- Hey guys, it's Matti, and it's time
for another boring tutorial, this time on workflow.
And not even the cool workflow
on how I edit or color-grade.
We're gonna talk about data, and files, and folders.
Boring.
But super-important, so I'm gonna try
to give you guys some pro tips to save you
a lot of time and massive headaches later on.
(offbeat music)
And this is just my workflow, by no means
is it the right or only way to do things,
it's just how I do things.
So, don't feel like you need to do exactly like I do,
but what I do recommend is look up my workflow
and take different things from it
and use it in your own workflow.
And the most important thing about this whole
thing is staying organized.
It's a little bit of a headache
to make all these different folders
and do all these different things
and it takes a little bit more time,
but in the long run it'll save you so much time
and so many headaches, especially when your
projects start getting bigger.
And if you're not doing this in your smaller projects,
you're not gonna be doing it in your big projects either,
or you're just not even gonna know how to do it.
And in the big projects, that's when
it really saves you a ton of time,
especially when you're working with other editors
or other people, and they need to understand
what's going on in your project.
Also, if you want to look more professional,
this is a really easy way to get that done,
and to show that you know what the heck you're doing,
and if you want to be a noob, then don't do any of this.
So you did your shoot, you got home,
and you got all of these memory cards,
what do we do now?
Well, the first thing you want to do
is make your folder structured.
I usually start with the name of the project.
So let's say I'm doing a video on workflow,
then the name of the folder is gonna be Workflow.
Some people like to put a date in here,
but I like to just have the topics listed
so I can really quickly see what that project is about.
Then inside that folder, I always have
the exact same folders, the first one
would be Footage, then we have Project Files,
Graphics, Music, and Renders.
And you could have other folders also,
but these are the five that I always have
inside of every single project folder.
Alright, so now we're ready to ingest
the cards, or offload them onto the computer or hard drive.
So we're gonna go into the Footage folder,
and in here, I'm gonna make a folder
for each camera that I had for that shoot.
So, for example if I had a 1D X Mark II,
and then a 6D Mark II, I'm gonna make
a folder for each of those cameras.
And also, if this project takes place over multiple days,
I'm gonna have Day One, Day Two, Day Three,
Day Four, all the way down in this folder,
and then have those different cameras
inside of those folders.
And here, you might also want to use
a date instead of just Day One or Day Two,
that might help you with your organization.
Especially if you're doing a really long project,
like a documentary or something,
you're gonna want to put the dates
in there just so you know, okay,
yeah, we shot on that date doing that.
And you might want to even use some sort
of keyword to describe that shoot day.
But having different folders for each camera
really helps because you know that,
okay, that camera was doing that
and this camera was doing that,
so you can quickly find your footage.
Alright, so we're gonna take this 1D X II footage,
and we're gonna put it into the 1D X II folder.
And big pro tip here is to copy everything from the card.
Don't just copy the files, the video files
or photos, copy the whole file structure.
This is just a pro tip so you're not missing anything.
Sometimes, weird things happen
and you might have missed some files.
I would always recommend taking the whole file structure,
copying that, and putting it onto
your computer or hard drive.
And also, a side note here, if I'm traveling,
I'll have a hard drive and then a computer,
or two hard drives that I'm backing up to.
And you never, ever want to take
it from the camera and put it on your computer, let's say,
and then take it from the computer
and put it on the hard drive.
You always want to do your backups
from the original card.
So you're gonna take the footage
from the card, you're gonna put
it on the computer, you're gonna take
the footage from the card, and you're gonna put
it on the hard drive.
This is just to make sure, if anything goes wrong,
you're not duplicating that error onto your backup.
You want to take it from the original source.
This is a huge pro tip.
Never, ever just copy from your first source
to your backup source, take it always
from the original card.
Alright, so we have our cards ingested,
or offloaded it, and now it's time
to make our project file, and make sure
to save that project file into the Project Files folder.
Find your music that you're using,
I like to use Epidemic Sound, and then I'm gonna take
those songs and put it into the Music folder.
And if you have any graphics, logos, or anything like that,
put them in the Graphics folder.
And another pro tip here that can really save you,
especially when you're on the road traveling
or you're at somebody else's studio,
is to save certain things to the cloud.
Now I never put all of my footage
to the cloud and try to edit from there
or anything like that, but I like to put certain key things
into the cloud, so if I'm somewhere else,
I'm traveling, or I'm at somebody else's place,
I can quickly download those, and those
are usually things that I use constantly,
like music, or graphics, or intros or outros,
things that I use in a lot of different videos,
and that are usually on my home hard drive
or computer, I like to keep in the cloud just
in case I ever need them and I'm not
at home in my studio.
And for this, I tried Google Drive at first,
but I found that it just doesn't work super well,
especially when you're dealing with
a lot of different clips, if I have
to send some footage to somebody else,
it just doesn't work so well.
The download is always a little bit funny.
So right now, I've been using pCloud,
and I actually got them to sponsor
this video, so you guys could have
a three-month free trial with 500 gigabytes
just to test it out and see if it works for you.
There's some really cool features
that I really like on pCloud, for example,
the fact that you can actually rewind up to 365.
So let's say you accidentally deleted
a file or you lost it, you can go back
to a previous date and look at what was
in your account at that time, and then recover those files.
That's crazy handy, I really like that.
I like the fact that you can pay annually,
or you can pay a lifetime amount.
So it makes it pretty affordable,
especially if you spread it out over your
lifetime, that's super-cheap.
I also like the fact that they have
a Crypto Folder, so it's just a really secure folder
that nobody else can see just in case
you need to put something in there,
just don't lose that password, 'cause nobody else
will ever be able to open that.
So remember your password, but it's
a really cool thing that they have this Crypto Folder.
Also, they have a plugin for Lightroom
so you can just export and it goes immediately
to the cloud, and then you can take
it on your phone and put it on Instagram
or anything like that.
Super-handy, that's one of the things
that I really like to use the cloud for,
is to have a bank of photos or video clips
that I'm gonna be posting on Instagram.
So they don't take up space on my phone,
but I still have them whenever I need them.
There's a lot of really cool features
and reasons why I like pCloud, so if you don't have
any cloud storage right now, make sure
to check out pCloud, I'll link it down below,
free trial right now for you guys.
Alright, so back to the workflow.
We're gonna take all these folders,
we're gonna take them into the Project file.
Again, we're nice and organized, nice and neat in here,
we're gonna do our edit, and then we're gonna export
our final video into the Renders folder.
And that's it, that's my workflow, it's pretty simple,
but it's these little steps that make
a massive difference later on.
And the bigger your projects get, the more overwhelmed
you're gonna be, so if you're not organized
it's gonna get crazy and you're gonna hate
the editing process, it's gonna be a nightmare for you.
And now, you might be saying, why are you taking
the music and putting it in the Music folder
and taking the graphics and putting
it in the Graphics folder?
Well, let me ask you this question,
how many times have you opened your project file,
and then there's all these missing files
and you're having to link them and find
them, where are they?
Well, if you put everything inside
of one folder, you will never deal
with that missing files issue, you're never gonna have
to spend time doing that.
You have everything inside of one folder,
so if you need to copy that, move that,
give it to somebody else, they have all
the assets for that project.
There's not gonna be any missing files.
Boring, I know, but super-important.
This will 100% make you a better filmmaker,
and this is one of those things
that you can do right now, and tomorrow
you will be a better filmmaker.
I realized the other day that there's certain things
like being trustworthy and working hard
that anybody can do and that make you a better filmmaker,
and this is one of those things.
It's gonna take you a little bit more work,
especially if you're not used it,
it's gonna take up a little bit more time setting
it all up, but it's gonna save you so much time,
so much headache later on, and it makes
you a better filmmaker.
So if you want to be a better filmmaker,
make sure your data management workflow
is working and it's professional.
You can become a better filmmaker right now, so do it.
Alright, that's it for me today,
I hope you enjoyed this one.
Hit that Like button and the bell just for fun.
Subscribe to the community, I would love
for you guys to be a part of this,
and hey, enjoy that filmmaking process.
See you in the next one.
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