7 Tips for Keeping Your Footage Organized, Accessible, and S…

Anyone who works in videography (or pictures, for that matter) is aware of that group is essential.

When you’re coping with hundreds of information—a lot of that are very comparable—for those who don’t have a system in place, you’re going to finish up losing time simply attempting to trace down the best clips, which suggests much more time required on work that’s already actually time consuming.

In some circumstances, an absence of group may even result in shedding or misplacing (which finally quantities to shedding!) essential footage that you may have used for a undertaking.

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So how do you keep organized? Here are seven suggestions and tips I’ve discovered after years of working in aerial cinematography. These are the enhancing hacks I want somebody had shared with me after I first acquired began with post-production work by myself aerial video footage. They’ve saved me dozens of hours, and saved my hair from turning prematurely gray.

Hope you discover them helpful!

[Note: This article was written by Christian Tucci, who has been doing aerial cinematography since he was 12. Christian is a principal at Cinematic Aerospace, the place he flies drones and helicopters, and he’s the teacher of our associate course, Aerial Post Production 101. Want to take your post-production abilities to the subsequent stage? Check out Christian’s course right here.]

Here are Christian’s seven suggestions for retaining your drone footage organized.

1. Number Your Hard Drives

If you retain your footage in a number of exhausting drives, quantity your drives and preserve a spreadsheet of what’s on every drive, like itemizing every occasion. Maybe group footage collectively in a roundabout way, reminiscent of one drive per yr (i.e. all of the 2017 footage goes on a 2017 drive, stuff filmed in 2016 goes on a drive simply for 2016 footage, and many others . . .)

2. Use a Naming Convention

After filming, give your file names an occasion title and date in them. I prefer to preserve the title the digicam generated in there too. (i.e., if my drone made a file known as “DJI_0458.mov” I’ll rename it to “New_York_Sunset_03042017_DJI_0458.mov”). That manner after I’m wanting by means of lists of information I can rapidly inform what was filmed and the date.

three. Use a Spreadsheet

Consider making a spreadsheet of the all of the information in a selected occasion folder that lists every file title together with columns for descriptions of video, key phrases, and many others . . . Really something you need to observe. This may embody issues just like the plane and digicam the footage was filmed with, body price, decision, and many others. All of Cinematic Aerospace’s footage is organized in a database system now, however we initially used a spreadsheet  to arrange our footage. You can obtain my shot log PDF right here.

four. Delete Bad Footage

Don’t be afraid to delete footage on the spot that you realize is not any good. I all the time assessment every clip because it’s coming off the reminiscence playing cards, and if I do know I received’t ever use it (as a result of I’ve a really comparable shot that’s higher, or the shot is tousled for some purpose) I cannot even hassle transferring it to storage. This observe saves cupboard space, it saves time whenever you’re going by means of your information later, and it makes keywording and managing the great information simpler.

5. Consider Using a Database

Consider an asset administration platform or software program for those who actually need to get fancy with organizing your footage, otherwise you’ll wind up gathering a ton of it over time. Sometimes you could have a lot footage it turns into very exhausting to trace all of it manually with spreadsheets. An precise software program database can assist tremendously for those who can afford it.

6. Link to Your Files

When enhancing, in case your footage will all the time be “online” (that means the exhausting drive is linked and accessible on a regular basis) of their authentic location, “link” to the information in your enhancing software program as an alternative of copying them into the undertaking folder or file. This can prevent house, and helps you be sure to all the time know the place the originals exist.

7. Backup, Backup, Backup

While it might appear apparent and not a lot like an enormous tip . . . BACKUP YOUR FILES. DO NOT be taught the exhausting manner what it’s prefer to lose your footage. Losing footage occurs to the very best of us, and it all the time appears to be that good, magical second you occurred to seize that will get corrupted or deleted by some means. Buy an honest backup exhausting drive and save all your information to it. Avoiding the ache of shedding good footage is effectively definitely worth the worth.

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We hope you discovered the following pointers helpful, and that they enable you with organizing your drone footage.

Want to be taught extra about Christian Tucci’s course, Aerial Post Production 101? Check out Christian’s course right here.