completed a key step on thursday:  finally discarded the session file  (all my hard work gone :/)  and converted all the raw video files to a codec that (supposedly) works better with final cut.  so finishing this project up should be a quick process, at this point.  after the codec conversion, i shouldn’t have to wait for video files to render all the time!  i’ll finish up in the next week or two, before the end of the month.