P2 Workflow in Premiere CS5

[Michael Krupnick]

Workflow is an art unto itself: it starts with knowing how the system OS works. Then, knowing the app file conventions. After thst, the project is built upon that foundation and the computer can efficiently maintain housekeeping without your thinking about it thereafter. That’s automation, and WHEN you do things is as important as what and how.
Start in “the basement” and build up from there. Let’s say you have a project named CROWS you’re going to shoot with a first-gen Panasonic HVX200 as 24p 720HD on P2 cards. You’re going to edit with Premiere CS5.5 running on a MacPro Intel multicore tower. You’ll be using a G-Raid firewire for external storage of the media. Mount the Gdrive and make a folder there named CROWS. Everything the project creates will go inside CROWS from here on. Inside that, make another folder named P2Capture. Now, launch a new PP project. Set it up carefully, going through all path options, including project and media/capture/options, sequence sets and even preferences, and assign everything to CROWS. Save the project as CROWS. Now, quit PP.
In the sys finder, you should see a PP project icon named CROWS inside the CROWS folder. Drag thst into the dock. It’s the “speed-dial” to the CROWS project. (Adobe hotline helpers will tell you that is not the safest way to call up PP, but that’s just rubbish; it’s actually the shortest best path, especially for custom-tailored projects.) Click it and if you’ve done it right so far, PP ehould open quickly right to CROWS.
Now connect and import the clips from the camera into the open project, put one on the timeline and resave the project. Quit PP. Relaunch CROWS from the dock. If it opens as expected right away, you’ve now got roots on a branching tree, tested with one quick click…congratulations!
You should not have any link/offline/reconnect issues; if you do, you have to adjust them in PP and resave until they disappear. Quit PP and relaunch until you have desired results. Any further additions to the project may require you to do this, such as another shoot/import, but the adjustments appear as branches on the tree, which is planted in a single spot on the media drive.
For instance, you’ll finish shooting, but still have editing to do, so you’ll want to have the MXF files on the drive inside CROWS. Knowing the structure of the psuedo-ext drives P2 makes and how to properly archive them will facilitate this. You should not have to mount the camera and import card data more than once; if you have an error, you’re not doing it corectly, or there may be a bug you’ll have to work around.
Sometimes it is a bit awkward to establish, but it’s always possible IF you know what files and where the system/app looks for data and tske those basics into account during building. This has worked for years for me and still does today.