Prelude/Premiere proxy / subclip workflow question - tight deadline

[npfosi]

Hi everyone,

For the past few days I have been struggling through a workflow issue.

I have a personal affinity for ingesting and logging my footage in Adobe Prelude before moving it into Premiere for the edit. For this project I am shooting on an assortment of cameras, one of which shoots 4K on a 2015 MacBook Pro 2.5 Ghz, 16GB RAM, media on USB3 external drive. I know some people would just edit with the primary media Prelude was being sluggish (taking forever to open / lagging with the clips, particularly the 4K clips) so I started to explore a proxy workflow. I became a fan because of the logic of it, and particularly liked the idea of being able to keep the master media on my Thunderbay RAID5 array and the proxies on my USB3 drive for travel / speed.

Fast forward, I have transcoded all my footage into H.264 720p proxy files (I have since learned that H.264 using temporal compression makes it less than ideal for a proxy file but don't have time to re-transcode them into ProRes or Dnx).

These proxy files I have reviewed and made subclips of in Adobe Prelude (see screenshot). I then sent the Footage_proxy and Selects bins to Premiere and proceeded to *successfully* "Reconnect Full Res Media" for my master files (see second screenshot) but my subclips do not carry over that Full Res Media reconnection. This was the confusing part for me.

I first attempted to just "Reconnect Full Res Media" on the subclips which does connect the media but renames the subclips with the name of the master file defeating the point of me labeling them intelligently for the editing process.

I then did some Googling and found that if I Offline Media the subclip > Relink Media the subclip (to the master file) > Attach Proxy the proxy file I do achieve the desired outcome BUT this only works on one subclip at a time. I have too many subclips to do this for the whole project.

My question is: is there something I'm missing in this workflow? Something I should have done differently?

My current course of action is to edit using the proxy media subclips without the master files associated to the subclips at all, and only once the sequence is finalized or close to finalized, use my above Offline>Relink>Attach Proxy workaround on only the clips I have used in the sequence. This does not feel very efficient or practical and I would appreciate some input on how I can use Prelude, Premiere and a proxy workflow together. I have been researching extensively and I seem to be one of the only people interested in this process.

Thank you,

Nick

[Warren Heaton]

With Premiere Pro's proxy workflow, you always work with the Full Resolution clips with the attached Proxy.  You never work with the Proxy files directly.

[npfosi]

Can you clarify what you're getting at there?

How should I resolve my problem based on that?

What's the difference between importing proxy files and reattaching full res media and importing full res media and attaching proxy files? Wouldn't either case you be working with the full res media?

[Warren Heaton]

You import the Full Resolution then create or attach the Proxy.  While editing the Full Resolution clips (including making subclips), you enable or disable the Proxy by using the Toggle Proxy button (or going into the Preferences, but the Toggle Proxy button is preferable).

You do not import a Proxy and as such you never work with a Proxy directly.

So, let’s say you have IMG_5254.mov (the Full Resolution clip) and IMG_5254_proxy.mov (the attached Proxy clip).  You would only have IMG_5254.mov in the Project. You would not have IMG_5254_proxy.mov in the Project.  All edits are made using IMG_5254.mov, including marking In Marks and Out Marks, making Subclips, merging clips with audio recordings, creating New Sequence from Clip, and creating MultiCamera Source Sequences.

if you’ve imported IMG_5254_proxy.mov and used it to make Subclips or create a new Sequence, then you’re using the Proxy as if it were the Full Resolution file. This would be incorrect use of IMG_5254_proxy.mov. If you happen to have created a Sequence from IMG_5254_proxy.mov and have been editing, you’ll want to create a new Sequence from IMG_5254.mov, copy and paste all affiliates of IMG_5254_proxy.mov into this new Sequence and then manually replace affiliates of IMG_5254_proxy.mov with a corresponding affiliate of IMG_5254.mov.

[npfosi]

I totally am with you on everything you've said and I understand that. What I feel like the workflow you are outlining above doesn't incorporate using Prelude at any point. Because I want to create proxy images in Prelude and log those smaller files (faster to log files) in Prelude *not* the full res files.

[Warren Heaton]

It would be great to be able to create and to work with Proxy files directly in Prelude; however, there's no way to media manage your work with the Proxy files to create a PR Project file later that links to your Full Resolution clips instead of the Proxy clips. 

You may be familiar with Final Cut Pro classic's Media Manager that allowed you to work entirely with Offline clips (what would be Proxy clips in PR) at Offline settings very quickly with very low storage requirements and then Media Manage to an Online FCP Project file and then connect the Online clips (what would be the Full Resolution clips in PR).

The closest thing we have is to stay in Premiere Pro while keeping the Full Resolution clips on a different Volume than the Proxy media which allows us to work with the Full Resolution clips in what we could call an "Proxies always enabled" mode while the Volume with the Full Resolution clips is not connected.

It is a little odd that creating and working with Proxy clips doesn't cross over to Prelude.  While you can do what you do in Prelude in Premiere Pro, Prelude's interface is really well designed for creating Subclips and Markers.  Having a Timeline for the source footage in PR like PL would be great.

-Warren

[Cahill_Productions__LLC-C1zI9f]

Using proxy files that have an identical filename to the full resolution media, Premiere seems to have no trouble finding all of the media when you tell it to link back to the original media.  This appears to translate through to the subclips that have unique names as well.  I've only done a limited test.  The steps are below:

1. Ingest proxy files that have the same filename as the full resolution media into Prelude

2. Mark subclips, rename subclips, and add comments as desired as if you are working on the full resolution media

3. Send proxy files and subclips from Prelude into Premiere

4. Make all proxy files and subclips offline in Premiere

5. Link media using full resolution files (Note: Select all clips and subclips -- Premiere should automatically find all of them after you link the first one)

6. Attach proxies (again, select all clips at once)

**Note, I haven't tested this workflow using proxy files that have the typical "_proxy" suffix attached to the filename that Premiere automatically adds when creating proxies.  If this method worked in that scenario, then I would probably suggest keeping the "_proxy" suffix as it is a safety measure that helps protect against accidentally overwriting your full resolution media with your proxy media due to a blunder.  I just came across this workflow as the proxies I am using happened to be generated via Davinci Resolve where they were encoded using the exact filename of the original media.  There are perhaps some benefits to using the same filename for your proxies -- just different ways of doing things with different benefits/drawbacks.**

Warren's point about how Premiere works with full resolution files rather than directly with proxy files is spot on in my opinion.  If doing a very large project, would recommend checking for any unintended consequences to this approach, before jumping into it.