Project disappeared

Question

I am beside myself as I was finishing a project ready to be delivered by 4:00 PM Tuesday afternoon, and it now has disappeared.
My MBP was put to sleep over night, and as I was continuing with the project this morning I noticed that the sound track was muted, even though the mute button had NOT been activated. Fiddling around with the sound settings changed nothing.
I decided to do a complete shut down of the computer, wait a few seconds and rebooted (cold start). After everything was running, I opened iMovie 10.0.2. It got stuck bouncing endlessly in the dock. I brought up 'Force Quit,' which indicated that iMovie was not responding. I was unable to force quit, as the orange ball kept spinning. I was forced to crash the computer (command-control-powerkey). After the Mac came back, and I opened iMovie..., my project was missing.
Once more I did a complete shut down and cold start. My project was still missing. I am convinced that at the iMovie crash something got corrupted.
When I go into the iMovie library and open the package, my project is still there, with the 'CurrentVersion.imovieevent' displaying the correct time stamp when last worked on. However, when double clicking on it a text file with a lot of gobbledigook comes up.
Is there a way to salvage my project? Ironically, I was just about to hook up my external diskdrive to run a Time Machine back-up.
Hours of work!! Deadline looming!
Please help!!
Klaus

Answer 1

Hey guys! Here's what I did that saved my project.
-SHORT VERSION-
Use the Finder window on your Mac to copy and paste your old project (the one not showing up in imovie) to a new folder so that iMovie will see it.
-LONG VERSION-
CONDITIONS:
The project has to exist on your hard drive. To see if it's hiding around somewhere go to:
Home (your name)>Movies>iMovie Library (right click and select Show Package Contents)
In the iMovie Library folder (the default is usually the date) open it to see if your Project is inside. If it is, you are in luck!
RESTORING PROJECT:
Open iMovie
start a new folder under the iMovie Library (again, the default is usually todays date)
Close iMovie
In the finder window (as explained above in the CONDITIONS section) select the files and folders of your project and copy them (in my case these consist of folders called Analysis Files, Original Media, "MYPROJECT", Render Files, Shared Items)
There should now be a folder with today's date in that Show Package Contents folder.
Paste a copy of your project;s files into this folder.
When it is done copying, open up the "Original Media" folder and all of your images and clips should be present.
reopen iMovie. Your project should show up in the Libraries list.
*If your full project isn't showing in the iMovie timeline (mine just had empty bubbles where all my clips and audio should be) try dragging and dropping the clips and images from the project's "Original Media" folder into the import section of your project. Once the files were reimported, iMovie recognized them all and put them back in the correct place for me.
Hope this helps someone!