so anyway ive been shooting drone stuff for a couple years now and somewhere along the way my editing workflow turned into this massive chaotic mess. i used to just dump everything into premiere, rough cut, color, done. but now i have resolve for color, premiere for the actual edit, lr for some stills i pull from the footage, and like three different folders systems that dont talk to each other and i genuinely cannot find clips from shoots i did three months ago.

does anyone have a folder structure or a workflow that actually makes sense for drone video specifically? like do you cull before you import, do you use proxies, do you keep the log footage separate from the graded stuff. im on a pretty fast machine so proxies might not even be necessary but i hear people swear by them

mainly doing landscape and real estate stuff if that helps narrow it down

proxies are worth it even on a fast machine imo, not because of performance but because it forces you to think about your media management from the start. when you generate proxies you have to have a folder structure that works or everything falls apart, so it kind of solves your organization problem as a side effect.

my setup is pretty simple honestly. one root folder per project, inside that raw footage goes in its own subfolder untouched, i never delete or move anything from there. then i have a selects folder where i manually copy only the clips i actually want to edit. graded exports go in their own folder too. resolve handles all my color and i roundtrip back to premiere for music sync and the final cut. sounds complicated but once youre used to it its fast

for real estate specifically i also keep a separate folder for the stills because clients always want those delivered separately and mixing them with video clips is how you lose your mind at 11pm before a deadline

honestly just pick one NLE and stick with it, bouncing between premiere and resolve for every project is probably adding more friction than its saving. resolve does everything now including the edit itself so you could just do the whole thing in there. the color tools are obviously better and the cut page is actually pretty quick once you learn it. might be worth trying for a small project and seeing if it simplifies things