Organize timelines with nesting in Premiere Pro

Nesting in Premiere Pro is very simple and incredibly useful for editors. This tutorial will teach you all the basics of nesting so you too can learn this handy skill.

Nesting has many practical and organizational benefits, so check out the workflow tips Motion Array has included to take advantage of them in your edits. Don’t worry, you’ll also learn how to use Premiere Pro to unnest a sequence if you wish.

Part 1: What is nesting in Premiere Pro and why should you use it?

Performing a task once is easier than repeating it multiple times. That makes sense, right? If you have numerous items in your sequence, combining them within a ‘container’ and performing the task once is more organized and efficient. This is the basic theory of nesting in Premiere Pro, and understanding it in this way will help you decide when to use nesting in your editing workflow.

More technically, Adobe Premiere Pro nested sequences reduce multiple clips into a single clip in the timeline. Compare this to using proxies in Premiere Pro, where each clip stays separate. Video and audio clips can be nested side-by-side or stacked on different tracks.

However, it’s essential to understand that nesting creates a new sequence in your project. Nested sequences allow editors to edit clips or add effects. In addition, nested sequences can live inside other sequences and contain different nested sequences. A nest within a nest, in other words. This can be complex to manage, but also very helpful for the right project.

Part 2: How to nest clips in Premiere Pro

Creating an Adobe Premiere Pro nested sequence will have the exact specifications (resolution, frame rate, etc.) as the current sequence. You can brush up on sequence settings in Premiere Pro if you need to. It will begin at the first frame of the first selected clip in the timeline and end on the last one. It won’t be linked to the parent and the timecode won’t align as with a sub-sequence.

Pro Tip: Nesting media larger than your sequence resolution will rasterize your footage, so scaling up the nested sequence will pixelate the image. Consider this before nesting your clips.

Step 1: Duplicating your sequence

Before using nesting in Premiere Pro projects, first make a copy of your work. While there are ways to unnest a sequence, returning to a copy of the original edit is often easier.

1. Find the sequence in the Project browser.
2. Right-click and choose Duplicate from the menu.
3. Select the copy and hit Return to change the name of the sequence.

Step 2: Selecting your clips

You need to be strategic when selecting clips. To do this, think about the final result and work backward. It’s important to note that developing consistent criteria for nesting will improve your timeline organization and help you speed up your video edits. Part 3 has tips to help you with this.

1. In the Timeline, identify the clips you want to nest. 
2. You can select clips by clicking and dragging the selection box around them or holding Shift while clicking clips. Be careful not to choose something that you don’t want nested.

Step 3: Make an Adobe Premiere Pro nested sequence

Adobe Premiere Pro nested sequences can be stressful to use. After all, you’re changing the structure of your carefully edited project — that’ll always cause some stress. But fear not! If you make a mistake, you can easily undo the Nest by pressing Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z for Mac). Remember, Premiere Pro has plenty of helpful keyboard shortcuts to speed up your work.

Here’s how to apply nesting to your selected clips:

1. Right-click on any selected clip in the timeline and choose Nest. 
2. Name your nested sequence as you’d like. The more descriptive and specific the name, the better. Remember to organize your new nested sequence in the Project panel.
3. The nested sequence will replace the selected clips in the timeline.

Pro Tip: The thumbnail will show the nested sequence’s top clip or the video track number that’s highest. On the other hand, audio waveforms will show the top-most audio clip or the lowest audio track number.

Part 3: Working with nests in Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro nested sequences are great, but require a slightly different editing method. Follow these steps if you want to change any of your nested sequences.

Editing clips in a nested sequence

When you use nesting in Premiere Pro, you move all of your clips to a new sequence within the nest. So you can still edit your footage as you normally would.

1. In the Timeline, double-click the nested sequence to open the sequence. This will open a new Timeline.
2. Alternatively, in the Project panel, select the sequence, right-click, and choose Open in Timeline.
3. Make edits to your clips, such as trimming or replacing clips, or adding color and other effects. 
4. Any changes to the clips inside the nested sequence will automatically update all sequence instances in other timelines.

Duration of nested sequences

Of course, shortening or lengthening clips in a nested sequence will affect the total duration of the sequence. For example, if diagonal lines appear at the end of a nested sequence, it means there’s no media to fill the gap. Trim it to avoid seeing empty black space.

1. Treat your nested sequence as a standard clip in the parent timeline. Drag the ends to adjust the duration — it should match the composition inside the nest.
2. Use sequence markers (not standard clip markers) to mark important events or edit points inside the nested sequence. These will appear as clip markers for the nested sequence in the parent sequence. Now you can use the markers to line up and snap to events in the nested sequence.
3. Nesting will remove Premiere Pro transitions added to the beginning of the first clip and the end of the last. Unfortunately, the program doesn’t let you set head and tail frames when nesting, so you have to do this manually.
4. To restore the transition, head inside the nested sequence and extend the header (first clip) and the tail (last clip). Then go back to the parent sequence and reposition and trim the nested sequence. Alternatively, you can click the Slip Tool or use the keyboard shortcut Y to ensure there are overlapping frames for the transition.

Editing from a nested sequence

You can also treat a nested sequence as a clip itself. This is a handy way to add effects to a clip before editing. For example, if you use green screen footage, first add your keying and background effects within a nested sequence, then edit your composition with the nest.

1. In the Project Browser, right-click the nested sequence and choose Open in Source Monitor. You can also drag the nested sequence into the Source Monitor.
2. Use the Source Monitor to set In and Out Points, and drag sections of your nested sequence to the timeline.
3. Additionally, you can click the wrench icon in the Source Monitor and choose Open Sequence in Timeline. The nested sequence will open in a timeline and be linked with the Source Monitor. The red playhead shows this.
4. Now you can insert and overwrite edits from the nested sequence timeline to another open timeline. This is the foundation of the pancake timeline workflow.

Using Premiere Pro to unnest a sequence

Despite many requests by editors, Premiere Pro still needs to add an unnest function, so reverting to your original edit can be tricky. Most editors return to that earlier edit copy you made before nesting your sequences because it’s the easiest way. Alternatively, a little copy-paste action is needed.

1. Double-click your nested sequence to open it in the Timeline.
2. Select everything in the timeline by hitting Ctrl+A (Cmd+A for Mac).
3. Press Ctrl+C (Cmd+C for Mac) to copy the sequence.
4. Return to the parent Timeline and, using the up and down arrow keys, position your playhead at the start of the nested sequence.
5. Hit Ctrl+V(Cmd+V for Mac) to paste the original edit over your nested sequence. It will still be available in the Project Browser as with any other sequence you create.

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Motion Array hopes this tutorial has helped you learn the power of nesting in Premiere Pro. You now also know how to use Premiere Pro to unnest a sequence, although hopefully, Adobe will soon add an automatic unnest option, too. While nesting seems straightforward, if a little complex to manage, your decisions can help you stay better organized as you work on your video edits.