Removing every fifth frame inside Premiere (without involving AE)

Report · Aug 16, 2020

I want to remove every fifth frame from a video that was shot at 24p, then conformed to 30p. When I import the 30p video into a 24p timeline, Premiere removes every fifth frame – but it's the wrong frame, darn it. So I've still got the initial frame repeats, but now a missing frame as well.

So I thought I'd just move the video along in the timeline, so that Premiere would start its frame removal at a different point. No luck. Next idea: use AE to move the video by one frame.

So… I opened the video in After Effects, created a 30p composition, moved the video 1 frame, imported that composition into Premiere, and after a few iterations of frame movement in AE, Premiere locked onto the correct frame for removal.

My question is: can Premiere realign its frame-removal starting point (when a 30p video is inserted into a 24p timeline) so that I don't have to involve AE?

Report · Aug 17, 2020

Honestly, I have never heard of your process in editing... and I highly doubt that there is a standard function for it in PPro. But then again, I'm from Europe where 25 fps is the default standard...

Perhaps my American ACPs are able to enlighten you further, but otherwise I guess you have discovered your own work-around.

Report · Aug 17, 2020

I think I have a Premiere-only solution: place the 30p video into a 30p timeline, nest, and place that nest into a 24p timeline. To adjust the position of the 5th frame removal, alter the start of the 30p video in the nest.

I'm playing around with some of the early public-domain cartoons to see how they were made (how many drawings per seconds and so on). The only copy I have of Warner Bros first animation, Sinkin in The Bathtub, from their Looney Tunes Blu-ray, is in 30p with duplicated 5th frames. They often only drew 12 or maybe 8 frames per second, so there are frame repeats anyway. It gets confusing trying to work out which is an actual repeat, and which is an artificial 24p/30p repeat.