No one likes to wait. I hate waiting. Waiting is for chumps. 

And maybe Premiere Pro has made you feel like a chump more times than you can count due to slow renders and stuttering playbacks...having you sit there twiddling your thumbs like a giant idiot..."Hey V, wanna come have fun out at the lake?" "No, I have to watch my video very slowly render." "V, come to your nephew's birthday party." "Wish I could, but I'm editing at a slug's pace." "V, you're not yourself anymore and we're all worried about you." "Premiere Pro has me now. Premiere Pro is the one light in the darkness, and I am a moth, singing its wings on its flame."

[Aaaaand...scene.]

Guess what gang, waiting for Premiere Pro to do its thing isn't necessarily Premiere Pro's fault. Maybe it's your computer, in which case...good luck to ya if you don't have the money to add some power so it can handle hefty editing programs or flat out buy a new machine that can.

But before you consider all that mess, there's another way to speed up Premiere Pro...five ways actually...and they can all be done right inside the program. Filmmaker Peter McKinnon walks you through each one in the video below:

Now, if you're a seasoned editor, no doubt you know exactly how to optimize Premiere Pro to work as fast as possible on your computer. In fact, you most definitely know other options that weren't addressed in the video. (If you do, tell us your secrets down in the comments!)

However, if you're new to editing or have run into some speed problems for the first time and are in need of some solutions, then boom...McKinnon to the rescue.

Really quickly, let's take a look at the five optimization options he talks about in the video:

  • Enable GPU Acceleration: This is a great option if you want slightly faster render times and previews to show up. However, understand this may not be ideal to have enabled all the time...especially if your hardware has stability issues. 
  • Clean Up Your Media Cache: Clean out your closet, honey. In fact, you should do this with all caches, whether in Premiere Pro, Chrome, or like...your clothing cache (a.k.a. closet).
  • Choose Lower Playback Resolution: You know your footage looks great...why do you need it played back to you in 4K? It's just going to slow down your machine.
  • Use Global FX Mute: All those effects, including transitions, color correction, and STAR WIPES, BABY, certainly take up a decent amount of your machine's power. So, mute 'em. You already know they're there and look good...you don't need to keep seeing 'em!
  • Use ALL the Proxies!: One of the best things you'll ever learn to do as an editor is to use proxies, which are duplicated versions of your original video files that have a lower resolution and file size. And yeah, you edit with those rather than your gargantuan (but super pretty and clear and crisp) source videos. Faster! It's good.

Okay, babes. That's about it. Hopefully, these 5 little tricks will help you optimize the shit out of Premiere Pro so you can edit like the goddamn Stardust Diety that you are.

And if you know of any other clever ways to beef up Premiere Pro without having to like...gut your machine and replace hardware, let us know down in the comments.

Source: Peter McKinnon

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Editing & Post-Production