Post-production / 2026-10-27
Handing off a proxy edit? Check these six things before the next team relinks
A practical checklist for editors handing off proxy-based Premiere Pro projects, drawn from Frame.io's own C2C and Premiere proxy workflow documentation, covering what breaks a relink and how to avoid it.
Editors increasingly build timelines on proxy footage pulled in through Camera to Cloud (C2C) connections, then hand the project to another team to relink against full-resolution camera originals. Frame.io's own documentation on this workflow, both its C2C proxy guide and its Premiere Pro proxy workflow guide, describes what makes that handoff reliable and where it commonly breaks.
The foundation, per Frame.io's C2C guide, is that C2C-enabled cameras and compatible external recorders with automatic recording create proxies sharing the same name and timecode as the camera originals. That matching is what allows an editing application to switch from proxy to original. If a proxy was renamed, transcoded through an intermediate tool, or recorded on a device outside the C2C chain, that automatic match can fail -- so the first handoff check is confirming the proxies actually came from a C2C-compliant source, not a manual transcode. Note one documented caveat: proxies made by external devices can start and end a few frames later than the camera files even though every frame's timecode value matches, which can affect how some tools switch between the two.
Frame.io's Premiere Pro proxy workflow guide separates three distinct workflows: Create Proxies, Attach Proxies, and Reconnect Full Resolution Media. Which one applies depends on what media you're starting from. A handoff checklist should state explicitly which of these three paths the receiving editor needs, rather than assuming they'll infer it -- a project built with 'Attach Proxies' needs different verification steps than one needing a full-resolution reconnect.
Before handoff, confirm the proxy and original files are stored with a predictable, documented folder relationship. Neither Frame.io guide claims Premiere Pro can locate originals anywhere on a drive by filename alone; the workflow guide describes automatic relinking as depending on a maintained folder structure, with manual relinking to the correct location as the fallback. Document that folder path in the handoff notes, not just in the editor's memory.
Check timecode integrity specifically. Since matching proxies to originals in C2C workflows relies on identical timecode, any intermediate step that re-wraps, re-exports, or edits a proxy's container (rather than just viewing it) risks breaking that timecode match. If anyone touched the proxy files outside the editing timeline before handoff, that should be flagged and tested before the next team assumes a clean relink.
Confirm media naming hasn't diverged. The workflow guide notes that where Premiere's own naming convention isn't used, proxy file names should match the in-camera clips exactly apart from the extension. A handoff note should list whether any proxy or original files were renamed, split, or consolidated during the edit, since any of those operations can silently break the one-to-one match the relink process depends on.
Finally, test the relink on a small sample before declaring the handoff complete. The workflow guide is explicit that automatic relinking from proxy to full-resolution media is 'not quite as reliable' as going the other way, and frames relinking as a process with specific supported paths rather than a guaranteed automatic result. Relinking three or four clips and confirming full-resolution playback before the receiving editor commits to the full project avoids discovering a broken match deep into a color or finishing pass.
None of this replaces a studio's own written delivery specification, and these two Frame.io guides describe only this vendor's documented C2C and Premiere Pro behavior -- not every NLE, camera, or third-party proxy tool. Teams using other systems should verify the equivalent matching logic in their own tools' documentation before assuming these same checks transfer directly.
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