Premiere to AE. Where to begin!?

[Simon Bonner]

First of all, you might as well leave ther audio well alone. AE is not the programme with which you want to work on audio.

To get started, find the composition in your project panel that shares the name of your timeline in prem. They are essentially the same thing. Open it up and you will see all the different clips you edited out in prem on their own separate layer. This can seem a bit disorganised at first, but it’s just something you need to get used to. You can work on collections of clips by selecting them all in the timeline panel and precomposing them (search in help for precomposing & nesting in AE help, or watch Aharon’s podcast on the subject here at the Cow). Then you can add effects to the precomp, which will affect all the clips within it. Or to add effects to all the layers below a certain point in the stack, insert an adjustment layer and add the effects to that layer alone.

Also, bear in mind that AE will interpret visual fades as keyframes in the opacity values for the layers, so this is what you need to leave (the solids folder will be full of your audio fades, which you might as well bin as you shouldn’t need them in AE anyway).

Finally, be aware that AE doesn’t recognise everything from prem. I still use AE7 and prem2 mostly, and if I horizontally flip a clip in prem and then import the project into AE, AE just resets the flip so I have to do it again if I want to keep it. The same may be true for other manipulations.

Simon Bonner

youtube.com/simonsaysFX

[David May]

Fantastic! My timeline is there, and after watching some of the video co-pilot series, im not as disorientated as before.
As i said before, i want to apply a number of different effects to different shots, but with all the seperate layers, im having trouble finding the one my indicator is on. Is there an easy way to find the layer thats being used? If i turned them off one by one, id get there in the end, but i have a feeling theres an easier way to locate them. So seeing as each layer corresponds to one shot or effect, if i locate the correct layer, i can apply my effect to the shot, and it will still fade out as normal. The main reason for this question is i will be using a number of masks and i want to make sure they fade with the shots.
I havent used anything but basic transitions, some slowmotion, and 2 audio effects (reverb and multitap delay) in premiere pro, so hopefully i wont get any compatibility issues.

Thank you so much for your help Simon, your a lifesaver and i hope these questions arent taking up too much of your time.

[Simon Bonner]

The easiest way to find the correct layer, I’ve found, it to make a note of the time it appears in premiere, and then move your current time indicator to the same time in your main comp in AE. Then just scroll down (use the spacebar to give you the hand tool) the timeline panel to find the layer(s) that is/are on that time.

Simon Bonner

youtube.com/simonsaysFX

[David May]

Alright sweet as, Im nearly out of questions, so heres my final few.

Once ive finished applying these effects, is it easy for me to bring the edited project back into premiere pro and finish the audio? Im going to follow your advice and not touch it in AE, but i will need to fiddle with the volumes once its done, but i just want to make sure all the effects will stick to the shots when i bring them back. Secondly, if i backed up my premiere project, and then chose not to import the audio into AE, how will i get my audio back on once if finished in AE? I imagine the solution is related to the first question, its just that if i export it as a premiere pro project and then copy the audio from the backed up version onto this new project, It never seems to stick.
eg. Ill open an older pp save that has all the same project files, copy a section of the timeline. close the project. open the new save that has all the same files, paste the copied timeline section in. All seems to work fine. save. close project. But when i open back up, the copied timeline sections will be blank.

Hope that makes sense. really just need to know how to stick my audio timeline back on, and how to get the project back in pp once im done.

Last but not least, the premiere project is set at 29.97 fps, frame zize: 1440×1080 16:9, with a pixel aspect ratio: HD anamorphic 1080 (1.333)

The AE comp with the imported save is on HDV 1080/29.97 1440×1080 and a pixel aspect ration of HDV 1080/DVCPROHD 720 (1.333) 16:9, 29.97fps.

But for some reason, the footage from the pp project, once opened in AE appears to be sqeezed. If i change the AE comp settings to HDTV 1080/29.97, it seems to regain its widescreen format. I just thought this is strange seeing as HDTV is at 1920×1080 and the original footage is at 1440 x 1080 and yet, it looks correct when on the HDTV setting.
strange no?

Thanks again for your help, i know the first question is a bit stupid, but i dont want to go through all the hassle of applying effects to find i cant get my nicely touched up footage open in pp, and have no audio

cheers