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Copy and rename files? Or just rename?

M

movingon

Hi there. I'm a noobie editor, doing a rough cut in Premiere of a web series I'm producing. (I'll get a real editor for the real cut.) I renamed all of my files to reflect the scene, setup, and take. (Eg, "5E-4.mov") Since I'm a noob and super cautious, I also retained a complete set of files with their original names from the camera. I can't think of any reason I need to keep those, and so I assume that I should delete them. But for some reason it bothers me not to have the copy of the media as it came out of the camera. What do the grownups do?

Thanks for your advice!

Dave
 
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I'm a writer rather than an editor, but I've learned the hard way to always keep the old version of anything that I write, because there have been a surprising number of times when I've wanted to refer to something, or re-use it. I suspect that the same holds true in your case - keep the old, original material as you never know when you may need it. You can off-load the files onto a separate hard drive if you don't want them cluttering up your work space.
 
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Thanks mlesemann! That seems smart and matches my sensibilities as a software developer (we save every version of every file).

I'm also wondering if anyone reading can clue me in to what is considered best practice by professional editors?
 
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It depends. In some regards it doesn't matter either way and in others, it very much matters. It all depends on your situation, the workflow, the tools you're using, who you're working with and where you are in your project.

Myself personally, I prefer unaltered files, filenames & file structures.

I'd hazard a guess that in your situation, it won't matter.
 
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How did you rename them? If you used Resolve and made files for an offline, yes, keep the originals. If all you did was a batch rename on the files using Bridge or something, there's no reason to keep the originals. Your renamed clips are an exact clone and thus are your originals. I'd dump them.
 
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rickieross9 said:
Regardless of renaming them, I think I would keep them just to have a backup. I heard an old saying, "If a file doesn't exist in two places, it doesn't exist!"
Click to expand...

True, but the backup should be of the renamed ones and on a separate drive. That way if something does happen and the backups are needed, everything will relink right away. If they have to be renamed again before relinking, methinks that's just asking for trouble :yes:
 
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movingon said:
I can't think of any reason I need to keep those, and so I assume that I should delete them. But for some reason it bothers me not to have the copy of the media as it came out of the camera. What do the grownups do?

Thanks for your advice!

Dave
Click to expand...

If you are going through all of the (very tedious but crucial, bravo) work to rename your files - right in your file browser - on the fly by eye, to your shooting script, or matching your shot log sheet, then you would never want to repeat this work, nor try to figure out what clip "MV1_2978.MOV" is vs the more aptly named "S3.8" ever again, especially down the road.

Again I'm only speaking to if you are doing this up front, before ingesting into your NLE.

So once you get everything renamed, then back up those renamed files, then blow away your originals.
 
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Guanto said:
If you are going through all of the (very tedious but crucial, bravo) work to rename your files - right in your file browser - on the fly by eye, to your shooting script, or matching your shot log sheet, then you would never want to repeat this work, nor try to figure out what clip "MV1_2978.MOV" is vs the more aptly named "S3.8" ever again, especially down the road.

Again I'm only speaking to if you are doing this up front, before ingesting into your NLE.

So once you get everything renamed, then back up those renamed files, then blow away your originals.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response! Yes, I'm renaming all of the audio and video files by hand in the file browser to match the slate in each file, which matches the shot list as well as the marked-up script from the script supervisor (since she marks it up using the same shot list). And yes this is before ingesting into the NLE. I have no idea how anyone could edit if their source files weren't first renamed in this way. I agree that I wouldn't want to have to do this process more than once! But for now I'll avoid deleting the Raw folder just because that's scary. But I agree that there seems to be no reason for keeping it around.

To those who mentioned backup: of course that's an important topic, but a separate one. All of the files I choose to keep are stored on two hard drives, with one of them being off site.

Thanks everybody!
 
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Normally, file names aren't changed destructively.

On a camera like an Alexa or RED, naming conventions are usually as follows (and are set on the camera to ensure accuracy):

A001_C003_161106

Which demarcates:
Camera A, card 1, clip 3 and the shooting date. Reel IDs will follow after that.

When data wrangling on the day, the wrangler or DIT will have at most basic a laptop with 2-4 HDDs, and the more extravagant the setups, the more RAID arrays start coming into it.

The folder structure will usually be something along the lines of

[Shoot Date] > [Camera Letter] > [Card #] > Clips.

The same data is copied onto all HDDs, and usually checksum checked (using software like ShotputPro) to ensure the data is 100% identical between the cards and all HDDs.

One HDD will be sent to the editor, either at the end of the day (where he/she will likely make their own backup, or insert into their own RAID array), or on lower budgets/shorter shoots, at the end of the shoot. One can be sent to the colourist, and one usually goes home with a Producer and/or Director.

Names will never be changed destructively, because if the data on one HDD is lost, it will need to be recovered from another one. If you rename destructively before import, you will never be able to link the files back up from a second HDD copy in case of data erasure.

Those with HDDs can hang onto the files for as long as they like/need.

When I've shot commercials, usually the production company will have an HDD backup of the entire project (camera originals, and all edit/sound/vfx files) that the client receives, and they will also make their own backup onto an HDD which then gets archived (and the more high-end outfits usually backup onto LTO tape).

Any change of file names at any stage of the process would result in potential issues:

-inability to track down issues and problems - for example, if you have a file sequence out of camera that appears to be missing files, it can be looked into. If everything has been re-named, then it brings in the possibility of human error when re-naming.
-inability to relink media in case of data erasure - at least unless you re-name the back-up files before attempting to re-link (of course keeping in mind they would have to be re-named identically to what they were - character perfect).
-if files are re-named later in the process (for example you have a draft edit that you called EDIT_COLOUR.mov, and used for colour/VFX that you later re-name to EDIT_FINAL_DRAFT.mov), you allow the potential for project files to be unable to re-link to media, particularly if revisiting a project after a number of years, and being unable to remember how you renamed the files.

Most NLEs allow you to re-name files non-destructively in the bin after import if that makes it easier for you to organise (Avid certainly does), and I would always suggest doing that.


In your case, feel free to do what you think is best - I usually keep all originals even after I've transcoded etc. but it can be hard to justify if you're running out of space... Just make sure you back everything up!
 
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