I've seen a few questions here and there regarding raw workflows inside of Premiere Pro but as most of us know, you can't import DNG sequences directly into Premiere. However, if you have Master Collection, Creative Cloud or Production Premium, you can use the Dynamic Link Feature greatly to your advantage so you can edit and make changes seamlessly without having to finalize or render anything 'til the end of your cut.
First off you will need to create proxies of all of your raw sequences. The way I do this is by using
Rawanizer (BIG shout out to marten for this and a1ex for raw2dng). The beauty of Rawanizer is you dump all of your raw files in a folder, select that folder in Rawanizer and it will automatically batch convert all of your raw files to DNG sequences, each inside of there own folder and as an added bonus it also creates easily editable proxy files in a variety of flavours so you can cut your footage with ease. It's a very straight forward piece of software but if you need further help just go
here.
Basically all you need to do is create your premiere project and import al of your raw proxies ready for your edit. What I then do is create a cut or even a rough cut using those proxy files.
Once you are happy with the edit, highlight everything on the timeline and duplicate it (hold Alt while dragging) above the sequence you already have (so you see two copies of each clip, one above another. Then rename the original video tracks "proxies" and the tracks with the new copies as "raw" just to keep track of what's what.
The idea here is that we are gonna replace each proxy with a raw dng sequence while at the same time not losing the proxies just incase we have to go back in a edit some more as it'll be less processor intensive us editing the proxy files.
So, you can then right click your first
copied clip in the timeline and select "Replace with After Effects Composition".
This will then automatically open After Effects and create a new Comp for that clip after asking you where you would like to save the project (Pro tip: I like to keep everything for a project in one folder for archiving - this means you wont have problems with it not knowing where assets are if you offload the project at a later date).
Inside of After Effects you can then double click the project browser and browse to the folder that contains the dng sequence that relates to that particular clip. Select the first dng file, check the "raw sequence" checkbox a the bottom and import the sequence.
You will then be presented with Adobe Camera Raw and you can do your whatever corrections you wish to do and then then click done. One thing to bare in mind here to those who aren't too familiar with AE, it has a habit of importing sequences at 30fps so what you need to do is right click the sequence in the project browser, select Interpret Footage and then type your desired frame rate into "Assume this frame rate".
Then drag the DNG sequence into the Comp which contains the proxy for the clip you chose to replace inside of AE. This needs to go on the top layer but to be honest, it's not the end of the world even if you delete the proxy from this comp as we still have a backup inside of Premiere.
Then all you have to do is switch back to Premiere and you will see the clip has been updated with your raw sequence and has replaced the proxy file. Hooray!
Now! What I like to do here is select both the raw clip and the original proxy clip we still have sitting beneath it at the same time and right click -> group. That means that now if we want to rearrange anything we can easily click on one clip and it automatically selects both so you can drag them around or shorten/lengthen them together.
Now all is left to do is do the same for the rest of your timeline and then "mute" the track (with the little eye icon) which has your proxy on inside of premiere and hit the enter key which will render previews of all of your raw clips so you can easily play them back and edit them. If you have raw footage mixed with h.264 footage and you don't want to disable the whole track then you can disable individual clips by simply right clicking them and selecting disable.
The beauty of this workflow is that you can quickly make further adjustments to your raw sequences with ACR, simply by switching back to AE, selecting the relevant comp for that clip and then doing
this inside of After Effects which will also allow you to correct any frame in the dng sequence, not just the first (shouts to my fellow Modizzles Audionut and Squig for helping me figure this part out).
Then if you need to go back into premiere and do any real intensive edits, you can always disable the raw clips and enable the proxies and as long as you move the clips together, you can then switch back to raw when you are happy.
So there you go. As is said - there are many ways to skin a cat but this is my way and I'm happy with it. If I refine this further then I shall update accordingly and if anyone has any questions or suggestions then post them up in here.
My final thought on this is yes it isn't the quickest most instantaneous way to edit but the work you put in is only in the setup, after that you have a clean, quick workflow with maximum flexibility and to top it off you are already linked to AE so you can start your mastering as soon as you lock your cut. That and raw workflows of any format are not quick and easy. If you want quick and easy workflows I'm afraid raw isn't the way to go but in my opinion it's worth the extra work.
Oh and a final-final thought (promise), keep everything organized inside of Prem and AE. Rename files and create relevantly named folders for proxies, comps and dng's to all live in for each shot. This will make your life a lot easier.
Hope this helps a few of you out!
Kraig
