An EDL is like the genetic code that forms the backbone of your film project. It's an ASCII file that you can send to a third-party program, allowing you to work with a dynamic version of your project without starting from scratch.
Two editors working from the same pool of source material can easily share this tiny text file to exchange versions remotely or across different platforms.
Let's dive into what exactly an EDL is, and how you can use it.
What Is an EDL?
In the film industry, we often find ourselves working collaboratively or cross-functionally. When participating in these types of projects, it can be useful to have some sort of shared, pidgin-style way of sharing each version of the project between different programs and with the rest of the team.
That's where the EDL comes in.
EDL is short for "edit decision list." If you have two clips in your timeline joined by one edit point, your EDL will document the clips being used, their durations, ins and outs, and even any transitions or adjustments to their audio levels that you've applied.
An EDL converts each asset instance and edit point into a text-only list of executions that can be used to rebuild the project elsewhere from the same set of original footage.
In the days of yore, back when analog media was the only option available, a physical copy of your footage was needed in order to edit the project. This approach, offline video editing, protected the original from becoming damaged or unusable for the final reproduction.
The duplicate set of footage would often be of an inferior quality, which meant that the technician would eventually need to recreate their final cut all over again with the original, higher-quality run of film or tape.
At the time, there was no computer or program responsible for documenting each film break and superimposition automatically. The work was all done by hand; the editor would need to log these details manually so that the cut could eventually be finalized.
Now, video editors really don't even have to think about this stuff, especially if their needs are simple or casual. Anybody who's ever tried to climb a mountain, however, knows that video projects of any size consist of many moving parts that need to be accounted for at all times.
Many digital video editors rely on EDLs as a universally compatible inventory of what their project contains. After being processed by Premiere, the sequence is reduced to a text-only ASCII file with every frame and input accounted for.
Can you edit this file using a text-editing program? Absolutely. Should you? Don't even think about it. These files are meant for machines to read, and machines do not take kindly to typos. If you want to adjust your project, doing so from within Premiere would be much easier.
What Are EDLs Used For?
The astute among us may be wondering: why bother with EDLs when you could simply share an entire Premiere project with a collaborator?
Premiere project files are relatively small; they can be sent just as easily as a text file. Your partner would be able to open up the file on their end, and could use a local copy of your full-res footage to repopulate the project.
This is fine if all that you need to do is, say, pass a version off to an assistant who is also working in Premiere. But if you wanted to open up this project in DaVinci Resolve, you would be out of luck.
DaVinci Resolve cannot read or interpret a Premiere Pro project. It will, however, accept an EDL, no questions asked. Interoperability across all types of machines and all types of programs is the definitive goal of an EDL.
Let's go over a few possible applications of EDLs.
1. Recreating a Proxy Cut With the Original Footage
Working with proxies is faster, but you can't use them for your final render. Some programs maintain a dynamic link between every proxy and its full-scale counterpart, replacing the footage automatically when the time to render the project out has arrived.
Other programs do not. Using an EDL for your final output will be especially useful for those relying on a more powerful, secondary system reserved for this final step.
2. Recreating Your Project in Other Programs
In Resolve, you can certainly import a flat, lossless version of your project and break it down using its scene cut detection feature. Even video rendered under a high-quality codec will be compressed to some extent, however, which is unavoidable when copying any type of media file.
Maintaining one working copy of the source footage minimizes this effect. Each program that you use refers to the footage as seldomly as possible, giving you the freshest possible version each time. This is vital for color artists who want their work to sing.
3. Identifying an Asset
Included with each listed shot will be its location in terms of its unique timecode identity. If you need to recall the source file quickly, you can refer to the EDL in order to do so.
4. Working Long-Distance
Your colorist is in New York. You're way over there in Seattle. When passing the baton, you can use EDLs to share projects without exchanging huge assets or a massive wad of rendered media back and forth.
If they have their own drive containing all of the necessary assets, collaboration becomes instant and much more time-efficient. Exporting an EDL will usually take much less time than rendering out an entire version to share.
5. Preparing a Project to be Archived
Transcribing the entire Premiere project into an EDL will often be a more economical way of preserving the project. An EDL is more stable than a Premiere Pro project, or even a video file, for that matter.
Work in this form is much more likely to survive long-term, ready to be brought back to life from assets kept in mint condition. This eliminates the need to version up a legacy project in the future.
Premiere Pro produces EDLs in the CMX3600 file format. Each CMX3600 file can support one video track and up to four channels of audio apiece. If your project contains more than one video track, we recommend that you export a separate EDL file for each one.
How to Export an EDL From Premiere Pro
After you've got a sequence in front of you that you're satisfied with, click the file dropdown and hit Export.
Instead of selecting Media, as per usual, you want to choose EDL. Make sure that your Timeline panel is selected and active before doing this, or the option will be ghosted out.
From here, you'll find your EDL Export Settings. You can specify which tracks to target, as well as your naming convention, your audio processing preference, and whether or not the EDL will include transitions, markers, and blank events.
How to Open an EDL in Premiere Pro
From your computer's file manager, you can open up the ASCII file that results by sending it to a rudimentary text-editing program like Notepad or TextEdit.
Once you've cracked in, the EDL should look something like this. So, where do we go from here?
Just like with any other asset, all that you have to do is Import the EDL through a bin, through the Media Browser, or via the File dropdown.
Once you've done so, Premiere will ask which video standard your EDL conforms to—NTSC, PAL, or 24p in one of three flavors. The next window will be a prompt allowing you to specify the new sequence's settings within the program.
After re-linking any media that may have gotten knocked offline, you'll find a folder in your bin with the same name as the EDL file. Inside will be the original sequence, in all of its natural splendor.
Also included in this folder: all of the assets that appear in the imported EDL sequence. From here, you should be good to go.
Edit Decision Lists: Streamlining Your Workflow Since the 1970s
The artists among us may beg the question: are we really nothing more than the sum of our parts? Can everything about a project really be broken down and laid out on paper?
Our take? Yes, yes it can. Much like a proverbial Pokéball, EDLs contain the rage of the beast, letting you unleash it at will whenever necessary. Like the hard, outer kernel protecting the delicious morsel of popcorn within, EDLs keep every precious detail in order until you're ready to crank up the heat.
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