Actions with multple objects, and general animations

I’m making a long animation, and was annoyed by how messy it got, then I learned about the NLE editor, and actions, which sounded super cool. However, now when I try to split my animations up in actions, I run into the issue that I can’t animate multiple objects into one Action. I have an empty, with a camera as child. Both objects are part of one animation, but how do I animate them in one action? I tried baking but that doesn’t seem to work (so far)

Also, what is the best way to animate in blender without it getting messy? I can’t imagine blender movies are made with just a million random keyframes in a timeline.

My camera rigs I am trying to turn into actions: