Import media for your project

Premiere Pro allows you several different ways to import clips and sequences into a project. Now many of you may be aware of the Project Panel where you can double click to bring in clips. But there is also the Media Browser.

Not only does the Media Browser allow you to import clips, but it recognizes the file structure for certain tapeless media types. These files include MXF, R3D, P2, and CinemaDNG to name a few.

Let's compare the differences of each import method. I'm right now here in a Premiere Pro project, and on the lower left-hand corner exists my Project Panel where I'll double click in the gray space to open up the import dialogue box.

On my desktop I see that I have a Files for Import folder. I'll click on the first folder to show you that I have two RED files. These files have been spanned across two memory cards. Let me go to the next folder which contains MXF media. You can see that all of the MXF files show just as icons. Let me go down to my final folder, which is the P2 media, where I have a Contents folder and a bunch of other folders.

If I click the Cancel button here at the bottom of the screen, I can go back into Premiere Pro. The Media Browser is behind the Project Panel. I'll click on it to show it. And if I go to the Window menu, I can bring up the Media Browser from here as well. Now, as you can see I've saved a Favorites section to navigate to my desktop to the Files for Import folder. And inside the Files for Import folder, I can see my RED footage displaying, and it's condensed the two files into one. That's because if I look at this little icon in the Directory Viewers, it's currently noticed that there's RED footage in the file directory.

Now, besides being able to see the RED footage, I can double click it and it brings it into the Source Monitor. In the Source Monitor I'm able to preview it. And just notice if I go back to the Project Panel, I have not imported the RED footage into it. If I go back to the Media Browser and if I click on the eye icon, I can go and review the entire file directory. Let me double click on the MXF files. Now I can see little thumbnails instead of icons for each of the MXF images. To take a closer look I'm going to hit the tilda key to make this full frame, and you'll notice that I can hover scrub over each of the clips in order to preview them.

Now at the very bottom of the screen is a Photoshop file. And at the top of the window is another icon. If I click on it, I can choose just to reveal the Photoshop file. And all of the other files are filtered out of view.

Let me go back to the file types displayed and choose to show all supported files. I want to click on my first MXF file, and I'm going to shift click on my final MXF file. And from this menu I'm going to control right-click to choose to import all of these into Premiere Pro. If I head back to the Project Panel, and I'll minimize it, I can see that all of these clips are selected. So I'm going to take them and drag it over the new bin icon where I'll create a bin called New Media.

Besides being able to see files that are unrecognizable to your operating system, the Media Browser can allow us to go into other Premiere Pro projects and import clips or even sequences.

Let's go back into the Media Browser, and you can see here that I have a Vacation projects. If I hit the disclosure triangle, I can reveal the contents of that project within its bins. I'll click on the Sequences bin, and over to the right I can see my Vacation_Rough Cut sequence. I will control or right click it and choose to import it into my Project Panel. If I go back to my Project Panel, I can now see the Vacation_Rough Cut sequence along with all of the bins containing material from that sequence. If I double click it, it loads into the timeline.

And that's how we import using the Media Browser.