Post Production Workflow with Digital Rebellion
Besides your editing software, you probably use utilities to maintain your system and perform specific tasks.
I use apps like Disk Warrior (disk repair) & Onyx (system maintenance), but what about utilities specifically designed for post production workflows?
In 2010 I discovered Digital Rebellion from a review on the Los Angeles Creative Pro User Group (lafcpug) site. I started using the free utilities “Preference Manager” & “FCS Remover” when my main tool was FCP 7. They were a big time saver and they “just worked”. I have been a fan/customer ever since. If an app can make my my workflow more efficient and prevent/fix issues then it’s saving me money and getting me return clients.
Digital Rebellion‘s motto is “Workflow Efficiency Redefined”. They make utilities that streamline your workflow and optimize/maintain your system. Originally they were “FCP-Centric”, but with changes in the industry their apps are agnostic and work with Media Composer, Premiere Pro, and FCP/X. Apps like “Post Haste” are now cross platform, and they make a bunch of really useful iPhone/iPad apps like Cut Notes & EditCodes. (I cover them in “10 Filmmaking Apps Under $10″)
In this post I cover utilities in Pro Media Tools ($99), Pro Maintenance Tools ($139), and Pro Versioner ($59) that I use daily/weekly. Check out the Digital Rebellion site, as they have over 15 apps and they offer 15 day trial versions. I also like that when you download their apps they live in a unified interface called the “Digital Rebellion App Launcher”. This makes it easy to find, add, and update the apps.
Auto Transfer (Pro Media Tools)
This is a handy tool if you work with tapeless media. Auto Transfer has 4 panels (Transfer, Destination, Metadata, Actions) that let you customize how you want to work. It can be setup to automatically copy your media to multiple locations, create a disk image, and perform a checksum on the copied files to ensure they are exactly the same as those on the card. I love that it does that automatically and you can also set up metadata than can be used in a spreadsheet.
Post Haste (Free and Pro Media Tools)
Simplify your workflow by using folder structure templates. Post Haste comes with 5 templates for different workflows that you can also customize to your specific needs. You can also create project templates for After Effects, FCP 6/7, Premiere Pro, & Motion (has prebuilt ones for After Effects & FCP 6/7). Recently I taught a Premiere Pro class and several students said they were using Post Haste at their business. They said it had really simplified their workflow as the team members could find and add assets easily with the folder structure.
Pro Versioner
You drag a project in to Pro Versioner to immediately back it up. It is smart and will automatically back up your project when you save in your editing app (PP, FCP/X, MC). A big feature for me is that it takes screenshots of the projects, so you can tell them apart. If you are working with a client and trying to decide which project version to look at, this is huge. But wait, thats not all. Pro Versioner will automatically Sync your backups to Dropbox. Once you set this up (really easy) Dropbox will sync when an automatic backup happens. Huge…
QuickFix (Pro Maintenance Tools)
QuickFix keeps your editing software in peak condition. When you press the QuickFix button it runs Housekeeper, backup/trashes Preferences, repairs Compressor/Adobe Creative Suite/Avid Media Composer (you can also run each of these manually).You can map QuickFix to a keyboard shortcut and I useTask Scheduler to automatically run QuickFix each week. Since I mainly edit in PP these day CS Repair is a go to app for me. CS Repair fixes common issues with Premiere Pro like dynamic link permissions. (There is also MC Repair for AVID Editors). CS Repair saved me a day of work a couple months ago. I was teaching Premiere Pro and the clients machine wouldn’t launch Premiere Pro. I used disk utility and trashed the preferences, but the problem persisted. I ran CS Repair and it fixed the issue in about 20 minutes and Premiere Pro worked fine after that.
Crash Analyzer (Pro Maintenance Tools)
Ever try to read a Crash Log? Not a good time unless you are an engineer. For the rest of us Crash Analyzer displays a list of the crash logs with a suspected cause. It lists suggested actions and you can fix the crash by clicking the “Perform Action” button. You can also use it remotely by pasting the crash log text into Crash Analyzer and analyzing it.
QT Edit (Pro Media Tools)
