Subclip Sorrows – Is there *ANY* way to open the original master / source clip ?

[anarchyandy]

I've used Premiere off and on for about 18 years, but have mostly edited with FCP. I'm cutting a large interview-based project in Premiere and need to know once and for all if an issue that has always dogged me in Premiere is truly as awful and bizarre as it seems or if it is possible I am missing something.

When working with subclips, is there any command that will allow you to access the original master clip or source media?

Example: I'm editing an interview. I set in and out points around the interview subject's different comments and create a series of subclips. I now have nicely organized folders full of subclips corresponding to different sections of the original long interview clip. I pull some subclips into my timeline. I begin editing, shuttling through my clips in the source monitor and grabbing the pieces and parts I need.

During this process, in FCP and other editors, you can press a key (match frame) or use several other methods to open the original source clip in the source monitor, and pull new instances of this footage into your timeline without changing the in and out points on your carefully organized subclips. Premiere Pro seems to lack any non-destructive way of achieving this basic editing functionality.

Another way of putting it is that when working with subclips in your timeline and source monitor, any attempt to grab a few words here, a phrase there, etc. (in other words, video editing) will result in permanent unavoidable loss of your original in and out points on one of your subclips. There is no way to jump from subclips to an original clip or source media so you can create a new clip instance instead of altering an existing subclip's in and out points.

This means that I can't even create a macro to make up for Premiere's lack of a usable "match frame" or "open master clip" functionality. Do other editors using this software for interview-based work just not use subclips for organization? Do they just train themselves not to touch the footage they want to use that is sitting right in front of them in their source monitor until they've gone through the ridiculous workaround of noting the time code, locating the master clip, opening it and setting new in and out points for the needed section? As someone who has shot and edited hundreds of hours of interviews, I can't fathom working like this. Is this just the Premiere Pro way?

[Michael Grenadier]

yup.  very simple.  I'm my system "f" match frames from the clip in the sequence to the subclip in the source monitor and then I hit "f " again and it matches back to the original clip....  Is that what you're asking?

[Michael Grenadier · Accepted solution]

in case that's not clear, you can map match frame to whatever key comabination you want.  in my system I've got it mapped to "f" because I've got the fcp7 keyboard loaded.  when you have selected a clip in the timeline and hit "f" it loads the subclip in the source monitor and makes the source monitor active.  hitting f again, loads the original full clip in the timeline.  or do I not understand your question... ?

[R Neil Haugen]

As mgrenadier has said, hitting F twice in succession brings up first the Source monitor for the subclip, then the original clip in 'another' Source monitor. And you can remove the in/out point, make new ones, it doesn't affect the subclips sitting in the bin or on the sequence.

Neil

[anarchyandy]

Hey @Michael Grenadier! I think I had a different user name at the time but we used to interact on the Apple forums a million years ago.

The solution you describe would be great, unfortunately I seem to be seeing different behavior than what you and @R Neil Haugen describe. With the playhead over a subclip in the timeline, hitting 'F' opens the subclip in the Source window. Hitting 'F' again with the Source window active doesn't seem to do anything for me. I haven't knowingly remapped any keys.

I've upgraded to the latest version of Premiere (14.6.0). Just in case, I also loaded the FCP 7 keyboad but experienced the same behavior. I can easily reproduce this by creating a fresh project, importing a source clip, creating a subclip, and dragging it to the timeline. Match Frame will only ever match back to the subclip in the Source monitor, never the source clip.

If you can acheive this just by hitting the 'F' key twice that would be really amazing, because this has been a longstanding issue for others, with discussion as recent as September:
https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/34565146-match-frame-a-subc...

Any idea what could be going on here?

[R Neil Haugen]

I just tap the F key with the timeilne active ... wait a couple seconds, tap it again.

If I click in the Source monitor though, then tap F, it doesn't work.

Neil

[Michael Grenadier]

but when I select the subclip in the timeline and hit f it makes the source monitor active and then hit f again, it loads the original clip in the source monitor.  Is that what you're seeing Neil? 

Andy (I assume it's Andy) do you remember what your username was back in the day?  hopefully we didn't bang hands.  There were a few bruises back at apple, but not many.

Andy, do you see the same behavior as I'm seeing, selecting the clip in the timeline, hitting f which loads the subclip in the source monitor and then hit f again and it loads the full clp in the source monitor?  If not, somethings wrong...  post back and we'll try and figure it out.  I've got multiple versions of premiee on both a mac and pc and as far as I know, they all function as described. 

Please tell us your system specs: OS version, Premiere version, amount of RAM, Hardware specs including graphics card

 and wondering what you're using to create macros.  Could it be that it's interfering somehow or other with this.  You might change the shortcut key in keyboard shortcuts and see if that makes a difference.

btw, I'm not attempting to disguise my identity, just never bothered to set up a username here rather than my email address (without the domain).  It's Michael.  And I look back fondly on my days on the apple forum.  I still have friends from those days.  The only one that I know of that's here is MegTheDog...  I'm glad I finally found a comparable resource for Premiere.  When I first started working with Premiere, this forum (to put it politely) s*cked.  Kudo's to adobe (and Kevin Monahan) for putting the work in... 

[R Neil Haugen]

Yep, mgrenadier, that's what I get. Both on my desktop and laptop.

Neil

[Michael Grenadier]

it does seem like slightly weird behavior.  why should it make a difference if the subclip is loaded from the bin or from match framing?  But may be a legacy of some programming choice made years ago that's not easy to change without unintended consequences.  It's strange, I hardly ever use subclips now while I used to use them all the time in fcp and in avid.  I think it's because at least in fcp 1-7 I used to mark up my sources with markers and then convert the markers to subclips.  That's a workflow I would love in premiere...

[caroml]

I've thought for years that subclips didn't match frame to the master clip. It's been the bane of my editing existence. I was about to answer this thread by saying I still cannot match frame to the master clip and have done everything that has been suggested in this thread (which is what I've been doing all along).

But I found the answer in a another thread. What I wasn't doing: when you create a subclip, I wasn't opting to "restrict trims to boundaries". If that box is left unchecked, you won't be able to match frame to the master clip. You must check that box. Annoying!
It's explained here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/matchframe-on-a-subclip-in-source-monitor-will-not-load-...

I don't understand why anyone would work with subclips that cannot be extended. What if you need to add an effect between 2 subclips? You have to manually go in a menu and uncheck the restrict trim box. And then you lose the option to match frame to the source clip because you cannot add the restriction afterward. I'd get rid of that restrict trim box altogether. It's useless. Subclips were always unrestricted in FCP7 and AVID (NLE's I've used) and match framing to master clip worked.

[Michael Grenadier]

if you create a subclip and restrict to "trims to boundaries" and if you need to trim beyond those boundaries, you can select the subclip in the bin and  go to the clip menu "edit subclip" and change this...  I agree it's not ideal, but it does work.   Just tested it.

[caroml]

Yes, I've done this too (and you can even map a shortcut to edit subclips to your keyboard), but then you lose capabilities to match frame to the source clip once you've made the change to un-restrict. And if you want to restrict trim to boundaries again, you cannot, it's greyed out.
We can all agree this is not ideal.