4K workflow for doc

[Ken Barnes]

Hi Tina,
I just finished a long 4K drama. There is no need to transcode anything outside of Premiere. Import the 4K footage and then make a proxy within Premiere. It’s easy but difficult to explain here. Search ‘create proxy in premiere cc’ on YouTube and you’ll find heaps of help. So you can’t avoid transcoding, but at least Premiere makes it easy.

It takes a while to process all the clips and you’ll need to tell Premiere where to put the new proxy files on your system and the space to store them. (there’s no way to avoid the additional files) I don’t think it matters if they’re on the same drive. Of course, everything should be backed up to yet more drives.

Once done, you simply add a ‘toggle proxy’ button to your canvas window and click it to switch back and forth between 4K and proxy (whatever resolution you set up). When the button is blue, it means it’s playing the proxy. There is a slight difference in aspect but hardly noticeable except when you add a photo frame from one of the video clips. Make sure you take any photos from video in full 4K mode. Otherwise it will look smaller. (I occasionally extend a video clip a few frames with a still from the last frame… cheating…)

You will be editing on your 4K sequence you created, and the proxies will look the same size. When time to output, I’d click the proxy toggle to off (though I’m not sure that matters), then export. You will be exporting a 4K project and there’s no particular fuss.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

Ken

‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh

I think this applies to editing as well….

Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com

[Liz Parham]

I’m also starting on a longform doc shot on the FS7 / UHD. I created 1920×1080 proxies via ingest / media browser but it still says my clip is 4k? Attached a screenshot, but is that just referencing the original media? When I create a sequence from the clip the frame size is 4k and my playback is fairly choppy when “toggle proxy” is on…I basically have to view the clip at 1/4 the resolution. Not sure what the point of creating all the proxy media if I can’t get smooth playback? Don’t think its my computer because it’s worked for FCPX but have had other issues with fcp, so was hoping premiere would solve ALL my problems ????

[Ken Barnes]

Hi Liz,
Yes, the sequence will be 4K and the clip will appear as 4K (and the size in the canvas will appear as if 4K, even when toggle proxy is ‘on’ (blue means you are in proxy). The proxy files exist wherever you chose to put them and are referenced in proxy mode. It shouldn’t be too choppy unless your sequence is super long and you have a lot of mixed resolution media. It seems Premiere struggles with that. In some cases you may have to view 1/4 resolution, even in proxy mode.

Not sure what computer you use and what graphics card, which can make a lot of difference. I have a stock iMac 5K 2015 and it sometimes works too hard…

I was hoping my shrink would solve all MY problems, but I realized that he had a bunch of his own. Editing makes me forget about them for days on end! ☺

Ken

‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh

I think this applies to editing as well….

Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com

[Liz Parham]

hm It’s a late 2012 imac / i5 / 8gb ram / 512mb vram so I can’t use gpu acceleration. Should I change my previews to proxy as well? not sure if that will help with playback.

Also if the proxy + original media need to reference each other, maybe the newest proxy feature will not totally work because I basically just want to edit with 1080 proxy files and move all my original media to another hard drive until I need to finish + relink to the 4k footage. .

Thanks Ken!