Work flow advice with Premiere Pro

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doubledark

Well-known member
Hi all
shot some interviews on DSLR using seperate audio recorder for sound.

Could someone please explain the organisational work flow to edit these in to one clip, using Premiere Pro/PluralEyes.(so, how to sync, use of "bins" etc etc)

backstory; I worked on this with another shooter who said he could edit quickly. Unfortunately, the files are spread all over the place. He had NO backup strategy in place, so I loaned him a RAID enclosure and asked him to get the whole project onto that and in ONE folder. He got most of the files over but the moment I had him eject all other drives, the error messages started popping up about missing files. That poor organisation plus the choice of names for folders means that finding files is a nightmare and we have wasted days trying to get this sorted.

I don't want to be in this situation again.



Thanks all
 
Check out this tutorial from Red Giant.

http://www.redgiant.com/tutorial/getting-started-with-pluraleyes-4-0-in-premiere-pro/

If you use any Red Giant products I recommend going to the tutorial section on their home page. Lots of great info from the makers of the products. That will help you with PluralEyes aspect at least. And do use bins. Organize and label as much as you can. Default labels of video and audio become useless with the more clips you have.

Good luck
 
Start with this.

C: OS and Programs
D: Project files, audio files, still images.
E: Cache and Scratch files.
F: Camera media only
G: Exports

Plus some kind of backup system. External drives, networked drives, cloud storage, something.

On the D: drive, create a top level folder with the project's name. I do event work, so I might call it Smith Wedding. For corporate work, I might call that folder Jones New Hire Orientation.

Inside that top level project folder on the D: dive, create two more folders called Files and Audio. Keep all project files, still images, text documents containing notes, new fonts installed for this project, etc. in the Files folder. The Audio folder is self-explanatory.

On the F: drive, create a project folder with the same name as that top level folder on D: (Smith Wedding, Jones New Hire Orientation, etc.)

Inside that project folder on the F: drive, copy the full contents of the media card. Do not delete, rename or move anything inside those card folders. Do not try to manage your media at the hard drive level. You keep everything forever, even if you need only 30 seconds of a 1 hour shoot. You never copy a card until you're done shooting on it, and once you copy that card, you never add to it, you format it in the camera and start clean.

If you have more than one card, you first create new folders called Card 1, Card 2, etc., and copy the card's contents to the appropriate folder. If you're using more than one camera, you can label them Camera 1, Camera 2, etc. Or you can name them Panasonic, JVC, Sony, etc. The point is to create a folder for each card inside that top level Smith Wedding folder.

Once all that's done, copy the full project folder from F: to your backup location. (You can also do this as you go if more than one media card will be needed.)

Now you can begin working in PP. Create a project file appropriately named (Smith Wedding, Jones New Hire Orientation, etc) and save it in the File folder under the project folder on the D: drive.

Within that project, create four bins. Audio, Graphics, Media, Sequences. It's pretty self-explanatory what goes in each bin.

In the Media bin, you should duplicate the folders you have on the hard drive when there are multiple cards. In other words, also create bins labeled Card 1, Card 2. Or Camera 1 and Camera 2, etc.

You can add further organization to the bins that you just can't do on the hard drive. For example, for a wedding I might organize the media into bins called Preps, Ceremony, Cocktails, and Reception. Or for a corporate shoot, I might create bins called Interviews, B-Roll, Assembly Line, Safety Issues, etc.

For merged clips, you can either keep them in the same bin as the original video clips, or create a Merged bin in the Media bin and keep them there. Editor's choice.

Doing it this way, you will find everything very easy to find, archive and rebuild should the need ever arise.
 
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thanks to Westside & Jim for your replies.

I'm on OS X but I essentially have the same drive structure as outlined above with the exception that camera media and audio files are on the same drive. So, four drives all up (and each drive is in RAID 1).

The bin info is great; I'll look into that later tonight.

The first "issue" is when I sync using PluralEyes, I get a file called "NAME.MOV_synced Replaced". I can edit in the Project monitor but not in the Source monitor.

Am I missing something ?

cheers
 
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