Movie trailers are fun to watch, but few people know the hard work that goes into creating one. In addition to marking often hundreds of timestamps to use in a trailer, the precision editing required to create a seamless flow between just two clips is enormous. After all, that’s involved in creating a movie trailer, it’s safe to say if you do it – you enjoy the work.
While editing itself presents a multitude of challenges, getting access to all of your source video clips is equally challenging. Today’s video editors rely on the internet to transfer files, but there are limitations even on fast connections.
If you work on movie trailers and need some reliable methods for transferring large files to your work machine, these tips will help.
1. Use Box for anywhere transfers
Depending on your work habits, you might want to access your source files from a location you’ve never been to, like a friend’s house. If you don’t have a port on your laptop for a hard drive and don’t want to carry an adapter and hard drive, you need an online cloud solution.
The ideal solution is to upload your source files to a Box account. With Box, you can send large files by uploading everything to the cloud and then emailing yourself a private link. Just like Google Docs, you can set specific permissions for each link you create in your account. Set your link to allow anyone with the link to download the files and you’ll be good to go.
Uploading your source files to a Box account also makes it easy for other editors to access the raw footage. If you’re collaborating with other video editors on a trailer or working with a team to create several types of trailers, a cloud storage account from Box will come in handy.
2. Create a private torrent
Torrents aren’t the easiest way to send large files to yourself and others, but they will work in a pinch. Although, the only way to make a torrent transfer secure is to use a client that allows you to create a private torrent.
By default, torrents are public and searchable within the torrent’s application. That means people can potentially find your files by searching for keywords matching your filenames. Private torrents aren’t publicly searchable.
The downside to using private torrents to send large files is the fact that you can’t control your files if they’re stored, even temporarily, on someone else’s server. Technically, torrents are supposed to use the host’s computer to deliver files to a target computer, but you have no way to guarantee the torrent client isn’t saving your files.
3. Use AirDrop for Apple devices
AirDrop is one of the easiest ways to share files between Apple devices. If you can get both machines in the same room to transfer your source files, you can use AirDrop. All you need to do is turn on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on both devices, turn on AirDrop from your finder window, and you can transfer large files quickly between devices.
Like a torrent, there is a downside. If you can’t get both of your machines in the same room, you can’t use AirDrop. If you need to send your source files to another editor out of state, AirDrop won’t work.
4. Use file-sharing software
It’s getting harder to find, but there are software applications that will allow you to share files between computers by connecting them online. These applications allow you to set a password to restrict access to either computer.
These applications are great when you need to transfer files to and from people out of state or in another country. However, they require that all devices download the software. Some applications aren’t compatible between Mac and Windows, which will present a major obstacle in some cases.
The most popular file-sharing application compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux is Send Anywhere. According to Makeuseof.com, the application now has a Chrome browser extension and a web application.
5. Use an external hard drive
Doing everything online makes it hard to think about using an old-school hard drive, but external drives are still used in many professional industries. They’re not as convenient as instant online access, but they’re sometimes easier since you won’t need to log into an account. Some drives can even fit in your pocket.
Video editing requires access to large files
As long as you edit trailers, you’ll need to transfer large files. Whichever method you choose, find one that will work long-term even if you have to pay for the services.