Why Folder Structure Comes First
The reason I create a project folder structure before copying camera media.
The folder is part of the workflow
Before copying camera media, I create the project folder structure. This small decision makes the rest of the work easier to understand, review, and recover.
The structure gives every file a place before the volume of media makes the project complicated. It also records the first assumptions about the work, while those assumptions are still easy to change.
A simple first step
The goal is not to invent a perfect taxonomy. It is to make the next action obvious: where the original media belongs, where working files go, and where exports can be found later.
A structure that remains readable
The same principle informs the tools I build. For example, FrameBase makes the relationships between project elements explicit instead of hiding them in an opaque folder or file name.
By the end of a shoot, I do not trust my own judgment the way I did that morning. That is not a complaint — it is just something worth designing around. If I wait until I am back at my desk to think about structure, I am asking a tired version of myself to make a decision the rest of the project will depend on.
So I separate the decision from the execution. The structure gets decided earlier, while there is still enough distance from the shoot to think clearly, before the files are in front of me demanding an answer. FrameBase exists for that gap — not to generate folders, but to let that decision get finished before I am the one least equipped to make it well.
