Editing a feature, advice before I go in?

Question

Hi all,
I'm going in, editing a 90 min. feature from 25 hours of footage on Final Cut Studio, (latest non-universal binary release).
I have a Dual 2 Ghz G5 Tower, 20" aluminum apple display, ATI Radeon 9650 with 256 VRAM, and 2.5 gigs RAM, a 250 GB internal HD, plus a 160 GB LaCie Firewire Drive, M-Audio Studio Pro 4 monitors, and a Contour ShuttleXpress.
If necessary, I can spend a mere $500 for any tweaks/upgrades, (Final Cut Pro Keyboard? Others?)
Any advice before I go into this thing so I start it right?
Suggestions, encouragement?
All responses appreciated, (but please don't say get a Quad or a MBP or whatever, because I was lucky enough to get this equipment and even that was a stretch. Thanks!)

Answer 1

If you are truly editing SD, you don't list any sort of capture card. Exactly how are you planning on getting that footage into your system? Another issue is that the drives you have will not really support SD footage.
Are you doing the finishing, or just off-lining? If the former, you do not list a production monitor, or a beta deck of any sort.
So you are missing, at the very least, four necessary components. Or I'm missing something.
I too will second everyone's comments. First off, before you even boot up the machine, it's time to lay out all the tapes in a row and give them each a number. Box AND tape. Build yourself a tape/content database. This can be something as simple as a spiral notebook where you compile all the camera reports, sound reports, tape numbers etc-- or a full blown as an excel spreadsheet.
Then get hold of a copy of the script supervisor's book, and cross correlate scene and take numbers with your tape log.
You should be easily able to know exactly where any video clip is residing on what tape, and be able to pull it off the shelf immediately.
Establish a project backup strategy and back up the project every night. I keep a little portable zip drive and cart to copy my folder of projects, and take it home every night.
Make sure you have enough shelf space to get all those tapes up off the floor into some sort of logical order. A clean cutting room is a joy to work in. Take the last half hour of your workday to leave the cutting room every night (WHENEVER that might be) in such a state that another editor can walk in tomorrow and pick up right where you left off. You might get hit by a bus or car. I know it sounds morbid, but that actually happened to me back in 1988. I was in the hospital for 10 weeks, and the show went on just fine without me. This will also make it a joy for you to step into every morning, even when you're at the "I'm going to strangle this @&$$&)* director!" phase.
If you're lucky enough that they hire you an assistant, let him or her have a crack at roughing in a scene or two. Don't let that person just do all the grunt work. A happy assistant = a happy cutting room.
Get some plants into your cutting room, they absorb some of that raditaion coming out of the monitors, and will make you feel better-- you're not the only living thing in there. Allow for some daylight when you're not color correcting-- that'll make you feel better too. Have a client table with a monitor on it. Being crowded at the edit desk can make one pretty squirrelly and testy. Keep your personal space clear.
Above all, have fun. This is supposed to be fun.