Subclip Sorrows – Is there *ANY* way to open the original master / source clip ?
I've used Premiere off and on for about 18 years, but have mostly edited with FCP. I'm cutting a large interview-based project in Premiere and need to know once and for all if an issue that has always dogged me in Premiere is truly as awful and bizarre as it seems or if it is possible I am missing something.
When working with subclips, is there any command that will allow you to access the original master clip or source media?
Example: I'm editing an interview. I set in and out points around the interview subject's different comments and create a series of subclips. I now have nicely organized folders full of subclips corresponding to different sections of the original long interview clip. I pull some subclips into my timeline. I begin editing, shuttling through my clips in the source monitor and grabbing the pieces and parts I need.
During this process, in FCP and other editors, you can press a key (match frame) or use several other methods to open the original source clip in the source monitor, and pull new instances of this footage into your timeline without changing the in and out points on your carefully organized subclips. Premiere Pro seems to lack any non-destructive way of achieving this basic editing functionality.
Another way of putting it is that when working with subclips in your timeline and source monitor, any attempt to grab a few words here, a phrase there, etc. (in other words, video editing) will result in permanent unavoidable loss of your original in and out points on one of your subclips. There is no way to jump from subclips to an original clip or source media so you can create a new clip instance instead of altering an existing subclip's in and out points.
This means that I can't even create a macro to make up for Premiere's lack of a usable "match frame" or "open master clip" functionality. Do other editors using this software for interview-based work just not use subclips for organization? Do they just train themselves not to touch the footage they want to use that is sitting right in front of them in their source monitor until they've gone through the ridiculous workaround of noting the time code, locating the master clip, opening it and setting new in and out points for the needed section? As someone who has shot and edited hundreds of hours of interviews, I can't fathom working like this. Is this just the Premiere Pro way?
