Linking (or merging) Merged Clips To Un-merged Media

[default279cvv0qg13n]

Currently cutting a feature film, sort of in the first quarter of the process, and the AE who prepped the project, did so in favor of the way the director likes their project layed out. They pancake a "synced" timeline and the working timeline on top of each other. Nothing is Merged, renamed, or labeled but everything is mostly in sync.

Unfortunately, this isn't compatible with the way that I tend to work and it's slowing me down. I'm going to have my AE prep the project the way I prefer to work which is to Merge Clips and rename the files based on scenes/shots, and label them.

Half the movie is already assembled. I'm wondering if I bring in these assembled sequences to the restructured and organized project, will it duplicate media in my project? Or will it automatically reference the Merged media? I prefer to keep things clean and don't want to bog down the project. Another thing I'm concerned about is the media in the assembly sequences have the original camera names---I take it they won't rename to how we've organized the project by themselves?

Is there a recommendation on how to handle this?

[John V Knowles]

One big thing to keep in mind: if you Merge Clips it will delete the references to the original clips and source audio. So if for any reason you need to match back to the source later it will be difficult. This may especially problematic if you send the film out for post sound; if your sound editor or mixer wants to reference the original production audio files they won't be able to match by timecode.

Merged clips is an older way of working in Premiere that can cause issues on large productions like films. The better way is to sync audio and video via multicam sync and use those MC clips as your new source media rather than merged clips. 

HTH, JVK

[default279cvv0qg13n]

@John V Knowles thanks for the response! That is good to know. Will it be an issue, for merged clips, if camera and sound have the same timecode, though?

Say we decided to go the multicam route, as you suggested, I have the same questions in my original post, but replace "merged" with multicam:

Half the movie is already assembled. I'm wondering if I bring in these assembled sequences to the restructured and organized project, will it duplicate media in my project? Or will it automatically reference the Merged media? I prefer to keep things clean and don't want to bog down the project. Another thing I'm concerned about is the media in the assembly sequences have the original camera names---I take it they won't rename to how we've organized the project by themselves?

Is there a recommendation on how to handle this?

[John V Knowles]

Multicams won't duplicate clips, but you will have the Multicam clip itself (which is technically a nested cli) and the original picture and audio in the bins. So what I usually do is check the selection for "processed clips in a folder" as that will put all the synced clips away in a bin after the sync operation and leave just the MC clips. Or you could just be sure to move everything into bins so that the project stays organized. 

Now if the timecode on picture and sound matches that *might* make merged clips okay, but you'd need to test that the overall timecode doesn't reset to 0 within the new merged clip. I haven't used them in a long time so I can't remember if this is what happens.

[default279cvv0qg13n]

Thanks again, for the response @John V Knowles . It doesn't reset to "0." At least, on a feature last year, I didn't have this issue.

But I'll have to confirm in the sound reports, of this current project, if there were any days it slipped. MC clips might be cleaner to be safe.

Thanks again!