(upbeat music)
- Anyone who films and edits videos knows
the eternal struggle that comes with
trying to organize all of your media
and get your work done in a way that is organized
and efficient.
My name is Tom.
This is the enthusiasm project.
And today I wanna share with you my
Final Cut Pro Workflow Yo,
that I think is going to be hopefully really helpful.
It's worked for me to create 200 videos
for this YouTube channel to work on
client and freelance projects
at work and on the side.
And I think that it's pretty effective.
I do wanna preface this video by saying that
this is just my workflow.
There's probably an infinite number
of really effective great workflows out there.
I'm sure you can point to areas here where it's like,
you're not doing that technically correct or whatever,
but this is what works for me.
And this is what has made it easy to make more videos.
So that's why I wanna share it with you.
So let's start off with,
what does this workflow require?
Obviously you need a computer with editing software.
Final Cut Pro is my weapon of choice.
Beyond that you need all of your project media,
which probably includes SD cards,
CFast cards,
maybe just some digital files
or audio recordings.
Sometimes for me that might just be one card
from one camera.
It might be multiple cards from multiple cameras,
it might include a screen recording,
it might include audio from something like the RODEcaster.
Whatever it is for the video project
you need all your media.
And then I use two hard drives.
In my case one of them is a Samsung T5 SSD,
this is my main editing hard drive,
and the other one is a four terabyte traditional hard drive
'coz it's cheaper.
And this is basically my backup drive for all of my footage.
I will explain how I use these in a little bit.
Now this is not a how to edit video.
So I'm not really going into
any of my Final Cut Pro techniques.
I'm just going into how the projects are managed.
So let's pretend that I finished a video
and I've got all of my footage right here
on these memory cards.
What does it look like when I jump into the computer
after I'm done making a video?
This is very important because in the same way that
when you're filming in your studio,
you're not really done filming
until everything is cleaned up.
The computer and the workflow is kind of the same way.
I like it to be clean and perfect.
So I can jump in and start working on a project.
That project isn't done until everything is clean,
perfect and organized again.
What do I mean by that?
Well first of all,
before even getting into Final Cut Pro,
I use the notes app on my Mac book
and I have a document called video description
since most of the videos that I make
are intended to be uploaded to YouTube.
And that basically has my video descriptions,
which includes like my affiliate links,
my contact info,
my short little bio.
This is also where I'll put my time markers.
So that way the chapter markers
pop up in the play bar down below,
I put the episode number
and then what I've done with the video,
that's where I'll type out the description.
This is what this document looks like for me
when I go to start a project.
Jumping into Final Cut Pro,
this is basically how my Final Cut Pro is set up.
A couple of things to notice,
up here I don't have a lot happening in my library.
I just have an event called next video and that's empty.
If you look at this library,
the amount of space that it takes up is nothing.
It's 205 kilobytes.
So basically my Final Cut Pro is kinda empty.
If you're somebody who works on multiple projects at once,
that's gonna change a little bit,
but right now I'm kind of in the YouTube workflow process.
So I typically I'm just working on one video after another,
which means like kind of only
have one project going at a time.
So it's important to remember that
when you import all your footage into the MacBook
to keep it organized,
that's obviously the first step is that media management.
First of all these two hard drives right here,
the backup drive that you're gonna use,
don't worry about it right now.
That's not till after we're done with everything.
This is the drive that you wanna focus on.
And truthfully you may or may not need one of these.
When I was using my 2013 MacBook Pro,
which has a 256 gigabyte internal drive.
That's when I got this SSD,
if you have a computer that has anything
less than one terabyte internally,
I would recommend using one of these.
Instead of putting all of that project info
on your computer,
put it on this drive,
literally create your Final Cut Pro library on this SSD
and import all of your footage directly to this SSD.
And then in theory that's actually helpful
'coz you could plug this into any Mac
and just start editing your project right there.
So it's a great way to also just be portable.
These are awesome drives.
However
for me I still use this drive,
but a little differently because last fall,
when I got my 2016 MacBook Pro,
it has a one terabyte internal drive.
And just for the sake of portability,
I've started editing off of the internal drive,
but I don't keep anything on it.
So in my case I'm gonna import all of the footage
into a folder on my desktop.
I'm using the tutorial I did on how to do key frames
as camera movements in Final Cut Pro.
So I made a folder that has the episode number
and the title.
And then I just dump all of my footage in there.
In this case,
you can see that there are two other videos that I made
finished projects.
There's all of the raw footage that I filmed.
There's also the thumbnails that I took,
the still images,
that's these .CR3 files.
And then there are
some B-roll clips that I had filmed
that I wanted to incorporate into this project.
And there's also a screen recording.
If you're using this SSD,
that folder would just be on here.
Now before I put this footage into Final Cut Pro,
I select everything right click
and then hit the green.
Green it means it's good to go, right?
And basically that tells me that
I haven't used any of these.
Now I know I'm probably not going to use
the still images in my video.
Probably those will be for my thumbnail later,
but otherwise all of these video files are things
that I would wanna use in my project.
And then I go into Final Cut Pro
and now I can build my project.
We will click on new project.
And then I create my project.
I do use 3840 by 1920
did a whole video about using that
two to one aspect ratio on YouTube and why I like that.
And then I create the project.
I don't like to just import all my footage
into the library at once.
So that's why I like to have
this folder here
and sometimes I'll even go just to the thumbnail view
so I can see everything.
And then I know okay,
here's my A-roll, my talking head shots.
I can just click on these.
I'm gonna take off the green dot
and then bring them into final cut,
just drag them to my timeline.
And now they can be processed on my timeline.
And back over here they don't have a green dot,
which means now I know I have used those clips.
And that's basically how I'll build my project.
As I add in a B-roll shot of something,
I'll be sure that I take off the green dot.
And as I'm going through and trying to pull from stuff
that helps me to make sure I don't use the same clip twice.
And it also helps me to make sure I don't forget
to use a clip that I really want to use,
That I was really excited about.
Now I will say this method works best
if you can use dual monitors,
just because you can spread out,
you can have final cut on one monitor
and then the folder with all your footage on the other,
basically using it like a bin.
It is worth pointing out though
that if you have an iPad,
you can use your iPad as a second display with Sidecar.
And that can be your second display.
So you can click on something and then drag it over to
your final cut from here.
So if you've got a reasonably new iPad that supports sidecar
the wireless second display,
and I do like to keep my footage open on the iPad
and drag it over,
use it as a dual monitor to set up with a laptop.
I find that to be super helpful.
Now again this is not a how to edit video.
So we'll just pretend that this is a finished project
and then press Command + E to export.
I make sure to go into settings,
use H.264 and then export it out to my desktop.
Now one thing that's important
where you can get yourself into a lot of trouble
is to not double check your export file
before you upload it or share it or send it to your client.
So once it's exported from final cut,
make sure you open up the actual finished project.
And I would recommend honestly,
not just scrubbing through it
to double check that it looks okay,
but literally playing it back and making sure..
Am I wearing the same shirt in this video?
I am wearing the same shirt in this video.
Make sure you play it back so that way it looks good
because what can happen very rarely but it's possible
is sometimes on Final Cut Pro
you play it back your finished timeline
and everything looks great.
And then you export it and something happens.
And there might just be like,
I've had one frame of just green for no reason.
Sometimes there's a little glitch.
If you use titles,
sometimes titles don't show up or show up in a weird way.
You wanna watch the actual final version
before you upload your project.
And it's okay because this is also where
I will open up my notes app
and I will usually let this play over here,
keep my notes up here.
And as I'm going through,
this is where I will generate my time markers,
my chapter markers for YouTube.
So I'll watch it to double check,
do a little quality control inspection,
and then I'll also keep note of time.
So that way, okay 1:42 this thing happens.
And then I can add that time into my notes.
By the time I've done the final proofing on this video,
I have all my time markers already done,
and I don't need to spend the time watching it
one more time.
Now this is the point where I usually go to YouTube,
click create and upload my video
while I'm waiting for it to upload,
that's when I will go in and type out my description,
I'll add any relevant links to the description.
I'll make sure everything is spelled correctly.
I'll go down here and add the hashtags,
which by the way on YouTube you can have
I think it's 15 hashtags in your description.
And then YouTube will pick the top three
that it thinks are most relevant or most popular
and put those ones automatically on top of your video title.
I usually just put three or four hashtags
and then let YouTube figure it out from there.
So now we've got our video uploaded to YouTube
and we're basically done editing,
but it is not time to walk away.
If that's the time you close your computer
and go do something else,
that's basically like leaving your studio
with everything totally just in chaos
and it's not gonna be great
when you come back to work later.
So how do we actually wrap up our workflow
and also protect our footage in the future?
First off in my video descriptions,
I reset this notes application.
So if I had all my times I delete those.
I delete the description that I wrote.
I delete the title and then I'll change the episode number
to the next episode.
And then that document is ready to go.
I like the notes app by the way,
just because it does sync to your phone
or your iPad and your computer.
So it's easy to just update stuff from multiple devices
as you're working on a video.
Once I'm done editing in Final Cut Pro,
I don't keep my project timelines.
Some people do.
If you're working on a client project
or it's something you think you might have to come back to,
it's up to you if you wanna keep the actual project file,
I don't like to
because it just sort of bloats up the hard drive
and takes up a lot of space.
In the three years I've been doing YouTube
and the 200 videos I've made for my channel,
I have never once needed to go back
into the actual timeline
after a video has been uploaded ever.
Lots of times I'll need to put finished videos
into future videos,
but that's really easy,
I don't need the project file to do that.
So what I do is I first create a new event
and usually I just label it something like
new video or next video or sometimes I'll do the date
that the video is gonna be for.
And then I go into the library I was working on,
I just moved that straight to the trash,
which feels weird if you spend all that time working on it
and then just throw it away.
But that cleans that up.
Now I have nothing in here.
However you'll notice
now my library still takes up a lot of space.
And if you've been doing a real project
that could easily go up to two 300 gigabytes worth of space
or more.
So before I wrap up with Final Cut Pro,
I go to library and then file
and delete generated library files.
And I delete everything.
Click Okay.
And basically Final Cut Pro is amazing
because it's so optimized to work so smoothly
and it has like real time rendering and all this great stuff
that takes up a lot of memory and a lot of space,
by doing what I just did,
it deletes all those extra files.
If I reopened Final Cut Pro,
what you will notice
if I click on library now I'm back down to 205 KB.
So now we have reset the notes app,
we've reset Final Cut Pro.
We're almost there but we still got all this raw footage
and this finished project file hanging out
and we need to do something with those.
So first off that's where your backup drive comes into play.
And again I'm using a four terabyte drive.
This is an old school hard drive
because it's about a hundred dollars,
which is very affordable.
And as you can see this drive which is called raw footage.
And if I open it up,
I just have all of my projects organized.
I used to do it by episode number and then the date
and then the title
and then I realized the date was unnecessary
because like the computer creates the date for you.
So then I just started doing
the episode number and the title.
That way even though I don't keep my actual project files,
I do keep all of my raw footage,
which is very helpful.
Now that now this is where my SSD comes into play.
So as I said I've been editing off of the
internal drive on my Mac Book Pro.
But before that I used to edit directly off of this drive.
So whichever way you're doing it,
I still liked to also keep a few extra files here.
And I really like to keep things neat and tidy.
I try to be really good at that.
I'm from California,
but honestly I found that the people who are best
at keeping things neat and tidy are actually from Oregon.
I've just noticed that they're really Oregonized.
And now that the raw footage has been saved,
I can actually just delete that folder.
I don't need it on my desktop anymore.
On my SSD I kind of have folders for different projects
that I work on,
some of these I use frequently,
some of them I don't use nearly as much.
I do keep music, I have a music folder.
This is where all of my royalty free music
from epidemic sound and art list get stored.
So even though I can download new music any time,
I like just having this catalog right here
of stuff that I know that I liked,
I usually do organize it.
Green means I haven't used the song yet.
Red means maybe I've used the song a couple times
and kind of wanna stay away from it for a bit
so things don't get repetitive.
I have found though that having a drive
with all your music or sound effects on it
is very helpful especially if you end up traveling
and doing a lot of work while you travel.
I have a folder in here called finished projects,
and it's a little bit of a mess,
but I do have a finished videos folder in there.
It could be called YouTube videos,
YouTube channel whatever.
And this is where I will put
all of the actually edited projects.
So again same thing,
just number and title.
You wanna just save libraries of your finished projects.
It's not a bad idea
to maybe keep your finished projects
on your raw footage hard drive too,
or even on a separate hard drive that you would keep
like in a safe somewhere like a fireproof safe,
just to make sure you don't lose
the original copies of that work.
I also do have thumbnails.
So typically throughout this process at some point
when it comes to a YouTube video,
that's when I will open up a thumbnail thing.
I did a whole video on how I make my thumbnails.
I saved the finished thumbnails here,
and then I keep the
raw photos that I took in the raw footage hard drive.
And so now that I have my finished project uploaded to
my SSD I can delete that.
And now I'm done.
I have finished projects and thumbnails
and everything saved here.
And I have all that raw footage saved here
and my computer has nothing extra on it.
So even though I am editing off of the internal drive,
nothing lives on here,
it just kind of goes on while I'm working on it
and then it leaves.
Now last but not least,
we've got everything cleaned up.
We've got these memory cards.
I strongly recommend that you do not erase or format
your memory card until you've reached this point.
Until you have your raw footage saved,
your project is finished,
everything is done.
And now you know you don't need the footage
that's on here anymore,
and you know that it's backed up somewhere else
and then format your card.
It's too risky to format it
as soon as you import your stuff.
And then you realize maybe something didn't get moved over
or something goes wrong here.
Keep these as backups until
you know for a fact that everything is safe.
I have burned myself way too many times by getting antsy.
And don't just delete the footage from your memory cards,
actually go into your camera and format that
because sometimes other files,
other stuff can just end up taking up
space on your memory card.
And even though your camera shows no files or it's empty,
you still don't have access
to all the space that's on the memory card.
And it's at this point that you're actually
done with the workflow.
Your memory cards are empty
and ready to be recorded onto.
Your computer is wiped of all that footage
and all those timelines taking up space,
and your projects are nice and organized.
That means when it's time to do the next video,
you just sit down and port this stuff
and you are ready to go.
Now of course workflow is really just
one part of that process.
There's a whole slew of production elements.
And I actually made a couple videos.
I did one that is how I make my videos start to finish.
And I've also done another video that's my studio tour.
So if you wanna check those out
and learn a little bit more about my process,
there you go.
I hope to see you over in one of those videos
and I wish you all the best in
being organized in your workflow.
(upbeat music)