A Rant List for PProCC

ADOBE PREMIERE CC 2017 NOTES

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This collection came about over half a year in Premiere Pro CC 2017 while actually using the program on real world pro projects with deadlines. I never discount the possibility of my own ignorance. Delighted to be more informed on capabilities I cannot access. Would love to get feedback from other users and of course, Adobe reps, on anything in this list. My interest is largely interface usability— that’s where I edit.
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APPEARANCE-

The team has done a swell job of allowing a user to strip away transport and other controls as desired. Al Mooney did a fantastic SuperMeet demo years ago that first got me excited about modern PPro. There’s only a little chrome left. Think lean and clean, not blocky and chunky.

We need a slightly lighter shade of bezel grey in Prefs: Appearances, to avoid ICF— interface contrast fatigue. Even at the current lightest, it’s too damn dark for some of us. We’re not controlling the Death Star here, we’re editing. I liked FCP 7’s soft grey. More like After Effects’ wide grey gamut.
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BOOTUP

Nobody at Adobe through to trap for user intervention while “conforming,” or “loading Peak values,” or whatever’s going on— it’s the loading of resources for the edit. The more clips and sequences, the longer it takes. You can try to work and you may even corrupt stuff until the boot completes, and it’s easy to miss the status in the lower bottom of timeline.

Okay, go ahead and load up, just lock the interface until you’re done and tell us why with an onscreen message when we feverishly click about. Don’t keep it a secret.
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IMPORT-

I avoid the Media Browser panel when I import. Don’t see a need for this extra layer and I never experienced it in other NLE’s. I design it out of my workspace, along with tons of other panels I just don’t need. I know where I store my clips. This may be just me, but I want to click on a Bin in my Project window and import stuff directly into it from a selected media drive or drives.

But there’s more…!
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I don’t want the various imported clips rudely scattered to the wind at the root level of the Project window. I want them INSIDE the Bin I’ve selected— no matter how deeply nested it is within other bins. This is BASIC expected behavior.
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I would also like the option to create and name a New Bin from the Import dialog, (next to the Options button? Or added into Options?) before selecting footage, powerful way to pre-organize.
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WINDOW / PANEL COLLAPSE BEHAVIOR

Often I want to clear footage from the Source window so I’m not distracted by it. Why do I get THE QUIT COMMAND DIALOG? The only place I should get Quit actions is when I click the PROJECT panel Close widget or invoke Command-Q. Nowhere else!

At other times (no clue why) the Source does dismiss but I’m left with other panels collapsing into the void. The Source panel should be made non-volatile whether or not footage is loaded. It’s part of the chosen or custom workspace. It’s really disorienting to watch the Source panel collapse on itself simply because I’ve dismissed a source clip— brain dead. Even worse, re-invoking my custom Workspace doesn’t clean it up!! It’s dead. It’s a black hole.
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Previously logged complaint- for dual screen editors, if I have my Project window and bins on the left monitor and the classic source-record-timeline arrangement on the right, when I click a bin in the Project panel I currently enjoy the delightful action of seeing the chosen bin fly across to squat over my Source panel. Just adorable. Also brain dead.

Must be a way to keep bins within my Bin monitor in this popular config? Avid and FCP managed to do it for 20 years. Bins should open neatly next to the Project window, and however they’re arranged after that SHOULD BE SAVABLE with the Workspace.
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PREPACKING SOURCE CLIPS

This is huge. I have found no way to load a clip into Source and pack on basic Motion, Color and/or Effect filters to be saved with and appear with the clip when edited.

Absolutely huge.

Even if you lay it into the timeline and pack in your motion, your scaling, your effects, when you drag it to a Bin to save it as a Source, nothing comes over but the original source!
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TIMELINE PANEL BEHAVIOR

First, a request:
When I make an edit into the timeline— I’d love the option to keep focus there, OR bounce back to Source. Perhaps if I press the Option key with Insert, Overwrite or Replace command, based on a modifier I’ll get one or the other after the edit?

Depends on the edit mode I need: Assembly or Revision. In Assembly, I want to constantly bounce back to Source for another portion of the master clip loaded or for a fresh clip. In Revision, I’ve added a new shot or two, but I want to stay focused on timeline to fuss. One modifier key could make both modes a joy.
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Related, obtuse behavior of the Program monitor. Very often editors switch to a larger view or custom workspace full view to review cuts. When they switch back to Timeline view editors expect to pounce on the timeline. Not! The Program monitor remains active. Quite maddening trying to dive immediately into a trim operation and discover you’re spinning your wheels in the Program monitor.

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WILD SCROLL WHEEL MUST BE TAMED

Timeline tracks MUST be made to stay frozen at a desired size without risking a track size change every time we mouse over to patch tracks by inadvertently touching the scroll wheel. This is driving me f**king nuts.

I don’t want to cripple scrolling because of this. Why? When I do mouse I want my Scroll Wheel born free.
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OPACITY and VOLUME LINES must also get a “lock clip opacity/gain during mouse movement” function because (and I recall either Shapiro or Harrington remarking on this as well in a tutorial video, it’s so prevalent among users), it’s so easy to grab a clip right over the line and change that rather than drag the clip or the edit head or tail. Kid stuff!
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Same goes for multiple sequences loaded in the Timeline panel— lots of us do that. But place the mouse cursor anywhere along that line and you’ll fly from your work focus to another sequence entirely at the barest touch of a scroll wheel. Lock this stuff out of Scroll Wheel control! I use Command-` to shift from one sequence to another, but many do not. It’s very silly behavior.
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PATCHING SOURCE/RECORD

And I haven’t yet seen an elegant way to patch source-program tracks together strictly from the keyboard, which would accelerate editing by double.
This is worth several beers to the authors when nailed.

Think mappable PATCHING PRESETS which we can set up to trigger custom patching:

Command -[1] = snaps Source Video 1 to Track 1
Option- [1] = Snaps Audio 1 to Track 1 mono or stereo pair.
etc.

Wow, I need that so bad. Not even FCP 7 had that.

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SLIP AND SLIDE

SLIP doesn’t function correctly from the keyboard, neither using the numeric keypad nor the alphanumeric numbers. I map Slip to the S key. When I select a clip, activate the tool, and then key in +10 on the numeric keypad, the entire clip moves. Wha?

SLIDE, which I’ve mapped to Option-S, doesn’t work as expected either.

Which begs way better keyboard testing!

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Premiere Pro shows lots on promise and capability,, but many unwelcome surprises.

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Best, as always.
Loren