File Order Randomizer

[hanno_1571]

Hi,

My team and I make up to 100 videos every day. We have a selection of up to 1,000 background videos that we can use, and I wanted to ask if there is any way to have these background videos sorted randomly each time we make a new video, because right now they are always in the same order.

I've already searched for plugins and found one, but it's not available in the EU and has problems with more than 50 videos in a folder. (File Order Randomizer | Adobe Exchange).

So I wanted to know if anyone can help me or knows a solution for this? It would save us a lot of time, because we have to sort the clips manually for each video.

Thank you very much.

[Mathias Moehl]

Sounds like a good job for my (paid) extension Automation Blocks.

Here is a sample automation which picks background music randomly from a folder and inserts it into the active sequence. I bet you can modify it to insert background videos instead.

[hanno_1571]

Hello.

Thanks for your answer, but I don't want to pay $60 and don't really know if it works...

Do you have maybe a contact for me, that could try it? I would be super thankful 🙂

[Mathias Moehl]

You can use the free trial version. It is fully functional (time limited).

To be more specific with tips, I would need to understand better, what exactly you need.

The block script from the video above is a bit advanced, since it performs many tasks: importing footage from a folder into the active project, and inserting as many random audio clips as necessary to fill the entire timeline. For your scenario, probably something simpler could already work.

Here is a very basic example, which just picks a random footage item from a project bin and inserts it in the active sequence:

To try it, just download the attached XML file and load it into the trial version of Automation Blocks. You can then directly run a script or customize the blocks as needed.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi there,

Premiere Pro doesn’t have a built-in option to randomize clip order automatically, but here are a few approaches you can try:

• Use a Script or Extension: You can create a simple ExtendScript or CEP panel to shuffle clips in a bin. There are community scripts on GitHub that randomize item order.
• Automate Outside Premiere: Use a batch script or Python to rename or reorder files randomly before import. Premiere will sort by name, so randomizing filenames can achieve the same effect.
• Third-Party Tools: Tools like Automation Blocks supports randomization, as was mentioned.

Sorry for the frustration. Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Kevin

[hanno_1571]

I downloaded the trial and already imported your script, but don't really know what to click that it works... 

And you asked what exactly I need so here it is:
It would be good that the random clips will be automatically added into the timeline, where a voiceover is already added, so that the clips will be the same lenght as the voiceover, and it would also be good if it's only the clips without the soundtrack.

I hope you understand, and I hope it's possible - thanks!

[Mathias Moehl]

Here is how you can load and execute the scripts:

[Mathias Moehl]

Your use case sounds like you need pretty much exactly something like the "add random background music" automation shown in the video above, but with video clips instead of audio clips. I therefore created a variant of that script for you and addded it to the Community Library: 

Sequence/Populate/Add Random Video Clips From Folder to Active Sequence.xml

Use it exactly as the random background music script:
1. load the script
2. in the inputs panel of Automation Blocks, select the folder (on your harddrive) where the random clips are located and also pick the track into which they should be inserted
3. run the script

It will import the files to the project (if they are not imported, yet) and insert them into the active sequence (as many as needed to fill the sequence).
It will insert  both audio and video, if you only need video, the easiest thing is to mute the audio track or prepare clips without audio.

[hanno_1571]

Okay thanks, it's now working!

But what would you recommend, if I use 4 different folders of background clips, do I always need to load the other scripts - or is there any easy way to change them fast?

[Mathias Moehl]

You could save 4 copies of the script, each with a different default value for the folder and the project bin (make sure to choose really also different names for the bins in the project, such each of the four has its own project bin):

Then save the four xml scripts in the folder

~/Documents/Automation Blocks Pr Library/
(or whereever your Automation Blocks user library is located)

Then restart your Automation Blocks and the four scripts should be listed in your Automation Blocks library in the section "User Library":