Switchboard

Visualize and edit multi-camera production

Notice

This tool started as an internal experiment to test Motion Studio x Adobe Premiere. The early test showed big potential for quick multi-cam editing, so we named it Switchboard and kept building.

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! Warning

Switchboard pushes what is possible with the current Adobe API. This is an EXPERIMENTAL PREVIEW that works; mostly... please don’t use this on non-backed up, important or, deadline driven commercial projects. Yet.

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Plans

We feel Switchboard is a potential game-changer for multi-cam editing and hope you enjoy this alpha build.We will showcase more ideas for Switchboard in the next build with support for Ripple Edits, Sub-Clips and Scenes (crazy).

Please let us know how Switchboard could improve — the good, the bad, the glitchy. Shoot us an in-panel message or, post feedback on the Futures community board.

Overview

Switchboard is a new tool that enables multi-camera editing within Premiere Pro.

Clips in a Sequence's video tracks will populate the Switchboard. Click on each track to toggle its enabled state, and set it as the active clip at the CTI. Other clips at the CTI will be disabled, and razored accordingly.

Video In / Out Points

View all of the in-point and out-point edits in the timeline at the top of the screen. Toggle between "All", "In Points" and "Out Points". Click the left and right arrow icons to go to the previous or next edit point, respectively. Alternatively, click directly on the edit point to go to that particular edit. In-Points are colored blue, while Out-Points are colored red.

Video Timeline and Frame Snap

A timeline replica is at the bottom of the page. Click and drag the timeline to scrub the CTI. Enable Frame Snap, to scrub the timeline in Frame increments. Use keys a and d to go previous or next on the timeline. Press the spacebar to toggle playback.

Menu

Clean Tracks

Removes all disabled clips from your Sequence. Useful after editing.

Create Placeholder

Adds a placeholder Black Video to the first track, that you can cut to like any other clip.

Full Screen

Toggle full-screen mode for the Switchboard page

Frame Snap

Enables the Frame Snap functionality for the timeline. If disabled, frames default to 1

Zoom

Zoom In/Out for the clips on the Switchboard page

Tracks

Clips (videos and images) in the Video Tracks at the current CTI will populate the Switchboard page. Active clips receive a Green border, while disabled clips have a default grey border. Hovering each clip will reveal the Track number it is in.

Below is a simple multi-cam edit sequence:

Initial Setup - All clips active

Set Track 4 Active

Scrub Forward - Set Track 1 Active

Scrub Forward - Set Track 3 Active

Go to Previous Edit - Swap Track 2 to active (Clip on Track 1 is merged)

In Between Edits - Set Track 1 Active. Clip is active up until next edit point.

Clean Disabled Tracks

Undoing Actions

Because Premiere Pro's scripting API has limited support for Undo Groups, we hacked together an alternative. After performing any action in the Switchboard panel, you can undo that action by clicking the Undo button in the top-left corner.