-
How do I efficiently combine multiple projects for a huge documentary edit?
I’m one of the many editors that has migrated to CS6 from Final Cut Pro 7. After a year of accumulating & organizing footage for a documentary, I’m ready to start cutting.
In the Final Cut world, I’d simply create a master project, open each project I need sequences from, and drag them into the master one. Premiere is here to rain on my parade…
My problem is straightforward:
1- I need access to all my media during the course of the entire edit, and I can’t figure out how to combine everything without creating a massive, bloated project that even with my fast setup will move very slow, not to mention all my eggs will be in one basket.
Issues I’m facing:
– Dynamic Link Server takes so long to import sequences from my bigger projects to another that I’ll never get any work done. One attempt took over 15 minutes today! I called Adobe tech support to see if I could make this happen any faster, but they said I can’t do anything to further optimize the system.
– Copy/Pasting sequences from one project to another is also very time consuming.
– All my footage is organized into sequences with custom colors on each clip to classify its type. Needless to say it was a lot of work. When I use either method above to move these sequences to another project, the colors are all changed.
I refuse to believe Premiere is only leaving me with these options, but I’m confused as to what I can do.
My system:
Mac Pro 2×2.4 Ghz 6 core intel xeon
32 GB ram
Nvidia Quadro 4000 gfx card
Primary media house on G Speed ES Pro RAID via miniSASThere is a shocking lack of literature online regarding the above issues. The only solution I’ve heard of is using CATDV, software that carries the load of massive media storage to Premiere doesn’t have to, but I don’t have the time or money to get into this, plus all my media has been painstakingly organized over the past year.
Little help? Thanks.
jesse -
6 Replies
-
Hi,
some cursory thoughts…
1) can you duplicate a source project, open it and remove all but the sequence you wish to bring over to the master, then use that as the basis of importing into the master?
2) can you XML export sequences from your source projects, then XML import to your master project?
I agree that you should not HAVE to do this….only that it might help you get where you want to be….
I don’t have any suggestions as to the labeling….
Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX -
You are correct, there is no better way to do this. Importing specific sequences into the Premiere project is obnoxious and takes time when you’re working with large, documentary – style projects and want to see specific sequences in it.
My advice? Get a good book and just bite the bullet one day and do it.
If you are ever importing more than one sequence, it will be faster to import the entire project, and then delete the timelines you don’t want. Then use the “removed unused” feature to remove media that’s not in a sequence.
Again, it sucks. But so goes the life of an editor.
-
Thanks for the input guys. I’m happy to report that my reason for not responding in a few days is because I’ve gotten things working a lot better. Here is what I did:
– I decided what master projects to create that will allow me to have access to key clips throughout the edit. This took time, thought, and some precise edit scripting, but it was doable.
– I made “OFFLINE” versions of all the bigger organizational projects (locational shoots in Australia, NZ, Africa, Indonesia), by opening up these big, organized beasts and telling all the media to go offline & re saving as “-OFFLINE”.
– I used the offline versions of my large projects to import specific sequences from. To give you an example of how much faster this is with Dynamic link server, bringing in a handful of online sequences from Australia took 15+ minutes. Bringing them in from the offline version took less than 1!
– Once a project has everything it needs, I reconnect media as necessary.
As for label colors, there I’m hosed. Adobe doesn’t know why the label colors I’ve customized won’t translate to other projects. Bummer, but oh well.
Ryan, where is the command for “remove unused” by the way? I assumed that was only available when using project manager.
thanks
jesse -
First….
Brilliant!!!! Well done… I’ll be sure to remember this going forward. I’ve had to do this with corrupt media in the past. Never thought about doing it intentionally! Love it!
[Jesse Schluntz] “Ryan, where is the command for “remove unused” by the way? I assumed that was only available when using project manager.
“One way to do this is expose the metatdata fields for audio and video usage in the project panel then sort ascending…or quick filter it to show zero values only and delete….
Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX -
Yeah, making media offline to increase project import speed is a great trick that I’ve never thought of. Seems DL should look at projects this way to begin with (cough cough) and not HAVE to do that…
Having a video/audio usage column in your media browser is super convenient, yes. However, there is the “Remove Unused” command under the “Project” drop-down. Little-known but useful!
Ryan
-
Nice Ryan!!!
Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up