Did you ever have one of your projects just simply disappear? How about a software crash in the middle of a complex job? Well, I have. Almost everyone in the business has had that happen at least once. The difference between how I work on projects today versus how I worked on them in the past is the way that I back things up. My backup plans are directly related to the first two questions in this post. I have had projects disappear and I have also had projects crash without backing them up. I learned my lesson. Hopefully after reading this you won’t have to learn the hard way.

Daily backing up

It goes without saying that you should save your work “early and often.” It was always something that I heard as I grew up in this business but it never hit me as being important until something bad hit me first. Now I make it a point to save my projects . . . often. I save before I get up to get some coffee. I save before I get up to go to lunch. I save before I render anything and I save before I go to the bathroom. Save, save, save! That’s the most important thing to take away from this post.

However, saving your project isn’t just the only way to make sure that it will be there tomorrow when you sit back down. At the end of the day you’ll want to perform a few techniques before leaving or shutting your system down.

Four easy steps to backing up your projects

Before you leave the office for the evening or for that trip to Bora Bora, follow these simple steps:

1. Take the time to make a copy of your project file. On a Mac you can simply option-click on the file and drag it to your desktop. On a PC just right-click (and hold down) on the file and drag to your desired location. When you release the mouse button it will ask if you want to copy or move the file. Choose copy.
2. Now change the project file name by adding the date to the end of the file name. Using the naming convention that I wrote about in my “Getting organized for your edit” post you would have your project labeled 090101 XYZ-Project. Simply change the name to 090101 XYZ-Project_11-05-09. It’s a long file name but it serves it’s purpose because you are now creating backup files for each day that you work on the project.
3. Upload this to an FTP site or some other type of off-site location. If you have an FTP site it’s an easy thing to do. If you have a MobileMe account it’s an easy thing to do. You can also find storage sites that are free, like MediaFire. I like MediaFire because you can create folders for your projects and there is no limit to how long you keep your files on their servers.
4. Make a same as source file of your working timeline. This isn’t always necessary but it’s a good way to protect yourself. Think of it as creating a submaster of your project each time you make significant changes. If it’s small enough you can upload it to an FTP site or you can just do like I do and put it on a different drive than your main media. In Avid, you can export a same as source Quicktime file. In FCP, you export your timeline as a Quicktime file and make sure you check the “Make file self contained” before you export. It’s called a “same as source” file because it takes your timeline (and all of those edits you made) and creates a file based on the source codec. This means that the quality is still top-notch. If you compress this file you run the risk of not being able to use it later as source material.

Why do I do this? Perhaps I’m crazy – I wouldn’t argue with you there – but simply it creates an off-site backup location for your project file and your new same as source file or submaster. The reasoning behind this isn’t silly at all. It’s practical. If you’re working on a project and your project file gets corrupted you will always have something to go back to. If you made some changes to a project and you didn’t make copies of your timeline (shame on you) then you have previous backups to go to. It’s like going back in time. Too bad you can’t do this with your relationships.

Worst case scenario

That makes sense for the project file but why a same as source file for each timeline? Ok, bear with me. This one’s a little out there. Let’s just say that you prepare a same as source file and a backup project file. You upload these to an FTP. Now you leave and go home. When you return in the morning you find that the office has burned down. Aside from all of the issues that you come across in dealing with the firefighters, insurance adjusters and random curious people – you have a client that paid you good money to finish their project . . . tomorrow. What do you do? Well if you just saved the project file – chances are all of your tapes and/or media have just gone up in flames. (hopefully you backed everything up and moved those files to separate locations but if you’re a small production company this is probably not the case.) Your client will be sympathetic to your situation, however they still need their project completed . . . and they trusted you to get that done. Luckily, you saved a same as source file to an external location. Your project file is useless without media to recapture, but your same as source file is now your hero. You can import that file into a new project on a different computer (different than the one that has been melted in the fire) and continue to work. Worst case scenario, of course, but definitely within the realm of possibility.

Backing up your projects seems a little more important now, doesn’t it? If you still don’t see the need then I would just say remember this article when your hard drive fails you. It WILL happen. Let’s just hope that you can see the importance of being prepared for the inevitable.

Photo: matsuyuki