Kingsley's Blog

Have you ever started an After Effects project in a rush? Maybe you forgot to see the true origin of your files (a slow USB 1.0 drive) and started dragging and dropping away because a client was breathing down your neck or you were extremely rushed. Then you try to play back your timeline only to realize that your machine is responding like a very old pc from 1997, and you waste even more time.

Don’t fret! Thankfully you are not using After Effects 4.1, you are using AE 6.5 or maybe even AE CS4, and there is a simple fix:

Select file > collect files, then choose a destination that IS on your internal hard drive (or other fast drive such as a Firewire 800 drive)

Select file > collect files

That’s it! Simple and fast, depending on the time it takes to copy files over from your slow USB 1.0 drive. This is also a useful archiving tool if you want to share your project with another artist or just archive it to DVD-ROM. I should point out also that the reduce project and consolidate footage are helpful actions before this step, but do them at your own risk on a fresh copy of your project as they may remove a file that you planned to use later.

I should point out that it is a best practice, BEFORE you start a project, to copy your files over into one directory (call it by “project_name”) on your fastest hard drive with sub-directories similar to this:

• ae (for all your After Effects Projects)
• fcp (for all your Final Cut Pro Projects)
• footage (for all video footage)
• images (for any .jpgs, .psds, .tiffs, etc…)
• audio (for any audio you might clean up)
• deliverables (for anything you want to show to you client/ audience)

You could also have similar bins / folders in your After Effects project to help you stay organized:

• comps/pre-comps (for your working comps and sub/pre-comps)
• renders (for comps that you want to render)
• audio (if necessary)
• footage (for all video footage)
• images (for any .jpgs, .psds, .tiffs, etc…)
• solids (I am always tempted to move this into the images bin but I find when a new one is created, the default is to create a new solids folder)

Another tip is to have a copy of empty folder structure with above names in your templates folder and make a fresh copy when starting a new project. It will save you the time of creating the same directory structure each time, and you will be consistently organized.

One last tip for the road: If you want to swap out just one file in your composition, select it in the comp timeline, then select the new file from your project window and option/alt drag it onto the file you want to replace. If it’s the same size then your work is done!

A special thanks to Ian C. for inspiring this post!