Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project
by Jeremy Garchow (JeremyG)
on
Jul 24, 2008 at 2:02:53 pm
So what do you do? We just started working Color into the equation and it seems it's going to be here to stay.
Sometimes, our projects get called back to make minor adjustments and sometimes a year or two later.
The media is way offline in deep archive somewhere and then we restore the project. With FCP, this process is fairly easy if FCP likes to cooperate that day. What's it like with Color? Is it just a matter of getting the media back online and rerendering or is there more to it than that?
Also, how do you archive your Color Projects? Obviously, the project file, but do you save all of your grades/primaries/secondaries? Do you save the Color renders or are those easy enough to remake? Do those then reconnect in FCP?
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by Joseph Owens on Jul 24, 2008 at 2:45:41 pm
The COLOR project file is a container that encompasses all the grade decisions.
It does not keep track of media at all, in fact, it is just the grades, in order, pretty much independent of the media, with the exception of keyframed items.
For example, if you completed and saved a project with 120 grades, you could save that, and apply it (import color corrections) to another, totally different project, different media, different format, as long as it had 120 clips. COLOR would not know the difference.
Save the COLOR renders? I'm not sure I follow. What you render becomes a Final Cut project. Archive that using Media Manager or whatever floats your boat.
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by Jeremy Garchow on Jul 24, 2008 at 2:56:48 pm
Thanks jPo.
[Joseph Owens]"It does not keep track of media at all, in fact, it is just the grades, in order, pretty much independent of the media, with the exception of keyframed items."
No, it doesn't keep track of it, but it knows where it is. And if that media location changes (through the process of archiving and restoring) will it be smart enough to reconnect to the media that it uses to cc (i.e. the original FCP media). Does that make sense or am I botching the explanation? I can try and explain it better if I didn't make it clear.
[Joseph Owens]"Save the COLOR renders? I'm not sure I follow."
What I am saying is the actual media from the color renders (the new media that Color creates after rendering). Let's say I don't archive that. When I go to restore the FCP project (by recapturing and reimporting media), and then open the color project, will the color project still link to the original media? Then, when I rerender the Color project, will the cc'd media be relinked back in FCP (the 'from Color' sequence)? Or is it just easier to save the media in the first place?
[Joseph Owens]"Archive that using Media Manager or whatever floats your boat. "
That's fine, but I am talking about restoring a project, making changes and then not having to reColor the whole thing, just what changes.
Perahps I am over thinking it. How would you archive your Color projects? Then a year later, how would restore it?
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by Peter Wollsey on Jul 24, 2008 at 3:52:42 pm
A couple of things:
Saving the renders separately won't really help you in terms of Color. Color always looks at the original media while you working in Color - never at the renders (unlike say FCP). Hence just because a project is rendered in Color does not mean that playback within Color is any faster. The renders are really only ever looked at by FCP.
Therefore probably best to archive the original pre-Color graded media, in terms of giving you the most flexibility.
There is a relink function in Color - see P 82/83 of the manual:
"Relinking QuickTime Media
If necessary, you can manually relink media to a Color project. When you use the relink
command, Color matches each shot in the Timeline with its corresponding media file
using the following criteria:
 Starting timecode
 Filename "
More information follows in the manual on how to use these functions.
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by Jeremy Garchow on Jul 24, 2008 at 4:04:26 pm
[Peter Wollsey]"The renders are really only ever looked at by FCP."
Understood. But Color looks at the media from the FCP xml. I am talking aobut the whole process, restoring the FCP and subsequent Color project that is attached to the FCP project (so to speak). If i restore the media in FCP, and then open the Color project, will Color be smart enough to relink to it? FCP can be totally crappy at relinking to media. Then, if I rerender that project in Color, will the 'from Color' timeline in FCP relink to these new renders or do I need to resend it? Am I making sense now? Or is it best to just archive the Color rendered media?
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by Rafael Amador on Jul 25, 2008 at 3:52:50 am
Hi Jeremy,
As Walter says, as long as the media is in the same place, no problem for color to retrieve it.
If the media is somewhere else, you have a "Reconnect footage" function. However this one have not the Search capability of FC. You would have to look for the clips by your self.
Rafael
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by walter biscardi on Jul 24, 2008 at 4:15:39 pm
[Jeremy Garchow]"What's it like with Color? Is it just a matter of getting the media back online and rerendering or is there more to it than that? "
As long as the media is stored in the exact same place in the exact same folder, the project will come back normally. I have not had a situation where the media was on another drive.
[Jeremy Garchow]"Also, how do you archive your Color Projects? Obviously, the project file, but do you save all of your grades/primaries/secondaries? Do you save the Color renders or are those easy enough to remake? Do those then reconnect in FCP? "
All the grades are obviously saved within the project file. For any project I create a custom Grades Folder so I can always have the grades available to me again in the future.
I do not save Color Renders at all. Yes, they will re-connect if you save them.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by Dean Sensui on Aug 3, 2008 at 6:02:31 pm
In my workflow the process of archiving starts at the very beginning of the entire process.
Each show's episode is assigned to a specific folder. Everything will go there except for the unedited original media. The original media will reside in a folder outside the episode's folder.
Within the episode folder is everything else: Sequences, After Effects projects, LiveType files for lower-thirds.
Before I send to color I'll media manage each sequence to a folder within the episode's folder. That eventually becomes my archival copy that gets saved to a mirrored RAID.
The media-managed sequence is what I send to Color.
I set Color to save the Color Project and all the related rendered files to the episode's folder. That file path has to be assigned in a rather cumbersome way and I hope that gets fixed in a future update. For now I have to "send to Color", re-assign the file path in the user preferences, quit Color, and then re-send the project to Color so the Color project is saved to the right place. I do that only once, but if I ever have to work on multiple project that could be a problem, especially since the file paths might not be specific project.
Once a sequence is graded, it gets rendered, and all the renders now reside in the episode folder which is eventually archived (as I just mentioned above).
Media Manager doesn't play nicely with Color projects that have been sent to FCP, thus the work-around as I described.
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by Joe Murray on Aug 29, 2008 at 1:12:34 am
Jeremy-
Did you ever develop a solid method for archive/restore with Color? I do agree with Dean that the key is first Media Managing the Final Cut project to something you can comfortably archive as the sources for both FCP and the Color project, otherwise Color will be referencing huge complete Quicktime captures.
Just wondered if you've figured out something that works for you-
Re: Archiving and more importantly restoring Color project by Jeremy Garchow on Aug 29, 2008 at 1:42:04 am
Not yet. We've been in so much production lately, that I haven't been to Color in a while.
I am imagining that I will archive the Color renders, and then recpature reimport all FCP media and not archive or media manage any of that. I will also save an archive (Save as: archive) the Color project to the archive location.
I have yet to test it. I'll let you know when I do.
