Importing Premiere Sequence with just used footage.

[Unseelie-Media]

I have a massive project full of many years of footage. Right now I'd like to import my current sequence into After Effects but every time I try it starts to bring in ALL the footage from my project instead of just the footage I'm using in my timeline. I have THOUSANDS of clips and would prefer not to wait hours and hours before getting a chance to edit the timeline. I tried to select the clips in the timeline and create a compositions from that but kept getting a "Generic Error"

Please help! =[

[Dave_LaRonde]

File>Adobe Dynamic Link>Import Premiere Pro Sequence

Navigate to the project file, then indicate the sequence to import.

[Rick Gerard]

Why are you trying to import all of a sequence into After Effects? 99.9997% of the time this is a bad idea. AE is for creating composites and motion graphics you cannot create in Premiere Pro. It is not an editing or even a supplemental editing tool. Any sequence with more than a few shots and longer than a few seconds will very quickly become unreasonably difficult to work in and nearly impossible to edit in a reasonable amount of time.

Give us a good reason to bring a years-long project into AE instead of just the shots you need to modify in ways you cannot in Premiere Pro and I'll try and help. Otherwise, try one shot at a time picking just the shots you need to modify. If the changes require more than a couple of effects you should consider rendering the completed comps to a suitable production format DI using a visually lossless mezzanine codec and replacing any dynamically linked comps in the Premiere Pro timeline with the rendered files. The render time of your final output will be greatly reduced and the stability of your project improved. Consider this advice from a guy that has cut several feature-length films, made for TV movies and thousands of commercial videos and has worked with AE for all but a few months of its 25-year history. The last effects-heavy production I worked on had nearly 80 shots in a 7-minute scene that needed to be worked on in AE. 77 of the shots were under seven seconds and each one was a separate comp. 3 shots were brought in as a sequence in a single AE comp so I could do a transition between them that could not be done in PPro. That is how I would efficiently work on a years-long project.

If you are having problems with dynamic link make sure that your system meets the minimum system requirements, the versions of AE and Premiere Pro and the Adobe Media Encoder all match, and your footage is all compatible with both After Effects and Premiere Pro. Many consumer formats that work in PPro have all kinds of problems in AE. IF all that is good give us some details and we can probably help you sort out the Dynamic Link problem.

[Unseelie-Media]

The sequence is very short, maybe 30 seconds, but having it all in AE will let me create the transitions I want to do faster than making multiple compositions within the Premiere Sequence. I don't want to import the years long project into AE, just a single short sequence. But when I try this it wants to imports all of the footage within the project versus just the clips I'm using in the sequence.

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

Importing a Premiere Pro project will always bring in all of the footage in the project after you have been given the option of selecting a sequence. This actually makes sense if you assume you may want to change something in AE which is the reason you probably wanted to import the sequence in the first place. There is a workaround. Reduce the project in Premiere Pro.

Here is how: Select the sequence you want to open in After Effects in the Project panel in Premiere Pro then go to File>Project Manager using Premiere Pro's menu.

Inside the Project Manager, you should see only one checkbox selected in the list of sequences. Check the appropriate options. There is no option that does not include copying footage or transcoding footage and moving it to a new location. If you have a bunch of mixed formats I would suggest you choose to transcode and pick a suitable standard production format from the list.  Exclude unused clips and include some handles so you have some room to work. Then create the new PPro project and copy the footage to a new location. This is the only way you can get After Effects to import only the footage that you have in a sequence when you import a Premiere Pro project into AE.

The only other option is to use Dynamic Link and select all or part of the shots you have in your sequence, right click and create new comp from the selection. You will have to fix dynamic link first and that may involve transcoding some of your footage. Personally, I do not think this is a very good option for your project even though it is only about 30 seconds long.

Please pardon a cautionary tale. I am not trying to throw water on your project. Most of the time fancy eye candy transitions detract from the story you are trying to tell. Be very careful with your choices. You almost never see anything other than a cut in a dramatic film or commercial. It is time for the story.

In late 1990 I was running a production company and I purchased a Video Toaster because I saw it at NAB and it was all the rage. Quad Splits, a zillion wipes, text effects and other eye candy. We made less than a dozen commercials using it then I sold it because the commercials were not working as well as the ones we were making before with nothing but cuts and an occasional dissolve and the clients we had quickly got bored with the gizmo. The fellow I sold it to used it for about 2 years and then moved it to his basement where it probably still sits. It is not that it didn't make all kinds of really great eye candy, it is just that the eye candy did not help either of us tell an effective story.

[Unseelie-Media]

Yea I was afraid I'd have to create a separate project but I see why. I get why AE brings everything in, I just wish there was the option to only grab used footage, but its a rare task so it is what it is.

And, to be honest, I'm on team simple and clean but this particular client wants the energy over the top so I have to do what I have to do =[

Thanks for the Project Manager reroute though, it helps!

[Roland Kahlenberg]

You can copy clips in your PPro Timeline and paste them into an AE Timeline. It's the fastest way to get PPro footage/clips into AE without any unnecessary baggage. Clips Markers get transferred over. If it's straight cuts only, then you will have no issues.

[Unseelie-Media]

I got to that point, but thanks.

[Trevor_Asq]

You could select the sequence, export as PP project and import that project?