We had a crash course in Adobe Premiere Pro today, and although I do know Premiere relatively well, I did learn a lot in terms of organising files in the media server and in bins on Premiere. I also learnt the keyboard shot cuts for things such as creating a new sequence and fast-forwarding/rewinding through footage with j and k. I suppose the most important things to take from this class was to name and organise files well, including naming footage in premiere according to scene, shot and take (or description if this is irrelevant) and to never delete things. This is particularly important when considering the server, since if you move files by dragging instead of copying, rename a folder or delete footage then it might not be just you that loses that work. Of course, if you dragged or renamed the files then they will still be there, but Premiere will read the media as offline since it can’t find where you told it to source the footage from (‘import footage’ does not actually import footage to a new folder/location). Deleting is an obvious problem. Even if you delete something you are sure you don’t need, there is always the possibility you have slipped up and will be losing something you actually needed. Instead, you should drag unwanted files/folders/etc. into a different folder titled trash or something that makes it clear that this is unwanted content. This means it isn’t gone forever if you realise you did actually need something or accidentally dragged a wrong file, etc. Another point was to create multiple versions of sequences with each big change so that there is always an older version to go back to if you make a mistake or what you do doesn’t work. I’ve never done this before, but it’s definitely smart and something to make a habit of from now on!
