Self-Contained Movie

[avidfilmmaker]

Hey FCP wizards - I gotta question regarding the self-contained movie option when you render as "QuickTime Movie"

I have a project that has three different sequences - one for the blooper reel, one for the trailer, and another for the movie itself. If i render one of them as a self-contained movie will it save the ENTIRE project and it's files or just that specific sequence?

I am getting ready to archive the project (for possible use later on) and am curious if I will have to render three seperate self-contained movies or if i can just do one. (I read that a self-contained movie will save all components, so you can edit on another computer later on...so I am assuming that this would be a way of archiving it. Am i right? or am I terribly mistaken?)

 

[BenB]

There are two types of QuickTime movies. Self-Contained is just that, a total self reliant video file, period. The second kind is a Referenece movie.

A Reference movie takes up hardly any disk space, and must "reference" the original files it was created from. So if you trash the original, the Reference QT movie can't find it, and won't play. A QT Reference movie can reference many different assets from all over your system to make up one movie, too.

If you save a Sequence out as a Self-Contained QT movie, it is just that, a QuickTime movie file, all on it's own, no connections to anything else. If you open it, it's just a regular video file that plays in QT Player. But there's no "tracks" or anything like in FCP there, just one video file, that contains (if saved that way) it's own audio.

You can make a Sequence, and drop all of your other Sequences into it, and export that out as a single self contained QuickTime movie. But it's just single movie, you won't have any tracks or anything like in FCP.

Try it and see what it comes out with. Then decide if that works for you.

Oh, if you have a clip open in the Viewer, and the Viewer window is active, the QT movie will be of that clip only. If your Timeline widow is active, the QT movie will be of that Sequence only. And you have to fully render all levels of rendering in a Sequence BEFORE you export to a QuickTime movie, or you'll have playback problems in the QT movie.

 

[avidfilmmaker]

Yea it doesn't sound like that is a reliable option for archiving.

What method for archiving do you recommend? Should I just locate all the files that are included in the project and put them on my hard drive (i edited on a school computer, since I submitted it as a project) or is there another method?
If i use the first one, Is there a way to deffinitely get ALL of the needed files? I fear that I'll miss one file or something and won't be able to access it right later on (it's happened on other project transfers. I copied it to a portable source, and went to edit on another computer, only to find I was missing a file).

 

[BenB]

Ok, here's what you do. Put the FCP project file, and all original files on your own drive, yes. Captures are in the Capture Scratch directory. You can find that by checking System Preferences in FCP, it'll tell you where it is set for.

Then, in your Browser, you can right click each piece of media (photos, graphics, audio, etc), and from that pop-up menu chose "Show In Finder". Or maybe it says reveal in finder, something like that. That will take you to the Finder and open a window to show you the original file. Then just copy that to your own drive.

Thing to remember is keep the file hierarchy as close to the original as you can. When you open that project up on a different Mac, it will claim a bunch of media is off line. That's normal, cause it's looking for a hard drive with the name of the one you have at school. Just "Relink" all your media and you'll be fine.

Hope this helps.

 

[avidfilmmaker]

thanks a lot. i'll try that out. it sounds like that should work.