Workflow: Folders vs Projects vs Files...How do people organize cuts?

[Gotta Dance]

Hi everybody,

I'm an After Effects guy working on a video project and The File/Folder/Project organization is...different. 

The key thing that's throwing me off is how to know which one you're in. Like, in AE you can only have one project open at a time. So in your bin, there's no questions to the items of the tree stack are in one place.

In Premiere, I can have muliple projects open at the same time BUT what it if I have 3 files for stages of the same project? Each file/project is rough, fine, and FX...? I sourced each one from it's own file so I'm not working from one master file with only an internal Premire file for each stage. I like have an actual file in a folder for each, rough, fine and fx stage of the project. But...they all the same in my bin and it's really easy to accidentally start working on the wrong stage of the project. Granted, I know once you're done with one stage that should be it, but sometimes I have to go back and somewhat because of my own situation (assets availabe at the time etc).

How do people traditionally organize/pipeline their work in folder-to-project so this is well-defined and not redundant/confusing?

I hope this question makes sense, the bottom line is the outline of files and projects is so easy to crossover by accident and it's not intuitively clear how I should keep from being like "oh crap, editing the earlier edit".

Thanks for reading and any suggestions.

[R Neil Haugen]

If you're working with a project in Premiere, you organize in the Project panel ... by creating  bins. X media in one, Y media in another, graphics in a third, audio in a fourth. Sequences in their own bin.

Working with mulitple projects open, and grabbing things from one to use in another, leads to many messy problems.

So  use bins in one project.

[Gotta Dance]

Hi R Neil, 

I have things organized roughly/just like you describe. The having multiple projects open is the issue. It seems it would make sense that Premiere have a way that delineates that better. I guess having experience with that it becomes natural but there's no way to know easily if you have more than one project open and like...8 project tabs. That demands like a whole new naming convention or something to know what's what.

Like, if opening more than one project in this GUI is problematic, why is it possible? LOL

And what are workarounds? I don't imagine I should re-format my file folder project structure to be just one master project file for rough/fine/gfx/final etc with all stages in an in-Premiere folder build internally. That seems dangerous. I still like having a real folder/project file for each stage in my OS with assets etc. 

Know what I mean?

[R Neil Haugen]

Doing a project by grabbing things from multiple other Premiere project files is a nasty mess waiting to happen. That's what bins are for, again. You can have a pretty large project of assets.

The other possibility is Productions mode, which is a completely different way of working. I can give more information on that process tomorrow.

[Gotta Dance]

I agree about the grabbing part. Hear you, that's my dilemma. I guess I can just try to not have more than one project open at a time in Premiere. As if I do it would be easy to muck things up. 

Attached is a screenshot of my current setup in Premiere and my folder structure. I only have one project open, but if I open more than one at a time The bin and timeline tabs become...mixed. which is a bad (and easy) scenario to run into. I guess that's kind of my dilmemma/question, you know? Like, the ability to open multiple pproj files in this manner is like wading into a swamp.

But as you can see in my folder structure, I have one file for each stage assembly/rough/fine etc. Do editors just make sure never to have more than one project open at a time in their own fashion or is there a different approach? I would think making one master file for all stages would be a tight rope if the file became corrupt for some reason. There is auto-save but I like to segment my process for this reason.

I hope that makes sense. I guess for now I can just be very careful not to open more than one project at a time.

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

The working process for Premiere has always been to have one project per project, really. I've seen project panels that had 50 bins of stuff, but all organized by what they were. 

Think about it ... sequences are nothing but metadata, right? And Premiere needs to have that meta to work. So ... you drag something from one project to a sequence in another project, Premiere has to add that media to that second project or it has no working 'reference' to the media. It can't access information from a different project.

So ... you get duplications of assets building up, no idea where what actually comes from, and closing down the project is a total mess. Stuff splattered everywhere to heck and gone.

So yes, running ONE project, which is very different than an Ae Vx person running carefully no more than say 3 comps per Ae file.

The other, newer option in Premiere is Productions mode. I'll include their actually pretty good doc links. Production mode is completely a different beast, but pretty awesome.

You create a New Production, Premiere creates the Production folder ... and honest to gosh live folder on disc! Then in that Production panel/folder, you right-click and create subfolders for however you want your project organized. Say ... Media, then under that, Day 1, Day 2 ... then Audio, Sequences, or whatever.

And in those named folders, you now right-click, create projects. The project files are actually used like bins in the old  'stand-alone' workflow. So you have a project doing nothing but "holding" Day 1 media, one for Day 2, another in the Sequences folder for Sequences ... see?

Within a Production, Premiere can track assets from other project files, and this is the way that all 'big' long-form and episodic work is now handled in Premiere. It doesn't bog down like massive single project file projects will.

Premiere Pro Productions Introduction

Using Productions in Premiere Pro

Adobe Long-form and Episodic Best Practices Guide 

Jarle’s blog expansion of the pdf Multicam section: Premiere Pro Multicam

[Gotta Dance]

"Production mode is completely a different beast, but pretty awesome." - hehe, nice

Cool, going forward I will just be very careful to make sure I only have one stage (file) of the edit open at one time in Premiere. I'll also check out productions mode for sure.

Thanks R Neil! 🙂

[R Neil Haugen]

I'm mostly a one man shop. My entire year's work is in a Production. With folder trees for various clients and project types. For my audio library, for broll, for templates, and on. Slick.