Tutorial - Renaming Files with Adobe Bridge

Camera file names are basically worthless. Good media management requires you do something to those names so they are of use to you in post. Here is my technique for changing file names so that they are more friendly and ‘play well with others’.

Comments

[Ron Dawson]

Hey Chris, couple of questions:
1. Why did you go to bridge instead of Apple's built-in Automator program?
2. Is there a reason you don't include the client or project name (or abbreviation) as part of the filename?

Thanks for all you do.

[Chris Fenwick]

Ron... I find Automator to be a pain in the ass... maybe i'm not smart enough to figure it out... it always seems like I'm programming. There are those that swear by it... I tend to find myself swearing AT it more often than not.

I don't put the client name in the file name normally but recently we had two shoots for two clients going on at the same time and I actually thought... that may not be a bad idea.

For now, the client name is NOT in the file name because it all lives in a job folder that does in deed have the client name and project name.

What exactly do YOU do... I'm always looking for input on these matters.

[Chris Fenwick]

OK, so you know, if you are reading this I've come full circle on this renaming thing. Our file names now look like this.

A1_Client_Job_shoot-date_Original File Name.mov

So that would be
Camera A, Card 1 of the day,

The client name may be ADB for Adobe, (we always try to give client names a 3 letter abbreviation ala Pixel Corp).

The Job would be the event or video name, trying to keep it to one word.

The shoot date usually derived from the file creation date and we always do a 6 digit decending file name. 130424 for April 24, 2013.

And then the original (worthless) file name. its not entirely worthless... one time we found a card laying around the office, misplace carelessly. It was a simple order to determine if that card had been copied, renamed and archived, just by doing a database search for the ORIGINAL file name, it popped up in the system with the appropriate prefixes and we could rest assured that the data was death with appropriately.

So thats what WE do ... NOW.