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Premier Integration with After Effects Question
Hello,
I have always had an issue with this, and since I’m feeling a bit frustrated, I figure now is a good time to address the forum. Maybe somebody can tell me what I’m doing wrong.
I am an Adobe guy. I have the CS3 suite and use Premier for Capturing and editing. But my problem with premier is that it seems to be a very limited editing program. So often, I want to do a bit more customization of a transition, or more video effects that simply aren’t there. (but in my opinion should be, fwiw)
So enter After Effects. Build the transition you want, construct the video effect, all is good and well.
But the problem comes in when I have captured and begun to use Premier, but would like to edit some footage in AE.
If I goto file->dynamic link->New After Effects Comp, essentially, it spawns AE with a new AEComp. Not what I want. this comp in AE is empty! What can I do in AE with that? (other than a blind lens flare or title screens, etc..)
What I want, is for AE to open my Premier comps, allow me to massage clips, create transitions, or whatever other magic AE has to offer. Then go back into premier and see the clips “Dynamically updated.”
The only way I see that this is possible is to launch AE, goto File->Import, and import my Premier saved file. But this is not dynamic! And the conclusion of the edit has to be done from that point forward in AE. Which is not good because of the render options needed that rest in the premier pro factory.
So what is someone to do when they edit with premier? Should I just trash editing with Premier since I always have to goto AE for the video work anyway? Or is there some way that I’m missing that will link from Premier to AE, and not the other way around?
Thanks!
CS3 – Mac
C4D -
6 Replies
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Well the “dynamic” part really means that you won’t have to render between the apps, which is a huge time saver.
Also, any items such as titles, etc. that you create in that new composition will be linked in Premiere without rendering.
As far as transitions goes, the problem is that AE uses masks and particles with many of its effects, and Premiere doesn’t support them, so you’ll likely have to do that in AE manually and render there to something like QT animation.
You can however import AE comps into Premiere without rendering, as long as the effects used in AE are available in Premiere.
Vince
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I guess I’m having a problem with the workflow that Adobe is so proud of. You say that titles, etc. that are created in AE will be linked in Premier w/o rendering. That’s right, as will many other effects. But the problem with that statement is that w/o the premier content in AE (footage), it’s really hard to color correct and blend a title to the footage being edited. The same goes for special effects.
The footage has to exist in AE first, then linked into Premier. This doesn’t seem logical to me in a workflow. I capture and edit in Premier first, then AE to edit special effects on my work.
If I arrange my shots in Premier, then decide that I need to put a lens flare on a scene with a sword, or perhaps the next scene down needs to have a CG Fire on the firepit, or a gunshot in the footage on scene 33 needs a muzzleflash update, simply going to file->dynamic link->new AE comp will do nothing for me.
I’m back to doing as best I can with the edit in Premier, including audio sync, and rendering. Then importing the render back into AE for rework and re-render again.
This is bad additionally because I like to do lots of color work that only AE can do. Composting trailers or credits are fun, but require AE’s effects to do the job.
I was really hoping that the miracle of dynamic link would work for me in my workflow, but I feel like I’m missing something obvious. I don’t see dynamic link as such of a big deal. I would love to piece together clips and sequences and then open those up in AE and do some touchups. Then see them back in Premier with the AE effects. This would make my life so much better.
Is my workflow so much different from the rest of the world’s? It’s a neat trick, but if my original footage isn’t in AE, I’m swapping back and forth to try to get color right and tweak the linked comp. Seems easier to me to just render and do it one app at a time.
CS3 – Mac
C4D -
After you click on File/Adobe Dynamic Link/New After Effects Composition, it will obviously open up After Effects. If you want certain clips and things to be carried over to After Effects from Premiere, simply shift-click on all the clips you want (or marquee them) in Premiere, Ctrl-C to copy, and then go into your composition in After Effects and Ctrl-V to paste. The clips will be pasted into the After Effects comp in the correct order, placement, and timing. If you skipped any clips when selecting in Premiere, it will leave holes in the comp as necessary. After you’re done, just save After Effects, hop back over to Premiere, and there you’ll have a new dynamic link clip-thingy (the technical term obviously) sitting in your project window.
I agree Dynamic Link wouldn’t be as great if this ability to work with a couple of your clips in the AE Comp without importing the whole Premiere project wasn’t available…but it is.
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I don’t really see Dynamic Link as any huge timesaver either. The trouble is, Premiere doesn’t cache Dynamic Link comps (DL is just a frame server), each time you play it, AFX must render it again. So you are usually better off just rendering stuff in AFX and normally importing them to Premiere as any other footage.
And one more complaint… this is likely to be a bug, but it happens to me on several machines with latest Adobe updates. Premiere sequences imported into AFX show proper lenghts and clips, but wrong frames! Let’s say a clip in Premiere is edited from source footage between TC 00:00:20:00 and 00:00:30:00. In AFX, the clip lenght (10 secs) is right, but frames are different, for example 00:01:00:00 to 00:01:10:00. This happens when CTRL+C/CTRL+Ving between AFX and PPro also. So the whole Dynamic Link thingy is next to unusable for me.
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I completely agree with Steve. The workflow should be from Premiere hit a button and it should spawn After effects. Any changes in After Affects are carried back to your sequence in Premiere.
This post was done during CS3 days. Has this changed in CS4 and better yet CS5? I just preordered CS5 and currently have CS4.
I really need the workflow Steve has described to be efficient.
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CS4 introduced the select clip/s in premiere timeline right click and replace with after effects comp. It adds the clip/s to ae for you replacing the point in the edit the clips were the comp is set to the clips
dimensions and edited length from it’s usenin ppro timeline.Much easier than CS3 days.
– Jon Barrie
Jon Barrie
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http://www.jonbarrie.net
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