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Editing a Feature in Premiere Shot in 4k with Separately Recorded Audio...

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Dominic Domiac

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Hello, I am an experienced DV editor who has been contracted to edit a feature shot on the Red. The director and producers insist that I use CS4 for the entire workflow.

This is my first post-production project with Red footage. The footage is all 4k. To complicate matters, the sound files are all separate from the footage (this is my first project where the audio was not embedded in the video). However, it doesn't seem that Premiere can read the timecode from the wav files, and there seems to be no way that I can marry the footage and the sound files without bringing them into some sort of sequence.

Should I begin my project with creating 1k sequences for every single shot, syncing the footage within each individual sequence, and then subsequently editing using these "synced sequences" as if they were raw footage? Is this going to cause complications down the line that I might not yet see?

I am really disappointed that in using this sort of workflow that I will not be able to use sub-clips, as you cannot create a subclip from a sequence.

There are roughly 475 shots (with corresponding separately-recorded audio) for a total of about 14 hours worth of raw footage to this project.

Thanks for your time. I apologize if some of my sentences are hard to read, as I am not a native English speaker.
 
This is just an idea. I see no way around manually syncing each clip you need. Instead of making tons of sequences, you could just export an offline version of each clip with synced audio. If the duration and content is identical, you should be able to relink to the R3D files for the online, but you will get better performance using some offline proxy format, maybe even DV. (I would use compressed HD format like Cineform or MJPEG) The audio is uncompressed, so the version from the offline will be master quality whether you export layers, or an OMF or whatever, the offline embedded audio will be final source for a mix. You then marry that finished mix to your onlined R3D sequence.

This idea is one of many possiblities, and while definitely not perfect, may be easier than the route you described. For one you get subclips, and secondly, offline playback performance should be more responsive.
 
McCarthyTech said:
Instead of making tons of sequences, you could just export an offline version of each clip with synced audio.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the whole reason the producers are forcing me to use CS4 is to avoid using proxies. It would actually be perfect if only Premiere recognized timecode in the wav's. I am so surprised that it doesn't.

Thank you for trying to help, though.
 
Follow up: Premiere cannot take having either that much footage in a single project or that many sequences. As a consequence, I have had to split the feature in half and devote one project to the first half and the another project to the second half.

And when I say "cannot take", I mean that it slows down to a terrible degree and crashes. My system? An i7 920 (not overclocked) and 12GB RAM.

Oh, and another consequence of using these nested sequences instead of subclips: Premiere does not draw the waveform for the audio of nested sequences. I hate that, as seeing the waveform during editing is very important and very helpful.
 
Dominic Domiac said:
Follow up: Premiere cannot take having either that much footage in a single project or that many sequences. As a consequence, I have had to split the feature in half and devote one project to the first half and the another project to the second half.

And when I say "cannot take", I mean that it slows down to a terrible degree and crashes. My system? An i7 920 (not overclocked) and 12GB RAM.

Oh, and another consequence of using these nested sequences instead of subclips: Premiere does not draw the waveform for the audio of nested sequences. I hate that, as seeing the waveform during editing is very important and very helpful.
Click to expand...

in my experience it is recomended to do that for any long form project, you can even split it in thirds. you should do that with any editing app you use.
have you tried double clicking a clip after you attach audio to a clip and then dragging it from the source monitor to de project window? maybe that works.
 
If you are on windows, Sony Vegas can sync audio quite well, then pull it back into Premier.
 
dominic, this is, what i postet in december somewhere in some other forum.
I had the same problem, i had 35 hours of material for feauture movie, 4k.
Premiere cs4 can import only around 6 hours, because you will have full importerprocessserver - cache for one project/around 3,6-4 GB, that is something what someone in adobe makes shit....
I think they need more time to fix it, maybe to make completely new version of premiere.
I had 64bit vista, 12 GB RAM, but this adobe importer can use only around this 3.6 GB.

What we have to do, we synchronised the audio in more CS4 projects.
We downconverted all clips to DV PAL.
We are editing DV PAL, for EDL.
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
You cannot sync via TC audio with video simply because PremierePor is not able to read TC in audio files... Sync all your audio in FCP, export XML, import the FCP XML in Premier Pro and off you go.

Hans
Click to expand...

Good idea, it should work.

Tried this??
 
Re: Trying the FCP sync/export EDL trick. No, I didn't try that, because the producers have me working on a PC and don't have FCP available.

Anyway, the sync has been manually completed and everything is running fairly smoothly. However, I am averaging a crash or two per day. It seems to have something to do with clips (actually sequences of clips synced with audio) being previewed in the preview monitor. I also cannot send encoding jobs directly to Media Encoder dependably and instead I have to use the "import sequence from Premiere" function within AME.

All in all, I have to say that it is going well. Premiere doesn't get in my way--which is all I can ask of any tool. If it had the ability to read audio timecode, I'd be a huge fan.

I'm still curious why the production team didn't tether the audio mixer directly to the camera. Why not send a line of audio to the camera? The word from the producer was that the Red was not capable of high-quality audio. Is that true?
 
I almost forgot, and this is very important for anyone else who might have to use the "nested sequence" method of audio sync within Premiere.

I first made the mistake of creating 1K sequences for my raw footage. The problem is, once you've nested those sequences, you are locked in to a 1K workflow. There is no easy way to change it. And when you're dealing with 400+ sequences, that could be a really big problem. You can't even create a new sequence with 4K settings, name it the same as the 1K sequence and do a "replace footage" trick. And you surely can't delete the 1K sequences and have Premiere make the connection to the 4K ones.

The only method that works (that I have discovered, anyway), is to create 4K sequences for your "sync sequences". Then you can freely nest those 4K sync-sequences in your 1K "working" sequences. Once you are ready to output either to 2K or 4K, then copy/paste your timeline into the new 2K/4K sequence.

If you use Premiere, the above should make sense. If you don't, it probably doesn't.
 
Dominic Domiac said:
I'm still curious why the production team didn't tether the audio mixer directly to the camera. Why not send a line of audio to the camera? The word from the producer was that the Red was not capable of high-quality audio. Is that true?
Click to expand...

It's true only for mic levels and the original audio board. Even with the old audio board a line level coming from a mixer would have been fine.
The revised audio boards are fine even at mic level.
 
Having the same problem. Wanting to edit RED 4k with Premiere and separate audio files. We had our Asst. Editor sync all the audio in Final Cut (on a Mac), then export an XML file. However, when I import the XML file, Premiere (on a PC) only asks for the video file, not the audio file (thus I am without audio).
 
santiago said:
in my experience it is recomended to do that for any long form project, you can even split it in thirds. you should do that with any editing app you use.
Click to expand...

A question for you.

If you split your editing into 3 (Premiere) projects, then do you recombine all 3 in After Effects in order to export a single file for output?

Or do you keep the 3 projects seperate right up until creating the DVD (or other output)?
 
Dominic Domiac said:
I'm still curious why the production team didn't tether the audio mixer directly to the camera. Why not send a line of audio to the camera? The word from the producer was that the Red was not capable of high-quality audio. Is that true?
Click to expand...

To answer that, it must be taken in context of the project. For the majority of people, stuff shot on a Sony EX is good enough. There is no doubt in my mind that a RED is better, but you don't see people who don't have access to RED giving up on their projects because they're not on RED, they make due with what they got and get excellent results.

When it comes to audio and RED, the new board fixes a lot of issues, but it is still a substandard design in the world of audio (I'd rate it good with respect to audio on cameras). It has a limited dynamic range, a discernable tone, either deviation from a flat 20-20k frequency response, or signature operation from built in op amps, increased noise floor compared to dedicated recorders that are typically used on features. Saying this is certainly not insulting the camera, it is difficult to compete with purpose made devices that cost $6k to $15k just for the core unit without accessories.

When dealing with people who are pushing the envelope for performance, it only makes sense that they would push the best from all departments and not just camera alone. Can on-board audio be good? Yes it can, but is it the best available? Certainly not and if you can afford it, might as well go 2nd.

The more important factor is the mixer (person). He is the department head for location sound. If he wanted to do camera audio, then that is what should be done. The fact of the matter is that audio people have certain tools at their disposal and an audio engineering background with certain technical and workflow expectations from the gear they integrate with. The more odd decision is how production seemed to force a post process that brought to head such an odd timecode compatibility issue.
 
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