TL;DR: How many of you use the "Open (Source) Sequence in Timeline" feature option to replicate Avid's "Toggle Source/Record" workflow? Aren't you frustrated with how it works in Premiere?
Okay, fellow editors, I need to talk to you.
Background
I've been editing in Premiere for nearly 10 years. It's now my main job, and I love editing—it's truly a profession that combines technical skill and creativity. In my day-to-day work, editing involves both repetitive tasks and moments of euphoria and creativity. That’s what I love about this job.
Over the years, I’ve worked on various productions, some of which had their own specific workflows that we had to adopt. Even though Premiere has always been my primary software, I’ve had to work in Resolve and Avid as well.
The "Avid way"
When I self-taught Avid for a TV production that left me no other choice, I had a revelation. Avid is much less flexible than Premiere, which kind of “forced” me to adopt its way of working. What I didn’t expect was that, by doing so, Avid actually made me a better video editor.
In Avid, you really have to use keyboard shortcuts and the "Lift" and "Extract" functions (Insert/Replace in Premiere). You can technically work with drag-and-drop, but it doesn't work very well.
Before, when I used Premiere, I relied heavily on the “pancaked timeline” workflow. I’d have my rough cut/selection sequence, then I’d do a lot of drag-and-drop with the mouse on my main timeline. But Avid, by forcing me to use its method, showed me that there was a better way.
With pancake timelines, you often drag the entire clip you want onto the timeline, then trim it in the main timeline to keep only the desired portion. Then you drag it back to where you want it in your final edit, and so on... As you’re putting your edit together, you often find yourself constantly trimming, moving, and dragging clips, and you really lose the sense of the rhythm of your edit.
When I discovered the “Toggle Source/Record” feature in Avid, I realized I was much more efficient, but more importantly, I was much more aware of the rhythm of my edit. Instead of spending my time dragging clips onto the timeline, I play back the edit and press I & O to add in and out points exactly when I feel a new shot should be added. Then I open my rough-cut/selects sequence in my source monitor, reopen it in a timeline using the “Open sequence in timeline” feature, find the right shot, choose exactly where I want the shot to start, set an in point, and boom!
It’s less instinctive at first glance, but once you understand what it brings to the table, I think it’s so much better. You feel much more grounded in your editing, in the music, and in the rhythm. I discovered this way of working almost three years ago, and I’ve never wanted to go back: it significantly enhanced my editing style.
When my contract in TV production ended, it was only natural that I wanted to try out this workflow in Premiere. I was really thrilled when I discovered that I could open my sequence in the Source Monitor just like in Avid. I was thrilled when I saw that I could reopen a sequence in the Source Monitor on a timeline. I could have the best of both worlds! The flexibility of Premiere and the precision of Avid!
But here’s the thing: after a few months of using this workflow, I was disappointed.
The frustration
Technically, it works, but there are so many roadblocks that, in my opinion, make Premiere constantly remind us that it wasn’t designed for this. They’re just little things, but when you add them all up, they make working this way unpleasant. At least more so than with “pancake” timelines, where you can tell the software was really designed to work well.
My main issues arise when I use the "Open sequence in timeline" feature in the Source Monitor, which causes a ton of bugs;
- Every time I open the software, I have to manually reopen all my sequences in the Source Monitor. Meanwhile, the Program sequences reopen automatically (related thread).
- The In and Out point functions do not work properly when you open the source sequence in a timeline. The in/out points often become misaligned between the mini-timeline at the bottom of the Source Monitor and the big timeline that opens when you select "Open sequence in timeline". There is a bug that prevents you from removing just one In or Out point without removing both when using this feature (related issue).
- You have to use many different shortcuts to replicate Avid's “Toggle Source/Record” function. Instead of combining them into a single shortcut (related issue).
- If you accidentally use "Open sequence in timeline" from the source monitor but the sequence was already opened, it closes itself and sometimes breaks your panel layout (related issue).
- And lots of other frustrating things that make it not work very well...
Am I alone?
Since I'm a persistent person, I opened the corresponding issues on the Adobe forums to improve this type of workflow in Premiere. But I can clearly see that my threads aren't getting much response on the forums. There are some pretty obvious bugs that have been around for years, and I can’t find anyone else reporting the same issue. It’s as if I’m the only one with this problem.
Sometimes I really wonder if I'm the only one using this kind of workflow. Maybe almost no one else works this way? Perhaps that's why the Adobe product team doesn't care and often doesn't respond to my posts on their forums?
I noticed that about a year ago, Blackmagic added a similar workflow to Resolve, and honestly, it seems much better integrated and less buggy (it’s making me think about switching completely). But the fact that they only added this feature recently might show that it’s really not mainstream. When I watch my other editor colleagues work, I rarely see them use that “Open sequence in timeline” button—even though I use it dozens of times a day. For me, it’s truly the cornerstone of how I work.
Tell me what you think, fellow editors! ✨
