1. A method of processing a multi-media editing project comprising: maintaining information on a local computer that comprises part of a network having multiple computers, said information being associated with multi-media files that are maintained in a network-accessible location and that can be temporarily stored on the local computer's hard drive, said information comprising a list of local directories where the multi-media files are maintained; responsive to a request to retrieve a multi-media file from the network-accessible location, using the information to attempt to locate the requested file on the local computer's hard drive before attempting to retrieve the file in the network-accessible location; and requesting a user to designate one or more additional directories where the requested multi-media file is stored in response to determining that the requested multi-media file is not located in the directories on the list.