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Trim Comp to Source
Hey all,
I use the plug-in Neat Video quite often in Ae, and right now my method of bringing in trimmed clips from Premiere is to simply ctrl+C in the Pr timeline and ctrl+v into a fresh Ae comp. When doing this, Ae creates a comp the length of the timeline in Pr, and places the clip at the same timecode as it is in Pr. This requires me to zoom way into the clip, set in and out points on the Ae timeline and then trim comp to work area. I know the other method would be to create a dynamic link right from the clip in Premiere, but I like to avoid that method if possible.
Is there any way to tell Ae to trim the comp to the selected source or something?
Thanks!
Dan -
1 Reply
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Here’s a method that will probably give you better results, and it will ensure the comp has the same frame rate and dimensions as the clip:
Instead of Ctrl-V copying from Premiere, drag the video file into the AE Project panel (you MIGHT be able to do this directly from Premiere, but you may have to do this from Explorer/Finder). Once the video appears in the AE Project panel, drag it down into the little “new composition” button at the bottom of the project panel (it looks like a film icon). This will create a new comp with the same specs and dimensions as the video. However, it will be the entire file, not clipped from the Premiere project, but we can fix that. Now that you have your comp, delete the video file from the Project panel (which will also remove it from the comp, of course). Go back to premiere, copy your clip (or clips), and paste them into the AE comp.
One handy trick is that if you hold Ctrl+Shift-V to paste it will ignore the Premiere starting placement, and place it wherever you have your playhead set to (which will likely be at the beginning), solving your second issue with clips appearing far out in the timeline.
To set the comp length, do the following: hold SHIFT while dragging the playhead to the end of the clip, and it should SNAP to the last frame, you’ll want to move over one more frame, to the first black frame. Click the timecode indicator, Ctrl-V, open the Comp Settings window, and paste it into the “Duration” field (make sure the start timecode is set to “0”).
This may seem like a lot of steps, but you’ll pretty fast when you do it a few times, and it’ll automatically give you exact specs. If you are copying many different clips from a Premiere timeline, you only have to do everything once. I personally don’t recommend dynamic linking from Premiere->AE unless you have to. It can be useful sometimes, but it’s painfully slow and can be manually replicated by simple Copy/Pasting from Premiere, giving you a lot more control.
TIP: One more handy-dandy thing I use CONSTANTLY is right-click “Reveal in Explorer/Finder”, in both Premiere and AE. This pops open the folder where the video file is, so you can easily get to it (like if you’re dragging it into AE).
Audio/Video Production
Relaxing White Noise, LLC.
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