Feature Focus: Work on Multiple Premiere Projects at the Same Time

Adobe recently released Premiere Pro CC 2018, the latest version of its popular video editing software, packed full of exciting new features, including a revamped Essential Graphics panel, motion graphics templates, and a heap of tools to help you work with VR content. While all of these updates are very interesting, I want to take a closer look at one of the major updates, which is the ability to open and work on multiple Premiere projects at the same time.

Why do it?

Working with multiple projects is especially beneficial when working on a series or any kind of episodic content where you're reusing content. Whether it's music, sfx, still images, motion graphics or other branding assets, opening several projects at the same time gives you versatility. For example, several years back I was working on a small comedy web series for a local zoo, where we followed around zookeepers. We released an episode every month which utilized particular branding assets, including a show open, various transitions, SFX, and other content. Each episode was saved as its own project. We often imported old projects into new ones and found ourselves constantly closing and opening others just to reference certain scenes. The workflow was not ideal, to say the least. This new feature changes all of that.

Stay organized

Having multiple projects open can quickly lead to confusion, so let's take a look at a few ways to stay organized. First of all, you can quickly reference which project is active by looking at the name in the top of Premiere. When you have several projects open at the same time, you'll naturally have duplicate panels. Each project has its own Project panel, as well as various Timeline panels. Quickly jump between projects and timelines by going to Window > Projects or Window > Timelines. Be aware that simply closing a Project panel will not close that project. To close a project, you need to go to File > Close Project. To close everything, go to File > Close All Projects. With duplicate panels and so much going on, I prefer to tweak my panel layout and create a custom workspace. 

View and share

The main draw to having several projects open concurrently is the ability to reference old projects and share assets. You no longer have to open and close projects to search for media or import one project into another. This old method can quickly mess up any media asset management system you have in place. Regarding my zoo show, I now have the ability to open up the last episode of my show and simply copy over what I need, such as logos, motion graphics or old video clips. I can drag and drop assets from Project panel to Project panel, Project panel to timeline, or timeline to timeline. If I want to compare episodes, I can position two timeline panels side by side for quick reference. I can even launch clips into a source monitor and edit them into a different project's timeline. Premiere will copy over reference files for any assets shared between projects, without moving the assets on my local drive. 

Will you use this new feature of Premiere Pro? Let us know in the comments section!