Source clip disappeared from hard drive!

Question

Hi everybody,
Very strange and worrying problem here.
I was editing on a college computer in FCE (Final Cut Express), trying to put some end credits on a short film. I created a rough edit of my end sequence visuals, and copied it to a new Sequence, entitled 'end titles', which I exported to LiveType (File > Export > Export to LiveType). When I imported it into LiveType, I remembered that it didn't import audio to LiveType (annoyingly - does anyone know why this is?), so I decided to go back and put markers on the video where key points occured in the soundtrack, so I could synchronise my titles with the music in LiveType.
In FCE, I put my markers on the video, in the new Sequence, and re-exported it to LiveType, with the same name, replacing the old file without the markers. LiveType duly removed the old background track from its timeline, but when I went to File > Place Background Movie, the new file wasn't there.
I went back to FCE, which had reported a general error, and when I clicked OK it told me that some media had gone missing - one of the files used by my end sequence, from which I had made a freeze frame. I clicked 'Reconnect', went to the project folder in the Capture Scratch folder - but the file wasn't there. FCE was now displaying the red 'Media Offline' message wherever that clip appeared. I was befuddled. In the Finder I looked in the Capture Scratch > project folder, but it was nowhere to be found. All the others were there, in numerical order, but that particular clip, number 18, was gone. I searched for it in Spotlight, with a variety of similar terms derived from its name. There was no mention of it anywhere.
Does anyone know how or why a media clip could simply disappear completely from a hard drive - or if there is any hope of getting my media back, short of re-capturing it??
Thanks much guys,
~Bacchus

Answer 1

Hi(Bonjour)!
As stated earlier livetype doesn'support audio. So before exporting your movie from sequence, you can put some color frame where your want to cue livetype elements. Those cues will be usefull when you will edit your livetype project but you will have to set the visibility of background to off before the saving or the "cue" version will appears in your project.
To export a movie to livetype, I put a In and OUT points to set the movie duration/content in timeline and save a quicktime movie "self contained".
I import this movie into livetype project, doing the titling and save the project.
I import the livetype project itself into FCE (not the rendered movie) and the rendering occur in FCE HD itself. You can use a "replace edit" to replace the original clip in timeline with the livetype project (who acts as a clip). You can add sound element in FCE HD timeline to fit your titling project.
Livetype is included with FCS 2 by I doupt that many editors use it as MOTION application is included and supports many more features like sound.
The "send to..." function if Final Cut Pro 6 work as intended.
Michel Boissonneault