Best Way To Share Projects In FCPX?

[Ben Fullerton]

Hey folks,

So I'm wondering what they best way to pass a project back and forth betwen two editors/locations is. I never used FCP7 much, but it's my understanding that if two editors both had a disk with all the media on it, then you could just pass the relatively small project files back and forth, and keep relinking the media, or something like that. Is that true of X? I know that we now have the ability to relink media, so is there a way we can do the same sort of thing? A friend and I are going to be working on a project together, and what would be ideal is that I can work on it, and then it to him in a relatively small fashion, and he would would be able to have a current version of everything I did, then he could work, and send it back. And so on...

So, anyone know the best way to attach this in FCPX?

Thanks!

Ben

[William Hohauser]

Unless someone chimes in with a different solution, the only way to share a project is with the "move" function which will move a project and all it's related files to another drive. There isn't an easy way to just copy a project fine only like in FCP7. What might be a good way to deal with this is to have the project and all it's files on a shared external drive that is backed up at the edit locations before getting handed off to the next editor.

[Ben Fullerton]

That's sort of a bummer. I was hoping for a more favorable answer than that...

I would suppose that with many other shortcomings addressed, the inability to easily pass a project between editors is now one of the biggest weaknesses in FCPX.

[Michael Liebergot]

Actually if you know that you will be sharing the project, then the neatest way to work FCPX Events/Projects might be by using Disk Images created for each Event/Project. this way all media and files are kept neatly on a disk image, which can easily be unmounted and shared across networks. And even better the disk image is what's always being worked on, so there's no need to have a dedicated drive and such for your Event/Project.

Check out these two references:
Managing Your FCP X Events & Projects using Disk Images
Two ways to manage your FCPX events, one gives access to Xsan volumes too

[Ben Fullerton]

Thanks for the reply.

But doing that, wouldn't you have to pass the whole disk image back and forth (on what, a drive), including all the original media? It's not too easy to just pass 500gb of media back and forth. There needs to be a way to share the updated project files and info, without having to unnecessarily keep pass all the media back and forth.

Cheers.

[William Hohauser]

An FCPX Project file is not as big as the Event folder, especially if you do not render. Passing that back and forth wouldn't be as cumbersome as the entire Event folder plus a rendered Project folder. But it means that a relink is needed every time just like FCP7. Perhaps each editor could duplicate the file directory tree for the media files and the project file would relink automatically. Worth a test, however I work solo so maybe you could try it.

[Michael Liebergot]

As was aid by William, if you start off by creating a Disk Image of your project, and both you and the second editor has the same original disk image, then all you should have to do is pass of the Event file and backup file, and Project files and subsequent backup files as well.

The reason that this should work is that all of your media still resides in the disk image.

[Ben Fullerton]

Would a similar thing work if you had an exact clone of the media drive, so that you could pass the media files back and forth, and FCPX always thinks it's referencing the same drive?