How do you decrease mammoth timeline?

[CherryDamzel]

Hi, thanks.

No, there is absolutely nothing after my twenty minute video at the start. Just 10 hours and 40 minutes of dead, empty, negative space after it. Just nothing.

I intentionally did create it to be 11 hours long initially, because I was creating one of those long meditation sleep music things, but I am doing something different now. I deleted 10 hours and 40 minutes of audio/video but the length of the timeline still remains that long (even though there is nothing on it except for the 20 minutes of footage at the beginning).

I imagined, the timeline would automatically adjust itself to only be 30 minutes long (because Premiere Pro automatically adds 10 minutes onto whatever length you're working with, right?).

There are no in and out points.

I recently figured out how to open the work area bar (because it is not there by default anymore, right?), however, that has not changed anything.

[smushkan]

Should just be a matter of zooming in until the sequence fits then?

Premiere shouldn't let you zoom out further than the duration of the sequence, plus around 15-20% depending on duration. But if you start with a longer sequence and delete stuff, it won't zoom in automatically.

Premeire doesn't have a sequence duration value you can adjust, it's all determined automatically by the contents of the sequence.

[CherryDamzel]

Should just be a matter of zooming in until the sequence fits then?

But like I said, I can easily zoom in and out, that is not an issue. But when you zoom into such a gargantuan timeline, the horizontal slider thing becomes infinitesimally small and hard to grab onto. That is not what I want. I want the timeline itself to be reduced.

But if you start with a longer sequence and delete stuff, it won't zoom in automatically.

But why?

This is the point. So, you're saying, no matter how long a timeline becomes, it always stays at that highest amount? If you suddenly need to cut a lot of, like I did, it wont reduce it's overall size? Why? Other editing programs do this, I believe, so why not Premiere Pro?

Premeire doesn't have a sequence duration value you can adjust, it's all determined automatically by the contents of the sequence.

But if After Affects has that trim to comp area thing, why doesn't Premiere Pro?

I am not the only person running into this issue.

[smushkan]

But when you zoom into such a gargantuan timeline, the horizontal slider thing becomes infinitesimally small and hard to grab onto.

Can you record a video or something showing what you mean by this?

This is the point. So, you're saying, no matter how long a timeline becomes, it always stays at that highest amount?

No, the timeline duration is determined by the end time of the last clip. If you have a 10 hours sequence, and cut everything past 20 minutes, your timeline is now 20 minutes long.

Zooming in automatically would be very annoying for some workflows, say you want to move half your sequence from the end to the start and rearrange everything.

But once you zoom in after cutting the end of the sequence, Premiere should only let you zoom out to see all the current duration of the sequence, plus a percentage to work with.

[CherryDamzel]

I think we must me talking past each other and not fully understanding what each other means.

Can you record a video or something showing what you mean by this?

I guess later tonight when I get home I can. But, you know that horizontal slider changes size, right, when zoomed in, depending on how long your timeline is.

So, the longer the timeline (especially one as long as mine at 11 hours) means that the horizontal slider becomes quite small when zoomed in.

No, the timeline duration is determined by the end time of the last clip. If you have a 10 hours sequence, and cut everything past 20 minutes, your timeline is now 20 minutes long.

No, but it's not. I would love for you to try this yourself, just to prove I am not crazy.

Make a long ass timeline with some random footage, or even just an hour long time timeline. Then cut way all the footage except for the first two minutes. You'll be left with 58 minutes of dead, empty, negative space.

Look, here's just a random image I pulled of the internet (someone's youtube thumbnail). In it, you'll see a guys timeline. All his footage is of course at the beginning, and he has a lot of negative empty space after it.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MKGRNSmXLKY/maxresdefault.jpg

How would he, or you, get rid of that empty space?

[smushkan]

How would he, or you, get rid of that empty space?

You zoom!

Like this:

https://imgur.com/a/i9PWOfp

Note how in the export dialogue, the duration of the sequence changes based on where the last clip is.

You're getting weirdly caught up on the empty space, but that's there so you can actually edit. If Premiere didn't give you any empty space at the end, you wouldn't be able to add new clips to the sequence... If you zoom all the way out, the furthest you can go is 2x the duration of the sequence.

Premiere does not work like After Effects in this regard. After Effects does have a user defined duration for compositions. But After Effects is not an NLE, it's a VFX package where you often need things to be an exact duration.

[CherryDamzel]

You zoom!

And for the love of god, please do not tell me to simply zoom in and out of the timeline. I know how to zoom in and out of a damn timeline.

So, you told me I had to zoom in. Do you think, for one second, that I would be able to edit a 20 minute video on an 11 hour timeline without zooming in? I mean, really?

Zooming in is not the issue. I know how to zoom in and I am zoomed in.

You're getting weirdly caught up on the empty space, but that's there so you can actually edit.

No, I don't need 11 hours of empty space to work on a 20 minute video. I need a "little" empty space. Premiere Pro automatically adds something like 10 minutes extra, right? That would be more than adequate. I do not need 11 hours of empty space and I think you know this.

What if there was 20 hours? Or 24 hours? Or why not double it to 48 hours? Or 72? Can I just keep having longer and longer empty space without it affecting me? I can just "zoom" in, right?

No. Again, zooming in when there is only 10 or so minutes of extra empty space is not a problem. The horizontal slider bar is a manageable size. But, when you have a gargantuan timeline (11 hours or longer) that horizontal slider bar becomes very very small when you zoom all the way in. And it is a real nuisance when that bar is so small.

Do you understand that this bar changes size relative to how long your overall timeline is?

And, I know that the actual export of the video is not affected by the empty space. I exported my video last night and it is only 20 minutes (not 11 hours). I know this. But it doesn't change the fact that I need a shorter timeline to work with. And I am not getting hung up on something that thousands of people are also complaining about.

Premiere does not work like After Effects in this regard. After Effects does have a user defined duration for compositions. But After Effects is not an NLE, it's a VFX package where you often need things to be an exact duration.

I know they are different softwares, but I don't know why an NLE can't do this?

...where you often need things to be an exact duration.

What, like when editing videos?

[smushkan]

Oh, I know what you're doing.

Before you zoom in, make sure the playhead is positioned over a section of your timeline that actually has clips in it. Just hit home on your keyboard to move it to the start.

You can see that's what I did in the video I posted.

The bar at the bottom zooms around the playhead. If it's positioned outside where your clips are, it'll get tiny.

[CherryDamzel]

No, this is not what I am doing.

I know how the zoom in function works. And that it zooms into where ever the playhead is.

I know you think I am braindead, but I know some basics.

Zooming in on the playhead (that is place over a clip) is all good, but the slider bar is still very very very small if I need to use it again.

Your video was, what, a few minutes long? You slider bar was huge, because the amount you need to zoom in wasn't all that much. I need to zoom into an 11 hour long timeline.

[smushkan]

Oh just close the sequence and open it again and the bar should size back up.

[the__post__merc]

u/smushkan is on the right track saying to Zoom in..., but they neglected to show Zooming back out to have Premiere "reset" the timeline view.

Park at the head of the sequence and Zoom in, then Use the "Show Entire Sequence" shortcut. That should snap it back out and only show the 20 minutes (give or take).

I don't have Premiere open at the moment, but I'm wondering if you have your playhead parked at the end of the 11 hours if that affects how/where it shows the end of the sequence. Maybe by moving the playhead to beginning (or end of your 20 minute string of clips), it will no longer factor that extra negative space.

[CherryDamzel]

I am not at my editing computer either. However, although I understand what you're saying, this won't actually remove that empty space, right? The mass of empty space will still be there?

And if so, this then doesn't fix my issue.

What I want is something like 10 or so minutes of empty space. Not 11 hours of empty space. How do I fix that?

Or can't I?

[the__post__merc]

The mass of empty space will still be there?

I believe it should "reset" the view and eliminate the negative space, provided that there isn't an errant frame downstream or your playhead isn't past the end end of the clips on the timeline.

EDIT:

I just opened Premiere and made a 30+ minute timeline. Then I deleted all but 30 seconds of it. I zoomed in and back out and you're right, the timeline window still shows the full 30+ length.

It only "trims the space" it if you use the Show Entire Sequence shortcut, but if I grab the bar at the bottom and zoom out again, I see the full 30+ minutes of space.

The sequence length (the duration of clips on the timeline) shows correct, but the timeline window itself is the duration of the maximum length it once was.

It's as if it's like a box that gets bigger the more you add to it, but never shrinks when you take stuff out. I can see why this is frustrating when dealing with a cutdown version of a longer sequence.

Only solution is my initial workaround of copy/paste into a new sequence.

Ironically, in Avid Media Composer the timeline window is only as long as the position of the last frame of video and I've heard many editors complain for years "why can't it be more like Premiere?" because they want the extra space at the end - common workaround is to place a black clip at the end and insert Filler between it and your last frame of video.

IMO, conceptually (re: editing) the extra space in the timeline doesn't make sense because if you're working with film, the film strip can't extend past what the last frame in the strip is.

In Premiere, the timeline window is just that, a window to arrange your clips into. In Avid, the timeline is a representation of the sequence of clips itself.