Help with Adobe Premiere Proxy Workflow

[jayXYZ]

Hello~

I have been working on a project (my first in Premiere after switching from FCPX) that involves a large number of lengthy 4k clips and I wanted to be avoid the size and dropped frames during playback so I created proxies out of all of my clips through ingest. I took all of the proxies offline and began working on them, but I have run into a few problems and I don't know if they are because of limitations in a proxy workflow or if they are just user error.

- I renamed the proxies in the bins for search functionality, but when I took one proxy back online as a test, it lost the name and was reset back to the original file name. Is there anyway to relink the proxies without them losing their bin names? This wouldn't be such a big issue if I was only relinking at the end of my project, but that leads me to my other problem...

-I can't make subclips out of offline proxies. A large reason for creating proxies it seems is to be able to save space and allow more mobility in when and where you edit, but not being able to create subclips seems like a huge limitation.

With the little testing that I have done it does seem like I can create a subclip perfectly fine while the proxy is online and nothing happens to the subclip when I bring the proxies offline, but that causes me to run back into my first problem with retaining proxy names...

So if I am not missing anything, my only solution is to bring all the proxies back online, rename everything again, create all subclips I might want, and then at this point I am able to bring everything back offline if I want. Obviously though this is far from ideal 😕

[Christian.Z]

It seems that you are applying FCP methods to Premiere, and it also seems that I am a bit lost in translation.
I want to fully understand what is happening with you, what do you mean by Online proxies and Offline proxies.
Besides understanding the problem, I would also want to understand your purpose. What is it that you trying to do so that I can suggest a more efficient workflow.

Is it possible to post a screen recording of your process? Also please share the specs of your system, and most importantly your storage configuration.

[jayXYZ]

I think I may have misunderstood part of the intended purpose of proxies and projected my own desired project workflow onto their functionality.

My current setup is a MBP with only 500 gb of internal storage, so because I am dealing with a large number of 4k files, I have all of the master/raw footage stored on an external hard drive. I then wrote all of the proxies to my laptops internal memory to work with. My idea was that I didn't have to have the proxies connected to the master clips during assembly and rough editing (which would allow me to work on the project during short periods of time and not require me to fish through my bag, find my external hard drive and plug it in). An overall minor inconvenience, but one that sounded nice enough in my head.

Because I have been working with the clips while they are not connected to the master clips (because my external drive was not plugged in), the proxies saw that the link between them and the master clip had been severed and thus were forced into an offline state. I now understand why renaming the proxies gives me an error on relinking, because the bins show the name of the master clips (while I had only been renaming the forced offline proxies), although I do wish there was a way to carry over the bin name.

[Christian.Z · Accepted solution]

Ah, Now I get what is happening with you. So i'll go ahead I share my workflow with you. This workflow is the fruit of years in editing, so I hope you'll benefit from it.

My workflow is the opposite of yours, I keep my proxies on an external so I can edit offline on the move. And while your concept is correct, it's implementation is somewhat flawed.

1- Start by organizing your assets on your local drive efficiently: Solid folder structure + File renaming. I work with Sony A7 iii. So you can figure that there will be a lot of duplicates since my camera resets filenames every-time I change my Card, and for some reason I cannot change the prefix. So i'm stuck with hundreds of C001 files which will confuse Premiere and it's Proxy workflow.
So depending on the nature of your project, the number of cameras that are filming, number of days, etc. You need to create a very duplicate proof folder structure and file renaming. (more on that if you need to)

2- I would skip proxying by ingesting. Instead I import the folder where my footage is and thus premiere will create bins similar to the folders on your system. Wait a couple of minutes for everything to conform, save. Select all, right click and create proxies.

3- Create your own Proxy preset. Mine is a very low bit rate SD resolution with the watermark "Proxy" on the bottom left. It is a bit complicated to create an ingest preset, as you have to do it in Media Encoder by creating a preset and then creating an Ingest preset based on it. If you don't know how to, I will gladly help.

4- Destination: I have an external drive dedicated to proxies. I create one folder named the same way as my project's name folder, BUT it does not contain any extra folders or folder structure. All Proxies live directly In it. Why do I skip the folder structure? Because it will be a tedious task to replicate the detailed folder structure for proxies and the renaming of the files will take care of avoiding duplicates. Also I have never needed to browse the proxies folder. It is just a place where the proxies and I treat as Cache folder.

5- Mobility: This is probably the most important part. When I'm on the move, I only take my Proxy external with me. Well what about music? Audio? extra assets that I might need for my project and the project file itself?
a) I Heavily Rely on an app called "Sync Folders Pro". This app makes sure that everything on my main Drive is constantly copied to my External Drive EXCEPT High resolution video files. In Other words my Proxy external contains 2 folders: one called proxies, and the other called mirror. Inside proxies there is folders named after projects and the corresponding proxies lives inside. The other folder is Called mirror which contains an exact copy of my main drive without the big video files. That includes project files, music, audio files, documentation, etc.
b) I also Heavily rely on Adobe CC Folder, where my projects are backed up every 5 minutes to the cloud and synced with my laptop. This way I always have the latest project on both my iMac and my Macbook

When opening the project with the proxies only while the full res are offline, Premiere will ask you to locate those. Press Cancel, do not Press Offline All. This way when you open again and your HDD is turned on, it will not ask you to locate.

6- About renaming: If you spend time organizing your files and your folder structure on your system before importing to premiere, you will find yourself not needing to rename anything in premiere and re-organize your bins. Depending on your project, you might need to input "comments" for each file and/or various metadata.

I hope that's helpful for you. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

[jayXYZ]

Super helpful reply, going to try and mimic your workflow and see if I can adapt it to work for myself. My only question (which might be solved by the way you create and link proxies) is if subclipping still does not work when the full res media is offline? Thank you for the help!

[Christian.Z]

I rarely use subcliping in premiere, I use nesting instead. Not that subclipping is not any better, it just that for some specific workflow, Nesting serves me better, and I have not faced any scenario yet where subclipping in more beneficial.

All that to tell that I cannot give a definitive answer to your question. But I might be able to help you if you are still encountering this problem, by telling me what is it exactly you are encountering when you say that subclipping does not work, is it greyed out? Are you getting some sort of error?

Meanwhile, can you try Nesting? It might serve you better.

I need to point out something. You mentioned that you are not attaching your full res, because you don't want to fish through your bag to find the external. If it's there, Use it.

My entire workflow is designed to help me be mobile. If I can transport both my 2kg, 12tb each LaCie drives with me I would not have said no. If you are like me and have an iMac and an MBP, than my Workflow is perfect for you.
If you only work through MBP, than I suggest you get 2 very large externals, backup every night. And your proxies can live next to originals instead of on a separate location.

Regardless of your workflow, Golden rule is not to store anything on the main drive where OS and software are installed. Not even proxies.

[jayXYZ]

My project involves long drone shots (5-10min clips) that I am working through to find the best pieces of before assembling those clips to sync with music, so I don't believe nesting will be useful for me here, although I can see a lot of situations where it will be useful in the future.

Also, just to clarify, I am working just solely on my MBP (my desktop is a Windows machine) so the second setup you suggested will work better for me.

Not storing anything on main drive makes sense, so I understand why proxies should live next to their raw files.

I think this should solve all my issues, so while I have to go back and change my workflow and redo some of my work, this will definitely futureproof myself from running into similar issues (or potentially losing project information).

Thanks for all the info~

[Kombi Life]

Hi Christian,
Thanks for your detailed reply on this.  I have almost the exact same workflow as you (and the same camera with limitations that you mentioned)
I use Adobe Bridge to batch rename files on import of my footage so the files will never have a duplication conflict.
I rename them DATE + TIME + ORIGINAL NAME.
I found that even with the folder structure you mentioned, sometimes Adobe will relink the incorrect footage when there are duplicates within the folder hierarchy

[R Neil Haugen]

I've heard of a similar approach. I talked with an assistant editor for a big-city TV news office at NAB a couple years ago. His primary duty was ingesting everything that came in, from their own shooters to "civilians", via Prelude.

Why? Because so many freaking different file-name protocols and the number of different ways cameras can store separate video/audio files caused them huge headaches. His job was essentially headache mitigation.

They had a very precise naming protocol, and everything that came into them for potential broadcast via their news shows went to him first ... and he renamed it all, including t-coding to single-file format/codecs anything with separate video/audio. And they had a fast machine for encoding for him to do this on.

Boring as Hades, he said ... but ... it made it much easier, faster, and more reliable for every step down the line. And as speed is the biggest issue they faced, there was no time whatever for sorting out issues after editing started.

Neil