One of the most valuable skills I was taught in film school was organizing footage. The advice the professor gave was that you want to be able to "edit at the speed of thought" meaning you shouldn't have to search for too long when you think of an image, song, etc...
i had some issues with editing recently because of my set-up and have finally learnt the way to protect myself from those issues thanks to this video! thanks.
This is literally one of the best tutorials I've watched. I'm so glad I found it right before I started my video editing journey. This is going to save me SO much time and frustration. Thank you!
Fantastic video! I watched a few other videos on this topic trying to find a simple approach to organizing my edit, and it was this video that made it all click for me. Thanks!
Great video! One thing I found works better for me is having the AUDIO and VIDEO folders outside of the PREMIERE folder. Premiere generates a lot of folders for previews and cache, and it can get messy, so I keep the premiere folder strictly for that, and have the rest of my folders outside of it.
@@designthinkingwithgian The first layer of folders: Premiere, Footage, and Exports. Premiere Holds all the project files (PR and AE), Footage has organized subfolders for each camera and audio recorder I have, and Exports for exports.
Hi Merle I came across your RUclips channel today purely by chance (luckily)! It's HAMMER how professionally and competently you explain the matter! I've just started to familiarize myself with Premiere Pro, so your tutorials are just right for me. Thank you very much for your brilliant work! Of course, a subscription is a given! Kind regards from Switzerland! Ruggero
OMG Merie it was awesome ! Not just a beautiful lady but very nice and smart ! I’m improving my editing skills in premier pro and it came sooo handy !! THANKS 🙏🏼
OMG THANK YOU FOR THIS! I have files all over my HD and I'm always afraid that if I move something it will break the link and I'll never find them again. It's just a splatter shot of files all over the place. This is amazing, thank you!
I really liked this video! I would love to see your workflow when you start going through footage and organizing, creating sequences etc. Thanks so much!
thank you - really amazing video! After you export your final video, should you clean out your auto-save files and media caches? to save space on your external
They don't take up a whole lot of space, so I usually leave them until I absolutely have to delete stuff for space (just in case a client has a last, last, last minute fix, they'll all still be there.) That being said, if you want to be extra diligent about keeping your workstation clean, it wouldn't hurt.
I did not know I have spies in my house. I better watch out from now on. You mentioned all my headaches. Thanks, Ms. Becker, I even like your last name since I deal with Mercedes and Becker radio is the Original Equipment on Mercedes. BTW, I liked and subscribed and of course, I am leaving you a comment. You even look organized, like my bookkeeper, she is OCD when it comes to organization.
Tremendous!!- The first time i watched the video I was super confused - a day later for some supernatural reason :) I was clear and super simiple and made a tonne of sense!! Many thanks to your efforts to educate others on this topic- All da Best !!! & Cheers!!!
Ugh, just looked through EVERY folder/file on my desktop for an important project; lost. 😞 Thank you for this video. Going to grab an external hard drive and start organizing more efficiently 👍 Thanks for the pro-tips
Are you aware that if you just drag the project folders into the import window of Premier, it automatically creates the folders and subfolders for you so you don't have to create them twice? the only thing it doesn't do is add new files to the Premier folder when they are dropped into the OS folders.
Awesome video, thanks. What if e.g. you have a 2 hour podcast video and are making 30 short clips for social. Do you create each one as a new project? Or can you have multiple sequences in the same project? Seperate question: what if the video has audio, do you split it and put it into seperate folders? Seperate question: When I reopen some projects, and drag a sequence onto the timeline, why does it create a new sequence with the same name, when I just want to change the sequence I was already working on? And why do some sequences merge/become a single sequence? I'm trying to figure out how I can send the premier folder to another editor in a way that they can see all the cuts that I've made (when the footage doesn't have a timecode on it).
I have a folder on my desktop with all the subfolders made, so when I start a new project, I just drag that to the drive, and re-name the parent folder. Within Premiere, sadly, no. I've been meaning to make a feature request for this - It would be *really* useful!
Please someone tell me if I make folders in project panel so how to save it in a way that if I open a new page then that folder appears there only plsss tell I can't figure it out from past 2-3 days plsss
Hopefully I am understanding this correctly… One way to achieve this would be to create a "template project", where you create all the folders you want in there, then just duplicate the template, rename it to your new project, (and basically use the template every time you start a new project).
Question if I use a same background video loop in all of my projects which is about a 1GB. Copying that file into every project will eat up so much of my hard disk space. So what do you do about that scenario?
Great video. If we were to zoom out one step and I wanted to organize not just a project, but all my content creation for one client, would I just have a folder called all projects, and then separate project folders? Some people seem to talk about Productions, but I'm not sure what they are.
I'm not sure what "Productions" are either. But, I usually have one main folder for each of my clients (with the mentioned subfolders). Then, for each of the projects I'm doing for them, I'll create a new Premiere project, and name it accordingly. So, for example, I would have one main folder called PROCTER AND GAMBLE then in the Premiere subfolder, I would have several Premiere projects, one for each of the videos I did for them: "Iams Ad" "Dove Socials", etc.
Ah, okay. I see. Thanks for replying. So you don’t have the whole package of folders with all the Fx, audio, music etc repeated totally for each new 2 minute SoMe film?
Does anyone know how to do this organisation AFTER the project is created? I made mine ages ago and, like a lemon, just dumped them in my PC's Videos, Music, Pictures etc folders. Very unorganised and confusing. I'm quite new to PP and just learned this helpful trick, will use for all future projects.
Glad it helped! And, no, but I will always label them date / camera / group - like so: 20230415 CamA 01, 20230415 CamA 02, etc. (The reason you put the date like that is so that you can sort chronologically.)
Just create new folder or bin under the ‘shot’ folder and named them accordingly, do it both in system and inside premiere. Ex : shot > yymmdd Sony a7c. shot > yymmdd Sony a6600 etc
@bathnoya206 thank you Think I'm getting a bit of an idea Using Tentacle track e Timecode It mostly lines it all up ok Using labels Your video helped steer the course
One last question I was importing my gootage using light room and renaming everything in that but that won't work with multiple cameras as they need to be keot together and labeled separately I believe
I know this is from a while ago but I don't have a mac, and haven't ever actually. What is the windows equivalent of a "drive" ? or is it just a folder in the local disk?
Could I import to computer like you rename camera folders then once on computer get into light room? I like light room simply to easily view what o shot esp useful months later for reference
Hi Merle, Love the tutorial. I'm reorganizing 15 years of my work in Premiere Pro CC on Mac, waiting for 2 x 32TB Glyph RAID drives and a fast Glyph 8TB SSD for often needed stuff. I also have Backblaze for a third copy of everything. My system for storing files is the same as the one I used for decades for Graphic Design when everything was printed (enjoyed the rock poster movie btw) - it goes year, client, project - the first one with your system is 23_I AM UGANDA_video. And I'll go back through all my work over the next 6 months and get it in shape. So here's my question: Before this I allowed Premiere to organize everything. So I'd have to adjust that, and my backups as well. This sounds like A LOT of work. So my question is, can this be done with a simpler method? And if so, what would that be? Any advice would be welcome :)
I think you should know that a long intro is terrible for viewer retention. The supine thing about PP is that a folder has to have two files in it, for PP to creat the folder in the project window. Bad idea to put recover files in the same drive. Use a different drive in case that drive fails. What you are saying does not make sense, if you create the folders in the explorer, then just drags the folders with the footage into the project window that way the folders are created automatically in the project window. Also never export, send it to ME instead. Larry
Hi Larry, thanks for the tips. I hear you about the intr. Hopefully the chapter markers in the description help those who don't want to see it. (It used to be even longer, lol). In any case, yep have a back-up drive. And yep, Premiere no longer imports folders unless there is, I think, more than two files in there, now. It used to bring in the folder with one file, but you have to have at least two for it to bring in the folder, as well.
I am editing a project where I bring together multiple interviews for the first time. Within each interview I cut each question and answer into its own clip and rename it to tell me what the topic was. Is there a way to see all of the clips from the project in a folder structure so I can quickly find each person's answer about topic A without having to go into each sequences' timeline to look?
Yes, I usually do. Or, if you have a bunch of projects that relate to each other (like a series with multiple episodes), keep them all in one folder with the same cache location.
I always have a problem with saving the projects. Every time I open Premier Pro, it says "Replace Project" I'm not sure why, and I don't know if something in the setting is causing this issue. I'm a newbie to Premier Pro, and I guess I'm missing something causing the deletion of my previous projects. Would you please advise me if you're familiar with the issue? I have a PC, and it's MSI. Thank you so much for always making great videos! 😊
Hmm. Is it asking you to upgrade your prject file to a newer version? Sometimes if your software auto-updates, it will make you update the project file in order to open it in the more recent version. If it's not that, I would need a little more info. Maybe post the exact error message here and we can figure it out.
@@diyfwmb I finally fixed it; it turned out that I was not changing the project's name, so Premier Pro automatically gives the project the same title as the previous one, which is why it replaces it. Thank you for your replay and great content! ☺
Some OS and servers (back in the day) used to freakf out if you used symbols (uploads were rejected, etc.), and I still avoid them for this reason... But, yep!
One of the most valuable skills I was taught in film school was organizing footage. The advice the professor gave was that you want to be able to "edit at the speed of thought" meaning you shouldn't have to search for too long when you think of an image, song, etc...
Precisely!
i had some issues with editing recently because of my set-up and have finally learnt the way to protect myself from those issues thanks to this video! thanks.
Glad it helped!
This is literally one of the best tutorials I've watched. I'm so glad I found it right before I started my video editing journey. This is going to save me SO much time and frustration. Thank you!
This is great and simple information. I always struggle to locate stuff when I'm editing. This will help a lot!
Nice!
Woah, this will help me to find my video parts so much faster, Thank you!
Glad it helped :)
Fantastic video! I watched a few other videos on this topic trying to find a simple approach to organizing my edit, and it was this video that made it all click for me. Thanks!
Glad it helped!
Great video! One thing I found works better for me is having the AUDIO and VIDEO folders outside of the PREMIERE folder. Premiere generates a lot of folders for previews and cache, and it can get messy, so I keep the premiere folder strictly for that, and have the rest of my folders outside of it.
so you have PROJECT FILE > AUDIO, VIDEO, PREMIERE, and FINALS? as first layer folders?
@@designthinkingwithgian The first layer of folders: Premiere, Footage, and Exports. Premiere Holds all the project files (PR and AE), Footage has organized subfolders for each camera and audio recorder I have, and Exports for exports.
Hi Merle
I came across your RUclips channel today purely by chance (luckily)! It's HAMMER how professionally and competently you explain the matter! I've just started to familiarize myself with Premiere Pro, so your tutorials are just right for me. Thank you very much for your brilliant work! Of course, a subscription is a given!
Kind regards from Switzerland!
Ruggero
Nice! Glad they helped!
OMG Merie it was awesome ! Not just a beautiful lady but very nice and smart !
I’m improving my editing skills in premier pro and it came sooo handy !!
THANKS 🙏🏼
OMG THANK YOU FOR THIS! I have files all over my HD and I'm always afraid that if I move something it will break the link and I'll never find them again. It's just a splatter shot of files all over the place. This is amazing, thank you!
I really liked this video! I would love to see your workflow when you start going through footage and organizing, creating sequences etc. Thanks so much!
Really helpful! I've been meaning to do better at organizing my files.
Nice!
Thanx for this tutorial Becker , coz i didnt know how to edit well my videoz in Pr . This is really helpful on my side
thank you - really amazing video! After you export your final video, should you clean out your auto-save files and media caches? to save space on your external
They don't take up a whole lot of space, so I usually leave them until I absolutely have to delete stuff for space (just in case a client has a last, last, last minute fix, they'll all still be there.) That being said, if you want to be extra diligent about keeping your workstation clean, it wouldn't hurt.
I did not know I have spies in my house. I better watch out from now on. You mentioned all my headaches.
Thanks, Ms. Becker,
I even like your last name since I deal with Mercedes and Becker radio is the Original Equipment on Mercedes.
BTW, I liked and subscribed and of course, I am leaving you a comment. You even look organized, like my bookkeeper, she is OCD when it comes to organization.
😂
Thank you! Followed your lead for a video project and will be organizing my folders like this from now on.
Tremendous!!- The first time i watched the video I was super confused - a day later for some supernatural reason :) I was clear and super simiple and made a tonne of sense!! Many thanks to your efforts to educate others on this topic- All da Best !!! & Cheers!!!
A new sub. Many thanks it has been great help.
Nice! Glad it helped!
Very helpful, thank you.
Glad it helped!
Very helpful. Thanks!
Glad it helped!
This was super helpful. Thank you!
Ugh, just looked through EVERY folder/file on my desktop for an important project; lost. 😞 Thank you for this video. Going to grab an external hard drive and start organizing more efficiently 👍 Thanks for the pro-tips
Nice, glad it helped!
great video, thank you
Thank you for the video! I drag my desktop folders into Premiere, and the files stay linked this way. It is also a much shorter process.
Are you aware that if you just drag the project folders into the import window of Premier, it automatically creates the folders and subfolders for you so you don't have to create them twice? the only thing it doesn't do is add new files to the Premier folder when they are dropped into the OS folders.
Indeed! Except if the OS folder is empty. For this reason, I usually suggest just creating them in PP. But yes, and thanks. 👍
Awesome video, thanks. What if e.g. you have a 2 hour podcast video and are making 30 short clips for social. Do you create each one as a new project? Or can you have multiple sequences in the same project? Seperate question: what if the video has audio, do you split it and put it into seperate folders? Seperate question: When I reopen some projects, and drag a sequence onto the timeline, why does it create a new sequence with the same name, when I just want to change the sequence I was already working on? And why do some sequences merge/become a single sequence? I'm trying to figure out how I can send the premier folder to another editor in a way that they can see all the cuts that I've made (when the footage doesn't have a timecode on it).
Thanks for the fantastic video. Is there a way of saving the bin structure as a template so I don't have to do that for every new project?
I have a folder on my desktop with all the subfolders made, so when I start a new project, I just drag that to the drive, and re-name the parent folder.
Within Premiere, sadly, no. I've been meaning to make a feature request for this - It would be *really* useful!
Very informative and to the point. Thank you.
Please someone tell me if I make folders in project panel so how to save it in a way that if I open a new page then that folder appears there only plsss tell I can't figure it out from past 2-3 days plsss
Hopefully I am understanding this correctly… One way to achieve this would be to create a "template project", where you create all the folders you want in there, then just duplicate the template, rename it to your new project, (and basically use the template every time you start a new project).
@@diyfwmb I am so thankful to you Maam you literally help me out as this problem was making me mad fo a few days
Thanks a lot 😇😇
Question if I use a same background video loop in all of my projects which is about a 1GB. Copying that file into every project will eat up so much of my hard disk space. So what do you do about that scenario?
Thank you!!!!!
Glad it helped!
I appriciate your efforts
Great video. If we were to zoom out one step and I wanted to organize not just a project, but all my content creation for one client, would I just have a folder called all projects, and then separate project folders? Some people seem to talk about Productions, but I'm not sure what they are.
I'm not sure what "Productions" are either. But, I usually have one main folder for each of my clients (with the mentioned subfolders). Then, for each of the projects I'm doing for them, I'll create a new Premiere project, and name it accordingly. So, for example, I would have one main folder called PROCTER AND GAMBLE then in the Premiere subfolder, I would have several Premiere projects, one for each of the videos I did for them: "Iams Ad" "Dove Socials", etc.
Ah, okay. I see. Thanks for replying. So you don’t have the whole package of folders with all the Fx, audio, music etc repeated totally for each new 2 minute SoMe film?
this amzing
Does anyone know how to do this organisation AFTER the project is created? I made mine ages ago and, like a lemon, just dumped them in my PC's Videos, Music, Pictures etc folders. Very unorganised and confusing.
I'm quite new to PP and just learned this helpful trick, will use for all future projects.
Big thanks Merle
❤
Hello
Have you done a video on how to organise multiple cameras and days? And how to organise. Interesting video thanks
Glad it helped! And, no, but I will always label them date / camera / group - like so: 20230415 CamA 01, 20230415 CamA 02, etc. (The reason you put the date like that is so that you can sort chronologically.)
@diyfwmb thats great thank you 😊
Just create new folder or bin under the ‘shot’ folder and named them accordingly, do it both in system and inside premiere. Ex : shot > yymmdd Sony a7c. shot > yymmdd Sony a6600 etc
@bathnoya206 thank you
Think I'm getting a bit of an idea
Using Tentacle track e Timecode
It mostly lines it all up ok Using labels
Your video helped steer the course
One last question
I was importing my gootage using light room and renaming everything in that but that won't work with multiple cameras as they need to be keot together and labeled separately I believe
ROOKIE Mistake! NEVER CALL ANY FILE OR FOLDER FINAL :D hahaha
😂
I know this is from a while ago but I don't have a mac, and haven't ever actually. What is the windows equivalent of a "drive" ? or is it just a folder in the local disk?
Hi, it's a hard drive that you plug into your computer. 🙂
@@diyfwmb thank you so much. I feel very dumb
There are no dumb questions ;)
Could I import to computer like you rename camera folders then once on computer get into light room? I like light room simply to easily view what o shot esp useful months later for reference
Can you create video show how to create, add And delete bins in premiere pro for my performance task please 😊
Thank you
Hi Merle, Love the tutorial. I'm reorganizing 15 years of my work in Premiere Pro CC on Mac, waiting for 2 x 32TB Glyph RAID drives and a fast Glyph 8TB SSD for often needed stuff. I also have Backblaze for a third copy of everything. My system for storing files is the same as the one I used for decades for Graphic Design when everything was printed (enjoyed the rock poster movie btw) - it goes year, client, project - the first one with your system is 23_I AM UGANDA_video. And I'll go back through all my work over the next 6 months and get it in shape. So here's my question: Before this I allowed Premiere to organize everything. So I'd have to adjust that, and my backups as well. This sounds like A LOT of work. So my question is, can this be done with a simpler method? And if so, what would that be? Any advice would be welcome :)
When you organise folders on mac could you not just import folders and would premiere pro not put in sane order?
I think you should know that a long intro is terrible for viewer retention. The supine thing about PP is that a folder has to have two files in it, for PP to creat the folder in the project window. Bad idea to put recover files in the same drive. Use a different drive in case that drive fails. What you are saying does not make sense, if you create the folders in the explorer, then just drags the folders with the footage into the project window that way the folders are created automatically in the project window. Also never export, send it to ME instead. Larry
Hi Larry, thanks for the tips. I hear you about the intr. Hopefully the chapter markers in the description help those who don't want to see it. (It used to be even longer, lol). In any case, yep have a back-up drive. And yep, Premiere no longer imports folders unless there is, I think, more than two files in there, now. It used to bring in the folder with one file, but you have to have at least two for it to bring in the folder, as well.
I am editing a project where I bring together multiple interviews for the first time. Within each interview I cut each question and answer into its own clip and rename it to tell me what the topic was. Is there a way to see all of the clips from the project in a folder structure so I can quickly find each person's answer about topic A without having to go into each sequences' timeline to look?
Not really. One option would be to create subclips, though...: ruclips.net/video/K5LH_bcLM6Q/видео.html
Do we change media cache location for every new project then?
Yes, I usually do. Or, if you have a bunch of projects that relate to each other (like a series with multiple episodes), keep them all in one folder with the same cache location.
I always have a problem with saving the projects. Every time I open Premier Pro, it says "Replace Project" I'm not sure why, and I don't know if something in the setting is causing this issue. I'm a newbie to Premier Pro, and I guess I'm missing something causing the deletion of my previous projects. Would you please advise me if you're familiar with the issue? I have a PC, and it's MSI. Thank you so much for always making great videos! 😊
Hmm. Is it asking you to upgrade your prject file to a newer version? Sometimes if your software auto-updates, it will make you update the project file in order to open it in the more recent version.
If it's not that, I would need a little more info. Maybe post the exact error message here and we can figure it out.
@@diyfwmb I finally fixed it; it turned out that I was not changing the project's name, so Premier Pro automatically gives the project the same title as the previous one, which is why it replaces it. Thank you for your replay and great content! ☺
@@BayWeli Ah, makes sense! Glad you got it figured out. And thanks for the kudos! :)
@@BayWeli Ah, makes sense! Glad you figured it out. And, thanks for the kudos! :)
Fantastic intro!
You have no idea how bad I need this. My mind doesn’t think in folders. I don’t know where “scratch disk” is tho,
Alternate suggestion: Instead of "0" to ensure your folder is always at the top, I use either "." or "_" Example: ".FINALS" or "_FINALS" 🤓
Some OS and servers (back in the day) used to freakf out if you used symbols (uploads were rejected, etc.), and I still avoid them for this reason... But, yep!
Really helpful. Signed into my account just to upvote + comment + sub. Crazy that you don't have more subs.
Aw, thanks. Glad it helped!