Once you have your video project folder made and your assets in place (internal link), you are ready to start a new project file in Premiere Pro and import your files. When importing your files, it is important to understand how Premiere Pro sees them.
To understand why workflow is important, you need to understand how Premiere Pro sees your files. When you create a new project in Premiere Pro, it creates a file that ends in the extension .prproj. This file is actually quite small. Even after you import your video to your project, this file remains very small. Why? Because your video isn't actually being loaded into that project file. Premiere Pro is REFERENCING those video, audio and photo files. It creates a link (using directory/folder structures) to make a PATH to your video files. If that path changes, then the link to the file is broken and Premiere can't find it any longer. How do you prevent those links from being broken?
Do not change the location of the file after you import it into Premiere Pro. Don't move it into another folder and certainly don't delete it. This is why it is important to place your files in their appropriate folders BEFORE you import the files into Premiere Pro.
Do not change the name of the file itself or any of the folders that contain the file that Premiere Pro is referencing.
This is the Number 1 problem that students in the class run into when they are editing in Premiere Pro. Understanding the concept of reference files and good workflow structure will prevent you from having major problems and anxiety about your project.
Open Premiere Pro and create a new Project. Name your project similarly to your folder name. Save the project in your folder (see image). Your saved project will have an extension at the end .prproj. This file is what you will open when you come back to your project to edit later.
Next, you can now import your files into your Project Window (lower left window). You can drag and drop individual files or you can drag and drop folders or you can use File>Import (CMD I).
This is very important to understand: Once you have imported your files, you CANNOT change the names of the files on your hard drive or change their location or change the names of the folders. You will lose the file path and have to correct for that (see above regarding Media Offline).
If you add files to your project later, make sure to name them and place them in your project folder BEFORE importing them into Premiere Pro.
Now that your project is open and you have your files in the media bin, it is time to set up your sequence and timeline properly (internal link)