Let's talk efficiency. Over 200 clips need trimming and re-rendering. Need to optimize workflow!

Question

Hi,
I have over 200 short videos that need:
-To have the beginning and end trimmed off
-To have a static title added at the beginning and end
-Rendered into over 200 separate files.
-Some videos need to be split into 2 or more separate videos, with the titles added.
What is the best way to do this?
Right now I have to:
-Drag the video into a new timeline with the mouse
-Hit "C" and trim the ends off
-Drag the title into the timeline with the mouse, option click and move the title to the end
-Sometimes, command-x a clip, create a new timeline, and command-v to the beginning of the clip.
-Render the file
Any small efficiency I can find: saving a mouse click, saving a keystroke, can result in hours of saved time. Any way I can improve this workflow? Thanks so much.
-Neil

Answer 1

Hello,
For repetitive tasks like these, I've found great success with Keyboard Maestro.  It can let you very easily create a macro that can process all the clips on the timeline after you've recorded the action on just one.
Use the Up/down arrow keys to move the playhead to the start/end of a clip and then use Shift + left/right arrows to set a trim distance than then Q & W to trim. You can specify the Step forward/back distance in the Preferences (under Playback) if you wish.
To export, you can use the Ctrl (or is it Command?) + down shortcut to select the next clip, use "/" to mark the selection, Command+M to open the Export dialog, then count the number of times you have to hit Tab to get set focus to the 'Queue' button and hit Spacebar to press the Queue button.
Once you have a working macro, everything should finish in less than a minute, even if you have hundreds of clips.
The only thing to watch out for is to set a decent enough pause in Keyboard Maestro between actions so that Premiere has enough time to finish each action (usually around 300-400 milliseconds does the trick for me).
This is one of the abilities of OS X that I sorely miss on Windows.
Edit: About the titles you mentioned, you can also get a macro going for this - a few things need to be set in motion for that, but I can see how it can work:
- If each clip requires a unique title, you're obviously going to have to create that manually.
- Before creating your titles, set the default image duration in the preferences to the duration you need your titles to be.  Then every title you create will be the correct duration.
- Set the preference to set focus on the Timeline when performing insert/overwrite edits.
- When creating the titles, name them so that they're sorted in the same sequence as the clips.
Once you have the titles prepped, you can use the up/down arrow keys to position the playhead in the Timeline, use the Shift+1 to switch to the Project panel, press down to select the next title and then "." key to insert the title (focus will shift back to the Timeline because of the changed preference and you can use the down arrow to move to the next clip and have the macro repeat the process for you.)
Good luck.