My worst fear has come true. Last night after the presentation, I felt tired for either hay fever or a cold. I caught the train and changed at Central Station while listening to iPod to relax. It was probable too relaxing and I was blurred. Next thing I knew I got off the train without the harddrive I was bringing back home every Thursday for the weekly back up.

First thing I ringed info line but it was out of business hour. With help of a friend on twitter who works for CityRail, I could locate where the train looped and got the numbers of the stations but it was too late in the night. No one heard anything. The best thing I could do was to call the info line in the morning.

What has been lost?

Basically, everything I have been working on this project in the week and some projects:

• Visual edit of fine cut 05. I still have low-res of Fine cut o6 in my thumb drive to as a reference.
• Sound design. Luckily, I work the audio on studio’s harddrive and it could still be there in CG15.
• Colour grading work. I will have to re-adjust it when CG13 is ready again.
• After Effect composite in Lounge scene. This could be redone easily and I like to tweak it a bit anyway.
• Last semester’s work. Joy still have that folder.
• The video art project I initiated during the break. It’s the only one that I don’t have any back up anywhere but I have the DV tape and can start again. (If I feel inspired)

Retrieval Plan

Obviously, it can’t be waited for a mishap to dissolve itself. The goal is to catch up progress of the week work last in the weekend so that I can go on with the project next week. The actions are:

1. Get a new harddrive. It has to be FireWire since I work Final Cut Pro from the hard drive. La Cie rugged or Western Digital Passport II are my choices.
2. Retrieve Pro Tool files from CG15. The room is booked for 30 minute for that.
3. Retrieve the latest version of fine cut I have from my back up.
4. Spend most of the time trying to match the work-in-progress: fine cut, composite and rough colour grading.

Lesson learned

What I have really lost is the plan to do other things today: research on other project, assignment and stress. There should be more sufficient back up plan for it. Not only for this project but for my entire archives. Weekly back up may not be enough when a disaster strikes. Everyone, please take me as an example.

25 September 2009