5 STEPS - To Better Your Video Organization and Workflow!
Don't upset Premiere and mess up a project because you slacked on your organization. Here are 5 tips to help you better organize your video footage and Adobe Premiere projects. Bonus, you'll also benefit your workflow as a content creator!
A reference someone once used with me was, “we climb the mountain every morning, we go to work, then we hike back down with everything we created.” If we climb that mountain and someone else takes our work and loses it then we’ve just used all our time and energy for nothing. This reference was about the process of combining pre-production, principal photography, and post-production. We plan, we shoot, and we deliver. If upon delivery the editor loses all of our content then we are going to be very upset. It’s organization, along with a few other things we will get into later, that can prevent that trip up the mountain from being a waste of time and energy.
There are two things I am thinking most about here.
1) You simply lose the footage. You turn over cards to your editor, he’s supposed to back it up, forgets a card, tells you that he’s got it all, you format, and now it’s gone.
2) You don’t label your footage, a folder gets moved after an Adobe Premiere Pro Project is started, and now Premiere cannot link the media and you’re at a complete standstill hoping you find the footage. Then, just as bad as not finding it, Premiere links the wrong media because all your footage has the same name and now you’re as lost as the footage.
These things have happened to us all, I can admit to both of those and more. I came back with footage, someone else did the organizing their own way, next thing you know, it’s nowhere to be found. So can we prevent this problem with organization? The key is to develop a system, train your crew on that system, and live by that system. If you veer from the path you have laid, you must make sure everyone on board has knowledge of this otherwise someone will get lost. So, to help you get started with better video organization, I have 5 tips steps to follow and I can ensure that you will not have these problems so long as you don’t veer from the path.
5 Steps To Better Video Organization
FOLDERS - So you’ve climbed the mountain, captured your footage, and now you’re headed back down ready to deliver. Before delivery you need to do a few things, step one; before you import and backup your footage you’re going to want to create what I call a “web” of folders. These folders are going to be the path to your footage and keep it from getting lost and unorganized. Let’s say like me you’re working on a TV show. Here’s how we are going to layout the folders for the entire season, this way we keep everything together.
Season 1 Folder
Episode 1 Folder
Footage
Camera A
Card 1
Card 2
Camera B
Card 1
Premiere Files
After Effects Files
Audition Files
This is going to be the best method in my opinion of laying out folders. By doing so you keep your footage and all post-production files within the same folder structure and nothing should get separated. Now if you’re not the editor and just backing up media you won’t necessarily need to add the post-production folders; however, I would say most of us are probably editing what we’ve shot.
RENAMING FOOTAGE - The next thing and one of the most important parts of this entire process would be to rename your footage. Cinema cameras will give all of the clips an original name so you won’t have issues after formatting where the names get recycled, however, most of us are probably not using a RED Camera, or ARRI, etc. You’re probably using something like a Sony Mirrorless camera. These smaller DSLR and Mirrorless cameras all recycle their file names when you format a card. So for example, Sony will have video files with the names C0001, C0002, C0003, etc. Every time you format those names will be reused. Now if you follow the structure of my folders in step 1 and every card folder has the same file names it’s very likely over the course of an entire season some clips may get mixed up. SIDE NOTE - Let’s take a look at Premiere’s way of reading media. When you import premiere remembers where that file is located. If you move that folder for whatever reason, let’s say you hand off your drive to another editor to finish the project. Premiere is going to be looking for that file through your computer’s directory and not your teammates so he will have to remind premiere where everything is located. If the file names are all the same and the only difference between them is they’re in different folders, you may have some big problems at this point. I would know, this is one of my 5 tips for a reason of experience. So if you rename each of your files before bringing them into Premiere your world will be much easier in the edit.
The best way I have found to rename footage is to name it like your slate. S1 (season 1) _ E1 (episode 1) _ CA or just A (camera A) _ C1 (card 1) - shot #
So it should look like this going down the list…
S1_E1_A_C1-1
S1_E1_A_C1-2
S1_E1_A_C1-3
Then when you go to say Camera B Card 2 it’ll be
S1_E1_B_C2-1
S1_E1_B_C2-2
S1_E1_B_C2-3
BINS IN PREMIERE - The next step is fairly simple and all this is going to do is keep you organized inside of Premiere. You’ll want to create your project file, and once you’re inside the software you will start creating bins. I do this the exact same way as I do the folders on my drive. To quickly create bins you can use the shortcut CTRL+N (PC) or Command+N (MAC). I like to create a few folders and then let Premiere do the rest of the work for me. So first things first you’ll make these folders….
Footage
This is everything shot for your project.
Assets
This is stuff like Music, Graphics, Commercials, Bumps, etc.
Sequences
These are the timelines you’ll be editing in.
IMPORTING YOUR MEDIA - The next thing you’ll do is simply drag the folders you have already made previously into Premiere. So what I do is drag all of the CAMERA folders into the footage bin in Premiere. It will then make you bins based on your previously made folders and saves you a little time, plus you can do a bulk import rather than using Premiere’s importer and going card by card. This is one of the simplest parts of this entire process but importing the correct way, and making sure everything goes into its respected folder is key.
SETTING UP TIMELINES (SEQUENCES) - The final step is to simply set up your sequences. The first thing I like to do is create a timeline and name it “All Footage.” This is where I will put all of my video files and I will use this timeline to cut the section of the clips I want to use and then drag them into the next timeline I am going to create called (Whatever Your Project Name Is) S1E1-5 Steps To Better Video Organization. In your All Footage sequence a nice thing to do is use Premiere’s label feature. You can label each card a specific color or each camera, etc. What I like to do is either label each camera a different color if I have multiple cameras or if everything is from one camera I like to label based on what scene the footage is from. BONUS - If you’re working on a multi-day shoot and that is a key part to the story, maybe like myself, you’re doing an Outdoor TV episode. Sometimes I like to also add days to my organization, in this case, I will not have an All Footage sequence but instead break them up into Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc. You also can break timelines up into really anything you want. I sometimes break mine up into cameras or I do A Roll and B Roll timelines; it all changes based on the edit and what the project was. You’ll figure these things out the more you edit and practice a more in-depth organization style.
So you’ve learned my five steps to organization. These are not scripture by any means, but these are what I like to use for what I do and this is the method I have found that works the best for me. The best thing to say is develop a system that works for you and live by it. You can detour and change things as you find a better method but just keep it organized. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I receive a project file from someone and I open it up and there’s zero organization in Premiere, I can’t find anything and I get an instant headache. When stuff like this happens I will not work on the project, I will send it back and tell them either to organize it so that everyone understands it or find someone else because I am not getting paid to sit and decipher someone else’s lack of skill and organization. There’s an easy way to fix that ever happening on your end and that’s to stay organized and keep your team following that same rule. Don’t climb the mountain only to lose everything and waste all that time and effort!
I hope this gives everyone a good idea and helps you out! Check out the VLOG for a full video on this topic and if you have any questions hit the comments! Until the next one ladies and gents!
