incorporating Avid proxies

[Daniel30810352o94k]

Hi,

I work with a colleague who cuts on PP while I am on Avid (a hangover from past lives).

Currently, we are working on a music documentary, and I have started.  The thing is, I created proxies in Avid (Apple Pro-Res), and the way Avid does things it creates a separate video and audio file for each original file (the proxies generally share the same filename, though there is a signifier for one being video and the other audio), and while in Avid its architecture allows for the reading of both files at the same time.  Not being an expert on all this, but I believe PP would have made a single file containing both video and audio.  

Ok, it is what it is.  But if I pass the work over to my colleague (with an AAF file), then he says that PP cannot read/coordinate the two files produced in Avid now while it's in PP.  

How to solve this issue?

Thank you,

D. 

[R Neil Haugen]

You are correct, Premiere would create a single ProRes proxy with audio. And to be honest, I have heard Avid users complain of this at NAB ... as it makes all sorts of issues with cross-app workflows. Personally, why they separate the two is a puzzlement, but we're only users, right? Whaddawe know!

Are you using the proxy files without both having the original media?

[Daniel30810352o94k]

It is a pain. If there were a technical benefit, then fine; but this doesn't seem so.  Oh well.  The thing is, while we are both competent and reasonably tech-savvy editors, we are not professionally-trained ones (Soho-type thing), so while there may be a solution, we don't know it.

Yes, I have the original files, and they're tucked away off-line while I work with the proxies.  The thing is, I've done a lot of prep-work so far - syncing up multiple cameras, cutting out much dross on interviews and marking meticulous notes - so if a solution to this here issue is not to hand then I wouldn't be handing over much to my colleague without him having to repeat, again, an extraordinary amount of prep-work thus far. Generally, between us, I am more the Producer while he is more the Editor, so he is faster than me, while I bring in work.  But in the down-time between projects we have this potentially great 'labour of love' project just sitting there that he has more time to get going on than I do.

Any ideas?

[R Neil Haugen]

This sort of thing is rather common in video post, having people working on a project in different physical locations. And it always requires full testing of how you'll do this, prior to starting the actual project.

There are no current processes for complete integration of different applications in a workflow, such as going from one NLE to another, or even from an NLE to a compositing or grading app, without having to test to find the places that don't work without being carefully setup to get around them. And yea, that is a pain. 

It sounds like you may have multicam interview shoots involved? Yea, that's a pain right there, as multicams really are mutliple file sequences with cuts meaning essentially turning on and off visibility ... and there's no way I've heard of for really doing that successfully across applications.

For the collaborative projects we've done, with a partner in Cape Town, us in western Oregon, we've been using LucidLink as the transport service/file-sharing "process" with all projects/media of the Production in Premiere "living" on Amazon S3 servers in London. All access on our computers is from the 'virtual' drive LucidLink sets up, so that our computers ... his Macs, our PCs, all think they are dealing with media on a local drive.

It's been nearly magical. But then, most of what we do has been within the Adobe Premiere/Ae/Au system, with occasional bits of Resolve (me) and Nuke or something (Mo). And yea, we always tested Hades out of things before doing something. Because we've both become quite paranoid about workflows over the years.

[Daniel30810352o94k]

Thank you for coming back, although, tbf, a lot of this doesn't help.

In my thinking, an AAF file would do the cross-platform timeline-related translation stuff, as before, on other projects, this has worked out well (albeit PP does a better job than Avid does at the cross-platform necessities).  But the issue here is: as this was the first time that we shot as best we could with the cameras and then I did the proxy translation work in Avid (which is its own story, right there), we didn't quite forsee that the splitting of video and audio would be any kind of issue for PP.  Again, we just didn't forsee the issue.  So is there any way of instructing PP that there are two files (the same in essence, but split each for video and audio) that it needs to read concurrently? 

Or to try a deifferent approach?  Yes, this is a pain. 

[R Neil Haugen]

There are so many potential "gotcha!" things it's amazing any of get stuff done at times.

I've done some cross app things where we ended up making proxies in both apps. We just couldn't get a smooth workflow otherwise.

And yea, it was frustrating but it just worked.

[Daniel30810352o94k]

So how did you then "co-ordinate2 (for lack of a better word) your work across apps? 

[R Neil Haugen]

Some graphics (my partner likes Fusion as much as Ae) and color (me) in Resolve, editing in Premiere, I did the basics, partner final edits.

He's in Cape Town, I'm in Oregon, we were doing all media and projects on an Amazon S3 server in London, using LucidLink virtual drive workflows so our computers and apps thought everything was local storage.

He's all Mac, I'm all PC.

We did proxies within both Premiere and Resolve. I did a render & replace of the clips on the final sequence in Premiere to do color on them in Resolve. Exported new clips in Premiere, did the old offline files/locate to the replacement color corrected files.

I actually could have done color on that job in Premiere but we wanted to push through multi-app testing while working.