Compiling several time lapse videos into one - workflow questions

I am beginning my first dabble into video editing and have a workflow question. My goal is to put together one of those generic 2-3 minute timelapse compilations of a city that are all over YouTube.

I have taken several sequences of time lapse photographs and edited them using the Lightroom and LRtimelapse workflow. I have final edited video clips from each sequence and I have collections of each individual photo with the LRtimelapse ramping metadata saved in Lightroom. My editing style between different sequences is not consistent - in some I have crushed the blacks, in others I have pushed highlights, etc.

I plan to re-edit each sequence in LRtimelapse to get a consistent look. I have some questions about how I should go about doing that.

I am thinking I should

• re-edit each sequence in LRtimelapse and Lightroom
  
• only edit for white balance, saturation, sharpening, and have something very neutral
  
• export video files from LRtimelapse
  
• import video files into Premier Elements and do any color grading there
  

I'm not the best person to answer since I use neither Lightroom nor Elements. My habit matches your first option, using whatever application seems most appropriate for clips and stills and then putting everything together in Premier Pro for final sequencing, audio, transitions, color grading, etc.

That's what I'm currently doing, thanks for the affirmation.

I decided to make a lightroom preset to get all the series close to the same processing style. I'm currently re-exporting all the image series as videos from LRtimelapse, and I'll begin importing them into Premier soon.

I would use LRT and LR for the heavy duty processing and assemble / transition / color grade in Premiere or the like. I am working on the same type of idea, putting a number of clips together to highlight an area / region. I am also intending to mix in some slow motion scenes as well.

For a good TL film, I think the key is lots of short clips rather than long ones. Look at the opening sequence of House of Cards, it's 32 or so (counted once but forgot!) TL clips. I think it works very well. Some are motion some are static. If you don't have motion gear and you can do a Ken Burns movement effect, zoom in, zoom out, etc, to add more interest.

Good luck, look forward to seeing your final project.

That's pretty much what I did, except I ended up using GoPro Studio to assemble each individual clip. Don't judge, but it was the easiest. I used a trial of Premiere Pro to assemble the movie.

I figured I should post the finished product. Video below, and a blog post about it.