How to cull footage in Premiere Pro, by hand and with AI

Culling in Premiere Pro means getting a pile of clips down to the ones worth editing before the real edit starts. Premiere has everything you need for a fast manual cull: bins, Hover Scrub, label colors, subclips and search bins. Here is a setup that keeps it fast, and the point where it stops scaling.

Last checked 2026-10-25.

The Premiere Pro steps use standard Project panel and Source Monitor features. Menu names can move between versions, so if one is not where this guide says, search for it in Premiere's keyboard shortcut list. Shortcuts are given for Windows first.

Step by step

1. 1. Make the bins before you look at a clip

   In the Project panel, make three bins: Selects, Maybe and Rejects. Add one bin per camera if you shot with more than one. Deciding the structure first is what stops a second full pass later.

2. 2. Scrub thumbnails instead of playing clips

   Switch the Project panel to Icon view and turn on Hover Scrub from the panel menu, so moving the pointer across a thumbnail plays through the clip. Only open a clip in the Source Monitor when it might be a keeper. A reject should cost you a couple of seconds, not a full watch.

3. 3. Mark the good part, not the whole clip

   In the Source Monitor, use J, K and L to shuttle, then I and O to mark the in and out of the usable part. Press M to drop a marker on a moment you want to find again. For a long take with two good moments, make a subclip of each (Clip, Make Subclip, Ctrl+U on Windows or Cmd+U on Mac) and file the subclips in Selects.

4. 4. Give every clip one verdict

   Drag each clip into Selects, Maybe or Rejects as you touch it, or set a label color (right-click, Label) that means the same thing. Never leave a clip unmarked: unmarked clips are what force you to watch the card again.

5. 5. Let search bins do the filing

   Type a word into the Project panel search field and save it as a search bin, for example a label, a camera name or a word from your clip comments. Search bins refresh themselves, so a Selects view by camera builds itself while you work.

6. 6. Build a selects sequence

   Select everything in Selects and make a sequence from it. Watch it once end to end. That stringout is the input to your real edit, and it is a fast way to see whether any part of the day has no coverage.

7. 7. Hand the first pass to AI when the volume gets high

   For a few hundred clips across cameras, let a tool do steps 2 to 4 overnight. Basecut rates every clip, tags it by shot type and by what happens in it, and with Open in Premiere Pro builds the project for you: a Basecut bin with sub-bins, label colors from the ratings, markers on moments, and sequences named 01_Heroes through 99_Junk. Then you start at step 6. What Premiere Pro receives from a cull lists every detail.

How long a manual cull takes

The method above is quick for a hundred clips. A wedding, an event or a week of travel comes home with several hundred clips from more than one camera. At a few seconds per reject and half a minute per possible keeper, a 600-clip shoot is an afternoon of triage before any creative work, and the selects are still in flat log color that does not match across cameras.

Common mistakes

• Playing clips instead of scrubbing. Save playback for clips that might be keepers.
• Grading during the cull. Color comes after you know what you are keeping.
• Leaving clips unmarked. Every clip gets a verdict the first time you touch it.
• Stacking two log conversions. If a clip has a Basecut .cube as its Input LUT, do not add another camera LUT on top.