Warning: PP doesn't work for feature length projects

[antonh64696242]

I felt the need to get this out of my system. And I want to hear if others experience the same things. Am I just going mad?

 I am fluent in both Premiere and Avid and i've been using both for around 15 years. 

At the moment I'm editing a feature length (around 2-2,5 hours) film. It's the first time I'm editing a feature in premiere (all of my previous features I've edited in Avid). And here are my take aways:

It doesn't work. I feel confident premiere is NOT made to work for theese kinds of projects without big workarounds to just run.

Let me alaborate. The last film i did in Avid i used a Mac mini M1 with 16gb of ram. Sure there where times I wished I have had a faster and better machine, but it worked. For my current project I had to upgrade to the latest Mac studio M4 Max because premiere where so laggy. But even now, every edit i make, every trim in my timeline - heck even when I just scroll on the timeline - there is lag. 

It got even worse with the latest update. I had to downgrade to the previuous version which helped alot. But there's still lag. Every save takes around 15 seconds. And with every lag I'm longing for Avids smooth easy, lag-free experience with quick save times. I've tried emptying cache. And it makes it a little tiny bit fast for a while.

My feeling (yes, I don't know code or software engingering) is that there are to many, for film editing, unnecessary functions. Sure, they may be very handy when editing quick short form projects, but are just weighing down the softeware on longer formats. 

Adobe should really consider, if they want to keep feature film editors, to develop a stripped down version of premiere pro. Maybe starting from scratch. Re-imagined. Maybe you could let people choose which functions they need. 

I will never use premiere again unless MAJOR changes are made.

If anyone can relate and have figured out solutions PLEASE share. I've still got time left with this project.

[Rag and Bone]

This is not much help to you, but other people do seem to be able to use Premiere for movies. See this, admittedly biased, booster piece. 

Check out this video for optimization tips.

[R Neil Haugen]

If you are working in the old stand-alone mode, of course you are having troubles. Duh.

Any long-form/episodic work should be done in the form of the app designed for such, Productions mode. Here's some info on that.

Premiere 2023 New Features List

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

[mattchristensen]

@antonh64696242 I'm sorry you're not having a good experience. I assure you Premiere Pro can be used for long-form projects. But I'm not here to argue with you! Clearly something is going wrong. As Neil mentioned, I'd recommend becoming famliar with the Long Form and Episodic Best Practices Guide: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/long-form-episodic-best-practices.html. It was written as a reference (don't try to read it one sitting!) to describe a best practices flow from dailies through to turnovers.

Two questions that can help me understand your situation in relation to what you have experienced in Media Composer:

1. What format/codec is your footage? Is it camera original files, or dailies, or proxies made by Premiere Pro?
2. Are you using a single project file or a Production? 

Thanks,

Matt