The dreaded Organizer

[Dave McElderry]

No special place for an Organizer topic, so I'll post here since it's really a PrEl 7 question.

I'm about to start editing on a pretty major project for which I've collected about 12 hours of raw footage to be turned into a 20 minute marketing DVD for our church. I have tons of clips, of which some will not be used at all. Others I'll need to pull multiple (maybe many) snippets from. Being able to keep track of all of these and get to the ones that I want as I edit is going to be a major task. At the moment I have the clips organized with a simple folder structure within my project according to the event at which they were shot, or the general type (such as "Pastor" or "Choir.")

I admit I've never been a fan of the Organizer, and it's only used at all because it won't get out of the way. However, at this point I have to wonder if it has the ability to really help me out here. I'd like to hear from anyone who's intimately familiar with it. If it could truly be a major useful tool I'd take the trouble to learn about it.

[Steve Grisetti]

I'm on a major project myself, Dave, with well over 100 clips. And I've done what you've done -- create a lot of folders and sub-folders in the Project panel. It seems to be working for me.

I suppose you might be able to accomplish the same thing by storing sets of clips in Albums in the Organizer or even tagging them with keywords. They could then be easily gathered in the Organize panel in Premiere Elements.

Would that simplify your workflow at all?

To me it depends on whether you're more of an Organizer or Project panel person.

[Dave McElderry]

Steve, I guess what I really would like is to have the ability to cut snippets (I wish I had a better word) from the clips, store them with tags, and then be able to just drop them into the timeline as needed. I know I can sort of do this by exporting those snippets individually, but that would be a whole project in itself. Way too much work. What I have in mind is something more like setting in and out points in the preview pane and then being able to catalogue those for instant use later. Wouldn't that be neat? I was hoping that I might learn that the Organizer could handle such a task.

To answer your question, I don't think that what you describe would be of much help. At the moment I'm definitely a Project panel person. What little experience that I have with the Organizer has led me to believe that I don't have much use for it. However, I'm always open to learning, and if I thought that the Organizer had more to offer, and could be of help to me for a project such as this, I'd spend some time with it. In other words, I haven't completely dismissed the Organizer as a possible tool because I know that I haven't truly learned enough about it to make that decision.

[Steve Grisetti]

I wish I knew of a tool that could do what you need, Dave.

You do know that you can open any clip in a the Premiere Elements Clip Monitor, set in and out points and then, by dragging it back to the Project panel, save it as a "new" trimmed clip, right? (It wouldn't technically be little individual clips, but they'd perform the same way.) That's about the only way I know of do to what you want to do.

On the other hand, right-click on a clip in the Organizer and select the Auto Analyzer. It will create a stack with the clip broken into shorter clips based on content. (At least that's what it does in version 9.) Again, these aren't actual short clips. They're just trimmed so that they can be used as short scenes. But they may also get you closer to what you're trying to do.

[Bob]

Organizer can help with managing whole clips, but it doesn't manage anything that doesn't exist as a file. To tag your subclips and manage them with the Organizer, you would need to export each subclip.

I find that, for me, the Project Panel is better when working with a lot of subclips. The key is creating a logical folder structure in the Project panel where you place the assets and naming the clips and subclips so that you know what you have and can find what you want to place on the timeline easily. You can easily go through a long clip in the preview panel and define multiple subclips (setting in and out points) which you can drag and drop from the clip viewer directly to Project panel folders as you go without having to export them.

I'm not a fan of auto analyzer.

[Dave McElderry]

You do know that you can open any clip in a the Premiere Elements Clip Monitor, set in and out points and then, by dragging it back to the Project panel, save it as a "new" trimmed clip, right?

Oh my! No, I didn't know. I don't recall hearing of it here, and I don't recall reading it in your book. I'm sure it's there. Now I'll go back and find it. It's exactly what I want to do Steve. I've been setting in and out points and dragging to the timeline, setting new ins and outs, dragging to the timeline, and so on. But I didn't know I could save them. For me this will be a great tool. Shame on me. Many thanks Steve!

[Dave McElderry]

Bob, exactly what you said. It's what I wanted to do, but didn't know that I could save the ins and outs as if they were separate clips. Thanks for the reply.

[Dave McElderry]

BTW Bob, I do like the name subclip better than snippet.

[Steve Grisetti]

Chuck shows you how to pre-trim clips in his tutorial "Trimming Clips In The Clip Monitor".

You can download it by doing a search on it on our Products page or Muvipix subscribers can view it online here:
http://muvipix.com/products.php?searchp ... =0&btn.y=0

[Dave McElderry]

Aw, you know how it is Steve...guys only consult the instructions when all else fails!

I knew how to pre-trim clips. I just didn't know I could save them. Details...details...