After Effects - Where did my file go?

October 3, 2006 9:19 PM

After Effects - Where did my file go?

I was working on an After Effects project last night with some big files, and went back to work on it today and, lo and behold, the color bars are there suggesting a file is missing.

Now considering I didn't move anything around or delete anything, I have absolutely no idea where it went. I searched the drives - nothing. Unless it accidentally was dragged somewhere else, but it should come up in a Spotlight search, right? All my footage is on external hard drives btw.

I imported all the fooage in Final Cut Pro. Its not there either. Its as if it didn't exist, although there is a reference to it in After Effects. I'm scratching my dumb ass head. What do I do? (I don't have the master tapes anymore either)

posted by dvjtj to Technology (3 answers total)

When you imported the footage in FCP did you actually copy it to your hard drive or did you just open it in FCP? Final Cut is designed to never actually modify the original footage (their term is non-destructive). If you used it as your import vehicle, there is a chance that it was just using your cached copies as reference material.

The good news is, if this is the case, your work is not lost. FCP makes good use of reference markers and if you can get access to the tapes again you can import it and everything should work again.

Bad news is if you no longer have access to the original material, you might be screwed.

And I could be completely wrong. I'm just beginning to discover the power that is FCP and AE, so my knowledge is admittedly somewhat limited.
posted by quin at 10:33 PM on October 3, 2006

[place commas where appropriate]
posted by quin at 10:34 PM on October 3, 2006

Make sure when using spotlight with external drives, to click "Others" in the menu bar and specifcally include all of the drives you want to search. Otherwise, it only searches the drives used in the previous search.
posted by doctor_negative at 4:51 AM on October 4, 2006