how to import multiple after effects compositions at once

[Nico-TV]

Hi guys,

I'm in need of some help, I have a few occasions where we have several compositions in one after effects file, the import window doesn't let me use shift or command to select more than one composition at once?

I'm editing at a mountain bike race and have over 100 lower thirds and about 10 individual stage results graphics I need to import. Do I need to do them one by one or is it possible to import several at once? Will be doing this several times over the year so would be great if I could simply select multiple compositions and import them at once.

(Sure I'm just missing something very basic)

On the image above, I can't shift or hold command to select more than 1 comp at once.

[jane-e]

Moved by moderator from non-technical Lounge to After Effects

[Rick Gerard]

You cannot import more than one composition at a time. I hope you are not planning on editing in AE. It's incredibly cumbersome and takes way longer to render than adding these graphics in Premiere Pro using Dynamic Link.

The wisest thing to do would be to create a template - super to easy to do in AE now, and then import that into Premiere Pro to use for your lower 1/3's.

I'd take a careful look at your editing workflow. What you are describing seems to be extremely inefficient.

[Nico-TV]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for responding,

So this is my workflow:

Make full show in Premiere Pro.

Use Dynamic Link to bring in individual lower thirds as they're required. (see image below)

As you can see there is a lot of potential lower thirds, we will usually use around 20 - 30 in anyone edit.

So there's no way I can select them all and import into Premiere?

Apologies if I'm missing the point.

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

It looks like a bunch of lower 1/3's may have the same design. No need to import a separate comp for each of these as the names can quickly be changed inside Premiere Pro on the fly. I recently did a 60 minute show with about 25 different interviews and I only imported only 1 AE comp and just edited the names directly in the timeline.

It looks like some of the graphics may be more complicated than that. Any complex graphics that I'm only going to use once in a show will be rendered with alpha channels and not brought in as a dynamic link because the render times can get horrendous.

If you have a bunch of comps inside a single AE project the easiest way to get to them is to browse to the folder where the AEP files live using Premiere Pro's Media Browser, Select the AEP file and the Browser will connect to the dynamic Link server and show you all of the comps in the AEproject. You can then drag them directly to a Sequence without ever importing them into your PPro project. When you drag one of the comps from the Media Browser into a sequence the comp will automatically be added to your PPro Project Bin.

To tell you the truth I cannot remember the last time I "imported" anything into Premiere Pro. I use the media browser to import everything. You can shift select in there or you can just drag directly to the timeline. You can even create Bins in the Project panel, open the bin and drag assets directly from the Media Browser directly to the bin. Be aware though, if you shift select 10 or 20 comps from an AEP file it may take forever to Import them to the main Project file.

if each of your AEP files have only one comp in them you will have to browse to each of them individually. I seldom have an AEP with only one comp in it. Most of my AEP files are named for the scene in the movie that the shots are going to like this DestinySC07.aep would contain all of the effects comps for Scene 07 in the feature that i'm currently working on. The comps would be named for the shot in that scene. Something like this: DestinySC07t4-2 which would be the comp I would be using for the feature film Destiny in Scene 07 from take 4 and the second time that shot was used in the scene. There may be 20 shots in one scene that require AE work so there would be 20 comps.

When I do titles for a show they are simply named for the show and the type of graphic, like DestinyTitles.aep. Inside that AEP file I will have a comp for OpenCredits and ClosingCredits and any other title graphic for the project appropriately named. For a documentary I may separate the graphics into separate AEP files based on the segments. It is a very rare day when I only have one comp in an AEP file.

I hope these suggestions help. Efficient file management is one of the hardest things that I had to learn when I started doing digital post. It was easy for the first 25 years of my career because I was editing film and all of those reels had to be in the right bins and have shot and scene numbers or they would be horribly lost. It just took me about 10 years to get my act together and organize my digital assets in the same way I organized reels of film. It's the way movies have been organized in the cutting room for about 100 years but it's incredibly difficult for most folks to do with digital files.

[Nico-TV]

Thanks for your help Rick,

I have just used Media Browser to move all the lower thirds into the project in under 30 seconds! Amazing! Thanks so much

Ill look into stream lining the workflow in regards to render times but for now this is brilliant.

Thanks.

[devt27504972]

1.first open the project which you are importing compositions from.mean the sorce project.

2.create a new composition rename it render or main whatever you want to name it.

3.put all the compositions inside it and save your project.

4.now open the another project you want to import compositions from your last saved project

5.now simple import the render composition form your target project now all compositions you will find in your project window.

hope you like the answer.

[the_dudes]

As of January 2020, you can drag and drop comps from the AE project panel to PP's project panel.

[Martin Matthias]

Thank you!

Should be the accepted answer.

[eskimomatt]

Deffo!

[jasonfarran]

Bumping this. All other answers should be removed.

[Nomadidje]

And as April 2023, this is broken again... For some reasons, after the latest updates, I cannot drag and drop AE compositions directly into Premiere Pro project panel...

It would be nice if that function would be brought back as it is an essential one...

[the_dudes]

It's true. Not working with the latest AE (23.6.0) and PeePee (23.6.0). Frikken adobe.

[Olya23286498za0w]

I just tried dragging and dropping comps from AE to PPro and it works.  Beautiful!  What a time saver.

[zachh33834]

This should be the best answer!!!

[NemoRoman]

Thank you!!!

[Thaj]

In Priemere Pro CC v13.0.2 and above following option works for importing multiple AE composition at once.
File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import After Effects Composition

[prashant_6380]

thanks