'Un-nest' function in PP CS4?

Question

Hey guys,I have been working on a video and I nested some clips together, I havent been able to find an 'un-nest' command, and a quick google search didn't provide me with any help. Is there either a function to un-nest or easy work-around?
Cheers

Answer 1

I guess there's still some confusion over this workflow.  It is more efficient to watch a series of clips, then to watch one clip at a time.  I don't want to watch clips INDIVIDUALLY, I want to watch a SERIES of them, back to back to back to back.  I want to scroll through 10 clips without ever touching the mouse.  The way to do that is to put those 10 clips into a sequence, and cut from that sequence.  I swear to you guys this is normal, particularly for anybody that comes from the world of Media Composer.  Once you've edited this way, the idea of loading an individual clip one at a time seems wasteful and ludicrous.  Every time I'm worrying about what's in the browser, I'm not editing.  Every time my hand leaves the keyboard to go to the mouse to double-click a clip to load it, I'm not editing.  These are time sinks. 
Let's say I've got three takes of the same shot, and they're all roughly similar.  If I'm editing from clips, or subclips, then this is the workflow:
I load scene 12b take 1 into the source.  I watch it.  It's okay.  Next, I take my right hand away from JKL to reach for the mouse/trackball/track pad, mouse over to the browser, double-click on take 2, load it into the source monitor.  Hand moves back to JKL.  I watch the clip.  Okay, it's a'ight.  So now I have to watch take 3.  Again, hand leaves keyboard, clip is double-clicked, hand comes back to JKL.  Now I've watched all three.  Hmm.  Let's take a look at that first one again.  You know where I'm going.  This time I use the mouse to go to the clip select in the source monitor pulldown.  Okay, then I watch the clip again.  Hmm.  Maybe this one.  Let's look at the third one again, because something was weird with the way talent said the word "species."  Okay, up to the source monitor.  Okay, definitely take 1.  Hands off the keyboard again, back to the source monitor.  Okay.  Now I'm ready to mark my ins and outs. 
That's one way to go.  Let's take a look at using sequences. 
I load the scene 12b sequence into the source monitor.  I hit L and start playing.  I've now watched all three takes.  I want to return to the first take, so I hit the "previous edit" key twice.  Now I'm back to take 1.  L button and I'm watching, okay, I've seen all I need, let's hit "next edit" twice and jump to take 3.  Hit L twice to fast forward to the word "species."  Sounds kinda wack.  Let's hit that previous edit key again (I've got it mapped to "A" so my hand never leaves the homekeys) and go back to take 1.  Mark in, mark out, and now it's time to insert this shot into the sequence.
In MC and FCP (using the insert sequence content command instead of the plain insert command), this cuts the clip into the sequence.  In PP, this cuts a nested sequence into my sequence.  For starters, now I am unable to export this sequence as an OMF to get to ProTools.  That's a deal-breaker in a professional environment.  Then, I've got this nested sequence that has no real reason to be nested.  For starters, a quick glance at the timeline reveals not which take I actually used or the name of the master clip, but rather the name of the entire sequence.  Matching back goes back to the sequence, as opposed to the master clip. 
If you already know exactly which take you're going to use, without looking at other takes, then a subclip straight from the bin is a fine edit strategy.  But I've found that circled takes don't always cut well with each other for continuity reasons or technical reasons.  Therefore, being able to watch a series of clips, quickly, without incessant mousing around (which indisputably is slower than tapping a key once or twice) from timelines to monitors to browsers and back is of great importance.  It's a usability issue.  When doing realities or doc stuff, the same is true.  I'd way rather scrub through a whole sequence of shots of "heat energy" than have to load each clip which demonstrates heat energy individually.  That's a real life example from a series of fairly hoaky educational videos I worked on.  We had 100s of tapes worth of footage, and if we had to load individual clips, that would mean scrolling through thousands of clips.  I'd spend more time looking for the actual clip I wanted than watching shots.  As Walter Murch suggests, scanning through footage is also a more helpful process than scanning through folders or bins of clip names.  If I'm scrubbing through a sequence called "HEAT" looking for just the right shot, I'm being exposed to all of my footage, even at high speeds.  I might find something I hadn't thought of using, or see a shot that I might want to use later.  If I'm scanning through a bin looking for a subclip named "boiling water" then I might not see some of that other stuff.  That lessens the chances of happy accidents, and I'm less familiar with the actual visual content of the footage than if I had scrubbed through a sequence.    
This isn't some crack-pot editing method I dreamed up in a vacuum.  It's a pretty common method that has been around as long as NLEs (as far as I know, or at least since I began using professional NLEs in 1999).  Avid editors aren't just salty old-timers who think all this new-fangled stuff is crap.  As any of us, we've all gotten used to FCP, but we're still annoyed by some of the inelegant, time-wasting design flaws.  And as we explore Premiere Pro, the same is true.  Something that requires five keystrokes and click wastes more time than something that requires two keystrokes.  That stuff adds up at the end of the day. 
As for FCPX, the magnetic timeline scares the heck out of me.  Collapsible tracks sound interesting, like a way of opening up a nested sequence, but FCPX most certainly doesn't offer the functionality I'm looking for (about that OMF export... oh yeah, and it doesn't even HAVE a source window, nor can I easily keep things on the tracks I want them on -- nightmare for keeping all of one's music on these two channels, and all of one's VO on that channel... like every broadcaster or client wants their masters tracked out).  Oh, and since I'm talking about tracks... this whole stereo track/mono track thing is a little clunky.  To most editors, we think that a stereo track is just two tracks.  Channel 1 and Channel 2, and those can be panned left and right.  If I have four tracks, I should be able to put L and R in any one of those tracks, and mono clips into any one of those tracks, because there's no difference between a mono clip and a stereo clip's channel 1, except panning.  To have tracks that can only accept one or the other is just plain clunky.  So -- additional feature request.  Let me cut a stereo clip into two mono tracks.  Without having to break-out to mono and perform 3 edits, instead of one. 
I know I've been really verbose.  But, honestly, Premiere Pro is really close to actually being Pro, and I'd love to use an affordable, and feature-full 64-bit NLE that integrates with the other software I use.  On a PC?  Great!  That saves me a grand on hardware.  Premiere Pro can be this software, IF Adobe listens to long-time professional editors and incorporate standard usability.  Not listening to editors is what made FCPX such a lemon.