Basic n00b question...
 

So I'm fairly new to the Adobe suite of products, and although I've figured out how to edit in premier just fine and use encore to put together a DVD just fine- After Effects if foreign territory to me. I have gone through some tutorials so I can perform the tasks I want to in after effects, my problem is I am not sure the best way to get my edited project from premier into after effects.

Right now what I'm doing is rendering out my entire project from premier, importing that video into after effects, cutting up the footage in after effects so I can selectively apply effects to different parts of the video, rendering that back out, openign the rendered video in premier so I can re-sync it with my sound, then going to encore.

I know there has to be an easier way. I just don't know what it is... help!

Big can of worms here. Building the most efficient workflow is to say the least, challenging. Here's some quick thoughts you might try.

1. Make your edits in PP then take the timeline into AE, not the footage, but the actual timeline from PP. This will work in most cases, but it can kill some of the more complex transitions/effects. Haven't tried this myself, but thers report that can work.

2. Bring the individual clips from the PP timeline into AE and make your tweaks, render out to QT using the animation codec then replace each clip individually in the PP timeline.

3. Use Dynamic Link to create AE clips in your timeline. Load the clips from PP into those linked comps and do your tweaks. Benefit here is that you don't have to render out of AE. There are some reports that Dynamic Link has problems but I haven't run into any yet. However, I'm not pushing AE that hard yet.

Of the three, I like 3 best followed by 2. I tried 1 and it drove me nutty. YMMV.

Others probably have additional insight and more experience.

I concur with Tripp's options. Also consider using DebugMode Frameserver to go between the programs; it's faster and more efficient than rendering uncompressed.