drafting a story. You have your first draft; this will be your version one. You want to duplicate that version and call it version two. If you don’t duplicate your composition and you make a change you want back later, you will have to do it all over again. I like to version my comps every time I move on to a big change. I also like to give a brief description after the version number so I know what has been done to the comp.
If this organization is continued throughout the project it can really ease the life of an editor.
By Josh Steichen