How do you set up a TIME-LAPSE movie "before" putting into CS5 ??

Question

Is there a way to put together a time-lapse sequence shot with a DSLR (comprised of many stills) into a movie at 30fps, BEFORE putting it into the Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 timeline?
QuickTime does NOT work because the images I need to use are TIFFs of much too high a quality for it to handle.  I know, I've tried.
I know I can put the stills into CS5 as a series of shots lasting 1/30sec each to make a sequence, but that does not allow me to control the finished sequence "as a whole" for further altering like duration or other effects.  Otherwise, I would have to make alterartions one frame at a time, which is ridiculously time prohibitive and not precise.
I'm using a Windows7 PC, and a Nikon D2X DSLR camera shooting in RAW.
Any advise and help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Answer 1

First of all, Pr won't import the RAW images, so you'll need to pre-process them and convert them to a more "standard" image file format, such as TIF or JPG. I think you already realize this, but thought I'd just mention it.
When you want to import as a timelapse clip, check the "Numbered Stills" checkbox in the Import dialog, and select just the first image in the numbered sequence and click Open. This will create a clip using each image as a frame of the clip; you can select this clip, right-click, and select Modify > Interpret Footage to set the frame rate you like. There is also a check-option in the flyout menu of the Media Browser called "Import Numbered Stills as a Sequence" that does the same thing; just select that, import the first image, and the rest of the images will be imported as part of the clip.
Once this is done, the images will act as one clip, so a single effect will affect all frames in the clip.