Most efficient or clean way to send from Premiere to After Effects?

[A_Cortes]

Hello all!

I'm working on a long-form, 25-minute video and would like the opinion of the community experts on the best way to send everything to After Effects.

For context, here is a quick glimpse of my workflow:

1.- I set everything up for the video like the host talking to the camera, images, and a lot of Broll.

2.- Then after all the footage, especially the broll, is approved, I move to the next stage which is animations.

3.- After that I render a lossless .mov to have everything back to premiere for the final stage: SFX. 

I need to move everything on Ae: every broll piece, placeholder, and such because I add text animators, video infographics, and such to almost every clip. I even add transitions there because I'm already doing animations. I'm curious about the Adobe recommended way to do it:

-Should I just select everything and shoot it right to Ae without thinking too much about it? (actually, this fails, it prompts a generic importer error message)

-Should I divide the video in, for example, thirds? Three dynamic link comps?  (this is my current method)

-Should I have one dynamic link per animation piece? (this worries me because of the time it would take me to do that pre-SFX render) 

Here are two images: the first one with the whole timeline and its assets and the second one with a closeup showing the variety of elements I need to move in case it helps.  

   

Thank you for your time, cheers. 

[Rick Gerard]

After Effects is not designed to create long sequences or edit movies.

All the major studios follow the following efficient workflow: Edit the movie in an NLE, pick the shots that need visual effects, transfer (export - link - whatever) those shots into a visual effects app and create the composites and effects, import the final effects shots into your editing software (NLE), do the final sound mix and color grading, then review the edit and do the final polish on the timing. On higher budget productions, the color grading and final sound mix are done at a separate facility specializing in that, like Skywalker Sound for audio or Beambox or Motion Grade for color.

I have been using AE for a little more than 30 years and making movies for 50. I would not even consider your workflow idea. I would pick each shot that needs visual effects and use Dynamic Link to create an AE comp for that shot, complete the effects editing, then either render the comp and move the render to Premiere Pro or, if the effects render quickly, continue using Dynamic Link in Premiere Pro. A two-frame shift from before the blink to after the blink in a sequence between a man and a woman can change the story from falling in love to having an argument. 

I hope this helps.

[A_Cortes]

Thanks! will make adjustments accordingly. That's precisely why I was asking, to know if it was not the proper way to use the feature. 

cheers

[Warren Heaton]

3.- After that I render a lossless .mov to have everything back to premiere for the final stage: SFX. 

@A_Cortes 

If you're using "Replace with After Effects Composition" to send portions of your Pr timeline to After Effects (be it one-third of the edit or per animation piece), then you can right-click the Ae Comp in the Pr timeline and use "Render and Replace" to render a high-quality movie (for example, choose the "Match Source - Apple ProRes 422 HQ" preset) for your sound mix right inside Premiere Pro. So, there's no need to render anything on the Ae side and import it back into Pr. If you find that you need to make changes to what was done in After Effects, you can right-click the resulting "_Rendered.mov" clip and choose "Restore Unrendered" to turn the rendered movie back into the original Ae Comp.

Another thing to consider in your workflow is to match the version of ProRes being used for the Pr timeline video preview settings to the version of ProRes that you use for Render and Replace (or for the movie you render from Ae to bring back into Pr). If these are the same, you can use the "Match Sequence Preview Settings" export preset in Premiere Pro to export very quickly. The resulting edited master can then be transcoded to your delivery settings—often done by exporting to a Media Encoder Watch Folder.