Off and on I’ve tried tackling the metadata approach for a large-documentary project I’m assigned at work, as of today the raw footage consist of 2,864 movie files spread across the last 201 days. All of these files are stored on a network drive via gigabit ethernet. My first workflow involved keywords and a smart-folder in Adobe Bridge, which worked well for a while, but I soon began to push the limits of Bridge, resulting in a 50/50 chance the keywords I applied to footage would take or not. So, over time, I spent less and less effort in properly logging metadata to footage, as it was just an incredibly fickle and frustrating thing to do. But, after lots of other experimenting with different apps and syncing approaches, I think I’ve finally got a workflow I’m happy with! It uses a bit of Hazel magic, local aliases of networked files, and iMovie. 1st: I had to create a Hazel rule that would run a match through all subfolders starting at the top-folder of my Final Cut capture-scratch for the documentary. See this photo for an example. 2nd: I made a Hazel rule that found any movie files and to create aliases for each file within my local Home folder: ~/Home/Movies/iMovie Events/… , a few seconds later and Hazel had scanned through all 5.7 TBs of footage and created 2,864 aliases, totaling only 400 Mbs on my local drive!, not bad. 3rd: Open iMovie and let it do its thing. Done. Now, iMovie treats an alias exactly like the original movie file, but!, and this was a great surprise for me, it places the thumbnail folder with the original movies, not with the aliases, helping me keep all my footage on the server where it’s supposed to be! So, when I open iMovie, it takes a moment to check for any new movie files that don’t already have thumbnails generated and makes them, anything that has previously had a thumbnail generated for it is already good to go! I’ll write a follow-up to this post after I have more of a chance to try and break iMovie via tagging 2,000+ files. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it holds up better than Bridge working off of locally stored aliases.

Off and on I’ve tried tackling the metadata approach for a large-documentary project I’m assigned at work, as of today the raw footage consist of 2,864 movie files spread across the last 201 days. All of these files are stored on a network drive via gigabit ethernet.

My first workflow involved keywords and a smart-folder in Adobe Bridge, which worked well for a while, but I soon began to push the limits of Bridge, resulting in a 50/50 chance the keywords I applied to footage would take or not. So, over time, I spent less and less effort in properly logging metadata to footage, as it was just an incredibly fickle and frustrating thing to do.

But, after lots of other experimenting with different apps and syncing approaches, I think I’ve finally got a workflow I’m happy with! It uses a bit of Hazel magic, local aliases of networked files, and iMovie.

1st: I had to create a Hazel rule that would run a match through all subfolders starting at the top-folder of my Final Cut capture-scratch for the documentary. See this photo for an example.

2nd: I made a Hazel rule that found any movie files and to create aliases for each file within my local Home folder: ~/Home/Movies/iMovie Events/… , a few seconds later and Hazel had scanned through all 5.7 TBs of footage and created 2,864 aliases, totaling only 400 Mbs on my local drive!, not bad.

3rd: Open iMovie and let it do its thing. Done. Now, iMovie treats an alias exactly like the original movie file, but!, and this was a great surprise for me, it places the thumbnail folder with the original movies, not with the aliases, helping me keep all my footage on the server where it’s supposed to be! So, when I open iMovie, it takes a moment to check for any new movie files that don’t already have thumbnails generated and makes them, anything that has previously had a thumbnail generated for it is already good to go!

I’ll write a follow-up to this post after I have more of a chance to try and break iMovie via tagging 2,000+ files. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it holds up better than Bridge working off of locally stored aliases.

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