- Welcome back
(calming electronic video) to another video. In this one, we're going to be talking about a file structure that I use for every single video production job. Now, on the surface, a file structure seems very
basic and somewhat unimportant, but as you scale your
video production services and your video production company and especially if you
are bringing more people on to help edit and help organize all of the footage in the background, then a really structured
file management system that is consistent between
every single project becomes really important. Now, I've set up a file
structure over the years and tweaked it and refined it, and this is the current version of the file structure that I
use for our production company. And it's free for you to download. Link is in the description to this video. So once you download
it and unzip the file, double-click on the file
and then you will get this file structure here. So in this video, I just wanna simply go
through this folder structure and explain my logic for organizing all of our footage and assets associated with any video project. The main important thing to
take away from this video is simply just to have a folder structure that is templated for
every single project. So when you begin a brand new project, it doesn't matter if it's the fifth job for a client or the first job, it is the same templated structure
for every single project. So let's take a look at 01 Audio. When we're on set, we are obviously capturing
audio with the camera. Oftentimes, our audio is already presynced inside the camera, so if the camera has
an XLR or a mic input, the audio might already be in the camera. In that case, the production audio lands in the footage folder because
it's already presynced. However, if the audio
was captured separately, then it comes under audio here
and I've got two subfolders. The first one is Production Audio. This is where all of your production audio such as all of your lav
mics, all of the boom sound, all of the Foley, all the additional sound design elements that you might have captured on set. This goes in Production Audio. Now underneath the production audio, I don't have any subfolders but you would build this
Production Audio folder out in association with the
Footage folder down here. So if you have a production day one and you have a whole range of scenes, however you like to
build out the file naming for your footage, it would be the same for your audio. This just allows you to understand what associated audio files
fit with what video files. The second subfolder under
Audio is Sound Track. And under Sound Track,
we have Sound Track Temp which is a temporary pull. We have a whole range of subscriptions online such
as Artlist and Musicbed. And when we are doing our
research for projects, we pull temp files off
Musicbed and Artlist and they get put in this temp track file. And when our editors are working, we can source the soundtrack
elements from that folder. Now, once an edit is approved, that is when the licensed
track can be licensed online and pulled down into this
Final Licensed Tracks. And then the 03 License
Agreements and Contracts, any contracts that we might
have with the sound designer or specifically Musicbed and Artlist. This is helpful 'cause a lot of the times, the client might request
the license agreement just so that they understand
that they are covered depending on the specific
deliverables that we've delivered. So that's everything for Sound Track. This could be built out
further if you are working with a sound designer and
there's lots of backwards and forwards revisions and
elements being pulled through, but it's just nice to
have everything associated with audio under Audio. All right, so secondly, 02 Footage. This does change depending on the project, but a general rule of thumb
is to categorize everything by date and by the production day. You might like to categorize it by date and scene if the
scenes are significant enough, but often for us, what we like to do is just
simply ingest the cards associated with the cameras. In this case, there might be two cards from A cam and two cards from B cam underneath the first production day. And then all of the footage
inside of these cards will simply be the raw
files for that project. Once we ingest the raw files, we'll use something like
DaVinci Proxy Generator to develop the proxies for that footage. And so for example, with this B002, you would have a proxy folder inside here that would have all of
your proxy files generated from Blackmagic Proxy Generator. And inside this card name or B002. So this is the second
card that was ingested from camera B would have all
of the raw footage in that. So it's really simple and it
can be expanded through days. So obviously this is a day two and you would ingest the continuation of those cards for that project. This Footage folder is
obviously where everything sits or the bulk of the data sits and it's nice just to have
it up the top with Audio. Now, 03 Animation, a lot
of the projects that we do in the commercial world require
us to outsource animation to either visual effects artists such as green screen keying or someone like a 2D animator
who will develop 2D movement within the image, graphic
design, that sort of stuff. So 03 Animation is where all of the round-tripping to
the animator takes place, or any round-tripping outside
of the DaVinci ecosystem. We do a few things in Fusion, but if we have to move
out to After Effects, then animation is where all of those round-tripped assets would sit. So the logic for the first
three folders is simply that one, two, and three. So 01 Audio, 02 Footage, 03 Animation mainly contain
all of the working assets that the editor will
pull into the timeline. Obviously, Audio and
Footage is self-explanatory. Any animation elements
on top of all of that, it's nice just to have that at the top. And then the logic kind of continues down as the project progresses. So, 04 Assets, this is
where we will host all of our assets that aren't associated with either audio, footage, or animation. So for this folder structure, I've just got two templated folders. One is Logo and Branding
Assets for the client. Now there could be 20
to 30 different assets brought into this folder at the start of the project,
even before production. Things like brand guidelines, which you can see here, style guides. Often, brands have a very specific look, and a specific aesthetic,
and font guidelines, for example, if you're
doing any titling work. So this is just a really
great place to have it. We used to host this folder on a different location on our server, but what we've started doing recently is duplicating the Assets folder every time we start a new
project for that client. So that basically keeps
everything associated that could possibly be associated with the video project, all
within the same file structure. And we're not sourcing assets from different areas on our server. So if I was to install a font
specifically for the project, it would also go here under Assets. Another final reason for
keeping everything in one place is if we're relocating
this project down the line or handing it off to an
editor that might be offsite, it's really easy just to copy everything from this folder and we
know that they are set in terms of every asset
that they possibly need for the video project. So now we get to the folders that actually start to be developed
as the edit progresses. So Working Renders contain everything that we will render throughout
the process of an edit. There are different stages of renders. When we do our rough cut, we might render off a version
for internal team reviews. We might render off another more polished version
to send to the client. These are generally referred
to as Offline Drafts. Offline rendering generally
takes place before all of the sound mastering and
all of the color grading. And Online Render is more of your polished renders
or your stage two. So, here under Working Renders, we've put all of our offline drafts, all of our online drafts, and Process Renders is
everything that we render throughout the project that is
associated with the timeline. For example, it could be
a rendered in place moment within the timeline that you've
actually rendered a ProRes and brought back into the timeline, that could go under Process Renders. The process renders could
also be little things like exporting dialogue out to be enhanced in Adobe Speech Enhancer, for example. If it was something like that
and you're round-tripping out of the program to bring assets back in or if you're just doing renders throughout to just test different elements and they're not officially
the offline or online drafts, all of those renders, anything that you render
goes in Process Renders. This is also really good
to keep it all there because often, the offline drafts, there might be 10 to 20 of them as we are going down the line. And these can be cleared
after the project, but you don't want to clear your process renders because a lot of them might be quite essential to actually keep the project alive and editable later down the track. So it's nice to differentiate
what is an online draft, an offline draft, and an
actual process render. 06 Working Edit Files. As I've mentioned, we
work in DaVinci Resolve, and our working edit files
aren't the same as, for example, a Premier working edit
file or if you're familiar with Illustrator or Photoshop. When you save a project
in those other programs, you physically have a file that you can move around
within your file structure. With DaVinci Resolve, the
files live inside a database which is a different beast
to manage altogether. We back up our databases and we have a file management structure within DaVinci Resolve for that. However, I do often export versions of the project as I'm working. If it's a really big project and I'm spending, like, really chunky days working
on a project, you know, eight to 10 hours of really
dedicated editing time, I don't wanna lose my work. Even though I've got a backup
in the DaVinci Resolve server, I just really want an extra
file that I know is there. So what I do is right-click and simply just export a working edit file or a DaVinci Resolve Project, and I'll have another
folder with progressively saved working files for my project. Now also, if I'm, for example,
opening up a Photoshop file, Illustrator file to do some
design work for the client just to sort some assets out
to bring in to the project, these are where my working
edit files will also sit. So any other edit files
associated with the whole project outside of DaVinci Resolve also go here. 07 Final Renders is self-explanatory but this is where all of my
archived final renders will go. I do have another video here and this explains a few
of the different renders that I like to do but also the Final Renders are essentially like the final package that you'll send to the client with a whole variety of different deliverables,
different outputs, and the pros, masters, and
the H.264 online deliverables. That's a different video,
which I'd like to get to soon. So 08 Davinci Project Archive is where the final
archived project will sit once the project file is wrapped up. In DaVinci Resolve, it's really easy to export what is called a
DaVinci Resolve Archive Project or an archive file or a .DRA. And this gets put in here along with all of the associated
clips within the final timeline. So once the final timeline is
locked, there might be say, 20 final clips that are in that timeline. And you don't actually need
every single other clip from the project. You only need those 20
clips in the final timeline. And so the DaVinci Project Archive isn't actually that big of a file but it's just another backup
of the final timeline. This allows us, if we ever have to open up that final timeline to make any tweaks, it's really easy if we have
completely moved the project out of our working server
onto our archive server. You might wanna skip this step and come up with your
own archiving method. However, 08 is the final
step in the process. Now lastly, 09 Notes. This is where all of the notes throughout the project is generated. Throughout the project,
if you're an editor, you'll be given notes
potentially from the producer, from the director, from the client, any kind of onboarding
preferential conversations to give some direction. All of those good things
can all go in here. And also throughout the editing process when there's reviews coming in, there's space here to put
review notes, director, editor, production notes, and then transcripts. A lot of the time we get all
of our interviews transcribed. Now in DaVinci 18.5, it does automatically inside the program, but if we're using an external
service such as rev.com, I still use rev.com a lot for all of my YouTube transcriptions. If we're using a service like that, we'll download the notes off rev.com and put them here as transcriptions. It's just a really great
place to put everything to do with the project conversation. Especially if you are
dealing with multiple people, it's nice to keep it all organized there. So that's it. That is nine folders that can be expanded and contracted depending on the project. The great thing about having a really simple folder structure like that on the surface is
even for the smallest job, I don't have a problem
duplicating this folder structure and setting it up for a tiny job. But what it does allow is if the project blooms and
becomes a really big project, this folder structure, in my opinion, is robust enough to sort
of grow with the project. I've been using this folder
structure in some way, shape, or form for at least five years, and we've literally done hundreds of different commercial projects
with this folder structure. So I hope this
(calming electronic music) has helped in some way if you are just trying to get your head around how to organize all of your assets associated
with video projects. And remember, this is free to download with the link in the description. If you do have any
questions, please reach out. I'd love to hear from you, and we will see you in the next one. Peace out.
