Best practices for keeping big projects from slowing down

[zachaik5122931]

Hey there,

I'm working on a feature doc. We've got over 250 hours of footage and are working in one big project. Our workflow includes making master sequences of the media so that every media clip is represented in a sequence. Then we additionally have many scenes that each have their own sequences (multiple versions). Our project size isn't giant (54.4 MB) but it has grown from when it started obviously. The main noticeable slow down has been that it's taking longer and longer to save.

What I'd like to know is, are there any good practices to keep the saving from taking so long. Additionally, are there other risks that I should be thinking about when working on such a large project? At the moment operating within the project runs smoothly but I do worry about that slowing down too.

Cheers

[R Neil Haugen]

There's another thread on "theatrical film workflow" that especially toward the end gets to be good reading.

Also, Karl Soule and David Helmly are two Adobe guys that work the Hollywood/long-form side of PrPro for Adobe. And give presentations on how to handle this app in long-form/large-project work.

Dave's TechTable YouTube channel has some info:

dhelmly - YouTube

Karl Soule's blog ...

The Video Road

Check through their stuff, I see Karl has a post on Shared Projects versus Team Projects ... there's other things there.

And in that other thread, and in other discussions, there are three main things to consider:

• Test everything out ... hard. Well ahead of time.
• De-stress the timelines/sequences during editing, save color/fx work towards the end. Consider transcoding any problematic media and of course use exported full media from Ae as soon as you can replace dynamic linked comps with final media.
• Organize, organize, organize.

Along with the above, you need a gate-keeper setting workflow, practices, protocols ... and keeping everyone on the rails. No one updates/upgrades anything on their system during the project without approval, all that sort of thing. Or every simple little thing becomes a huge mess.

Neil

[Kevin-Monahan]

zachaik5122931,

Neil gives good advice, especially search out Karl Soule's YouTube videos on handling feature film style projects. You definitely are on the right track but one big tip is to offload various project elements to separate project files. If you keep all your sound rolls in one project, your audio sfx in another project, your backup sequences in another project, etc. Then they do not need to live in the current project so it will open much faster. Once you've offloaded project items you do not need access to at all times, you'll start to see your workflow improve, project elements are snappier, less computer resources are used. If you need to access SFX, you just mount up the project and edit items from that project into the timeline. Then, close that project back up. Do a test to see if this works best for you. By the way, this workflow is ever evolving, but it is one used by the likes of Kirk Baxter, Fincher, Coen Bros., Deadpool, etc.

Hope that helps,

Kevin

[zachaik5122931]

Thanks so much Neil and Kevin!

I'm going to spend today soaking up as much of this stuff as I can and then rejigger things accordingly.

I'll come back here to let you know how I got on. Until then

[R Neil Haugen]

Another resource is Jarle Leirpoll's excellent ebook, "The Cool Stuff in Premiere Pro".

The title sounds like a nifty feature blurb, but that it ain't! It's something over 1200 pages of detailed workflow practices through every section of PrPro ... setting up projects, managing projects small & large, editing fast & safe, audio, color, graphics, collaboration with Ae, exporting, everything.

Neil

PremierePro.net - discover the cool stuff in Premiere Pro

[excited_Genie16B8]

I've noticed that Premiere Pro is good at only one level of nesting.  You can nest sequence A into sequence B, but as soon as you nest B into C, things start to go weird.

That you have every clip in it's own sequence may be playing a part in the slow down.  It's not...normal...to do that.

[zachaik5122931]

Thanks Jim,

Just to clarify, we're just using these "master sequences" as a way to scrub through and mark up our footage. We are not nesting those sequences into edit sequences. When we make an edit sequence we are working with the clips directly but just copying them from the master sequences. Does that make sense?

Maybe that level of copying does similar things to multilevel nesting but that wouldn't make sense to me.

[excited_Genie16B8]

Maybe that level of copying does similar things

I'm a bit skeptical on that one, as I also use the Copy/Paste method, but without issues.

[Mo Moolla]

Hello Zach

The joys of working on long form can quickly disappear when you run into workflow issues.

Just to clarify, the "master" sequences are each made up of raw footage i.e is each master seq a take?

How many clips are on a master sequence on average?

I am trying to understand the workflow you have set up for yourself before I comment further

Mo

[zachaik5122931]

Hey Mo,

Yes, each "master" sequence is made up of raw footage. Each master sequence is some sort of scene (it's a doc so that's not always straight forward) like "so and so INTV" or "ESL class" or something like that. On average a "master" sequence could have anywhere from 4 clips to over 100 clips depending on the scene.

Hope that makes sense. Thanks for your help.