As I mentioned in my last post, I have been in Brooklyn all week working on a short multimedia project for school. At first I was a little concerned that the project lacked direction and focus. But after putting together some of my footage and stills in Final Cut Pro, and adding in the audio I had recorded, I realized that this project had some legs!

I still have some shooting to do today. I still could come back here week after week and continue to see how this project develops. It's an amazing part of Brooklyn that seems to be somewhat overlooked. There is just so much going on here that I think is really worth noticing. But for now, I will have to work with what I have got, and see where it takes me.

One thing I have noticed so far is how much I take Aperture for granted. When I'm just shooting stills, I have this quick routine of importing my take, making selects, making adjustments, logging, archiving, exporting, and backing up as I go. It has become sort of second nature for me, and I don't really have to think much anymore. I know my files are safe, and I know how to easily find them and work with them whenever I want.

I can't really say the same for my audio and video files. To tell you the truth I have really no good way of making sure everything gets organized, catalogued, and cared for in nearly the same way as my stills do. It has been something that has been on my mind all week. Since I have been here I have shot well over 10 gigabytes of HD video footage, and probably about two hours worth of audio. The video is all stored both on the original miniDV tapes, and on my computer's hard drive, in a single folder. The audio was originally captured on compact flash cards and transfered to my laptop's hard drive in a number of sub-folders.

But this is where my organization ends. In Final Cut Pro I have the ability to manage most of these files, but this seems to be on a sort of project by project basis. There is no real good mechanism in place to manage these things and make sure they are backed up and that the originals are left untouched.

I tried out Microsoft's Expression Media ( formerly iView Media Pro ). I used to use this app long before Aperture was available, and while it is a great app, I can't really see myself going back to it. It has a few inherent design issues that I am just not happy with.

I have also been doing a good deal of research on Apple's Final Cut Server app. FCS is an amazing system if you have an in house production studio. You can set it up on a powerful machine and any laptop or workstation on your network can access it via its Java based client.

The little I have played with FCS tells me that it is a very Aperture-like application with lots of potential. But, and this is a major but, there is no standalone equivalent for working in the field. Your client must be able to reach the server in order for it to work. It is pretty impractical to try and upload gigabytes of data back to a server at your home office, especially while you are on the road, working remotely and moving around all the time. There really needs to be a standalone, offline version of the client that you can at least use while you are in the field to organize what you are working on, while you are working on it.

I suppose an alternative would be to set up FCS at home, and use Final Cut Pro to organize your project while on the road. When you get home you can simply add the Final Cut Pro project to the server and watch all of the associated assets get backed up and managed automatically.

I really hope this could work out, and I will be sure to write about it if it does.

What all this boils down to is that it has shown me how robust of an application Aperture really is. It takes care of so much of the work associated with my RAW digital still images. I really don't have to think about this stuff at all anymore. I just shoot, import and work with my files--Aperture does the rest.