FS7: Poll; delete or backup

Poll; delete or backup

  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .
P

Publimix

Veteran
I finished a project and now I have 3 TB of clips.

What do you do with your raw footage after the project is finished:

- delete most of the raw clips
- backup all clips
- select best clips for backup
- only backup clips that are used in project
 
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Depends.

Option A is invoice for a drive and have a backup of it all.

If just for showreel purposes some selects exported to pro res or dnxhd is fine.
 
Get the client what he wants and what he pays for.

I never would back up 3TB for free and even if paid only for the agreed time.
 
The client (s) wanted a short film. I used the same footage to make three versions.

It was a building project were the contractor wanted a film and some sub-contractors wanted a film too.
 
hmm seems your signature considering yourself as "rate-specialist" is a little disproportionate SCNR :-)

you did not mention that it's an archive with re-use footage.
 
Re a project I shot last year, the client has since requested 2 extra videos cut from it. Thus the extra income would easily pay for the storage space several times over... if I didn't already have it.
 
Clermond said:
hmm seems your signature considering yourself as "rate-specialist" is a little disproportionate SCNR :-)

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I can explain. The last signature was banned because it showed the website with the rate guide, so I had to improvise. Since 25 years I publish the Dutch and German version of the freelance hour-rate guide, and the US version since 2016. I also made Dutch Brie and produce some films. :Drogar-Happy(DBG):
 
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Clermond said:
Get the client what he wants and what he pays for.

I never would back up 3TB for free and even if paid only for the agreed time.
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My contract specifies this like this, rough translation by memory:

The production company makes sures the raw material is taken care of and insured by insurance company until delivery of final film. After this it is the clients responsibility to backup the raw material either by third party solutions, or through the production company by agreement herein.

I usually keep a copy a couple of years. Whats the cost for a Lacie 3TB drive these days? Almost zero.
 
I agree with what others are saying. Add $120 to the budget for storage. Buy a WD 3TB portable drive for the primary backup. Then create a media managed folder on your primary storage drives so you could rebuild the project with the core media assets used.

If you like, charge your client $240 and give them a portable drive as a copy and also let them know, as a service, you will keep all the content indefinitely (using the other portable drive as you main copy.) After a year or 2, delete the media managed folder you created and just keep the WD portable drive as the primary copy.

I the end, this method would not cost you a dime.
 
Martin.G said:
My contract specifies this like this, rough translation by memory:

The production company makes sures the raw material is taken care of and insured by insurance company until delivery of final film. After this it is the clients responsibility to backup the raw material either by third party solutions, or through the production company by agreement herein.
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Click to expand...

When I produce a video for a client I own all the raw elements that went into making it. They get nothing except for the final video so it is in my best interest to archive everything. It would actually be extra work for me to go back and delete stuff I didn't use. Why bother? Hard drives are cheap and I've already got 2-3 copies of everything archived away long before the project is even finished.
 
Some jobs aside from 1 shot I never want anything to do with it again. Some jobs have a shooting ratio of 500:1 because the client demands a 'cover everything' approach.

Some jobs I include a transfer of rights to the client (maintaining non-promotional usage rights for myself)

Some jobs are time sensitive and the client will never go near again.

Lots of reasons to have different approaches for different jobs.
 
I literary have hundreds of BU drives.

These days I just buy internal SATA 5" drives, very cheap. I pop them in a dock for transfer and file them away in drawers.

I don't guarantee any backup for clients. I do offer different levels of backup for them, some opt for 3 BU drives. 1 for them and 2 for me, I have 2 different buildings so one in each.

I often end up with more work from just BU footage so it is worth it to me.

There are some jobs where I only keep footage for 6 months or so, when I need my RAID space back, and some where I hand off the media, but that is rare for me.

My day rate covers the standard BU.
 
Simply add a drive to the fee,

Also I back up the rushes offsite.

And as I charge for editing by the day all of the downloading copying is charged.

S
 
Doug Jensen said:
When I produce a video for a client I own all the raw elements that went into making it. They get nothing except for the final video so it is in my best interest to archive everything. It would actually be extra work for me to go back and delete stuff I didn't use. Why bother? Hard drives are cheap and I've already got 2-3 copies of everything archived away long before the project is even finished.
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Yeah, i do the same. And its specified in my contract so they cant come afterwards and whine because my office burned down and i did not have a professional backup of the raw material.

I never say to clients i have a "backup" either. Just an extra copy, just in case. You cant argue with that in court, because a copy is a copy, and backup is a professional term that can imply pro-grade servers, external cooling, failsafe etc.
 
Is everyone just backing up to conventional harddrives still. I find them pretty terrifying these days, and I have so many drives sitting in a locked storage cabinet that I have no idea whether they're still working. The whole thing gives me the creeps.

I want to move over to LTO-7 (or possibly the Sony Archival Discs) but at $6,000-$8,000 to set yourself up with a proper long-term backup setup, it's a bitter pill to swallow.

Though that said, I'd probably sleep better at nights knowing all my data was on archival media, so maybe that's worth the price?
 
I have A & B mirrored hard drives of everything for archive, plus usually a third copy for editing. Safe, cheap, simple, and redundant backups. Nothing can beat the convenience and price right now of a simple HDD. I sleep fine. :-)
 
I'd advocate to the client to at a minimum do: one 3TB drive (they're so cheap now!) plus a second (as one copy only is no back up at all) drive of just the files used in the project (simple export, which would be an even tinier drive... dirt cheap). Store each at two different locations. Bare minimum for basic as back up.
 
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