Updated: July 27, 2026
"Can you send us the raw files?"
Two years after a project, an email arrives. The client is rebranding or has made a new cut, or the agency has changed, and someone now wants the footage. Can you send it over?
The answer depends entirely on a decision that was not made at the time: what happened to the project once it was completed. Often, the honest answer is that the drive was wiped when it became full, or it is stored in a cupboard with no one knowing if it still functions.
Archiving is the least fascinating subject in post-production, yet it determines whether your footage still exists when it turns out to be valuable.
Storage is not archive
These terms are often used interchangeably, but they refer to different things.
Working storage is fast, expensive, and well-connected. It holds the project you are currently working on, prioritizing speed over longevity.
The archive is slow, cheap, and disconnected. It stores completed work that you might need in three years. The archive is designed to remain readable then, which is a very different requirement.
A common mistake is treating a second stage as if it were the first. A completed project left on a working drive is not yet archived. It is taking up expensive storage space until someone needs that space, at which point it is deleted by whoever is under pressure that day.
Drives fail, and not gracefully
A hard drive on a shelf is not a safe place for storing data. Mechanical drives can seize if left unpowered for years, and they can fail without warning. Solid-state drives (SSDs) are also not suitable for archiving data; they can lose data when left unpowered for long periods, which is exactly what happens in an archive.
So, a single drive stored in a cupboard is not a backup. It is a gamble. Having just one copy of anything means that one failure could result in zero copies, and this failure would be discovered at the moment you need the file, which is the worst possible time to find out.
Decide what is actually worth keeping
Keeping everything forever is costly, and it is also unnecessary. A photo shoot generates a large amount of material that holds no future value. Being honest about this is what makes archiving affordable.
| Asset | Keep? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Final delivered masters | Always | The product. Small, irreplaceable. |
| Selects and used footage | Usually | What a future recut would need |
| Project file and timeline | Usually | Cheap, and it rebuilds the edit |
| Graphics and title sources | Usually | Painful to recreate |
| Every take of everything | Rarely | Huge, almost never revisited |
| Render and cache files | Never | Regenerable by definition |
The last row is reserved as free space, where people often inadvertently archive documents. Caches and renders are types of derived data. These can be reconstructed from the source data, and storing these derived files unnecessarily means paying to store something that a computer can recreate.
The "every take" row is the key decision. Keeping all original camera footage for a corporate shoot generates a large amount of data, which almost never serves the intended scenario. By retaining the selects, meaning the shots that made the cut plus credible alternates, one can cover most realistic future needs at a fraction of the size.
The exception is anything that cannot be reshot, such as a one-time event, a person who has since left, or a location that no longer looks the same. For instance, nobody is re-shooting footage from a 2024 conference. Keep that original footage.
The masters that matter
A specific point about deliverables: the compressed file you uploaded to social media is not a master file. It is a compressed copy made for a specific platform, and re-editing from it means starting from something that has already been degraded.
Keep a high-quality master of the finished piece: a proper export in an intermediate codec, or at minimum a high-bitrate version well above delivery quality. This file is relatively small compared to raw footage and is essential when someone needs to re-version the video for a different platform in a year.
Also keep the clean version, meaning the cut without burned-in text or graphics, if available. Additionally, retain the separate audio stems if the mix produced them. These elements are what make a foreign-language version or a re-titled cut without having to rebuild everything from scratch.
Where it should live
The principle remains unchanged from any previous discussions: having more than one copy of your data, stored in different locations, and in a format that remains readable.
Cloud archive tiers are inexpensive for long-term storage but incur costs when data is retrieved. This pricing model aligns well with data archiving needs. You pay a minimal fee for years of storage while accepting a retrieval cost only when you pull back the data.
Regardless of your choice, failure is almost never due to technology. It is typically organizational.
- Nobody remembers which drive it is on.
- The label reads "Client 2023 FINAL," and there are four of these.
- The person who set up the system left.
- Nobody has reviewed anything in the past three years, so nobody knows if it works.
- The project file references media located in a path that no longer exists.
A naming convention and a simple index resolve most issues. A spreadsheet listing the project, date, what was archived, and where it is stored beats any amount of storage technology. Storage that cannot be found is essentially storage that does not exist.
Test it occasionally
An archive that has never been restored from is an untested assumption. To address this, pull something back once a year, at random, and open it. If it does not open, you have identified the issue at a time when you can address it, rather than when a client is waiting.
Agree it before the project ends
The awkward but important question to ask from the beginning: who will be responsible for maintaining this, and for how long?
Clients often assume their production company retains all the footage forever. Conversely, production companies often assume the client took delivery of the footage, making it the client's responsibility. Both parties sincerely hold these assumptions, leading to situations where the footage is deleted while everyone believes someone else has it.
Put it in the agreement. State what is retained, for how long, and what happens after. State who bears the cost. If a client wants their camera original held for five years, that is a real service with a real cost, and it is a conversation, not an assumption. Our note on editing pricing covers where this belongs in a quote.
Ask us what we still have
We maintain finished masters and project files as standard practice. We clearly communicate what happens to camera original footage, rather than leaving you to make assumptions. If you require long-term retention of all materials, we will provide a clear cost estimate for that service, rather than quietly not providing it.
If you are about to start a project, the useful thing to decide now is what future you might want: a recut, a foreign version, a shorter edit for a different platform. That answer determines what is worth keeping, and it costs nothing to decide at the start and a great deal to discover at the end. Our note on social media editing covers the re-versioning case specifically.
You can see how we work on our about page, or ask us what we still hold from a past project through the contact page. If the answer is going to be no, it is better to know now.