Productive video editing in less than 60 minutes!
We're going to venture a guess that not all of Maximum PC's readers will know the history behind Adobe Premiere, which was the first commonly available digital video editor when released in 1991. The best you could expect from it at the time was postage stamp–size videos of 160 x 120 pixels, but at least we were off and running. Or so we thought. Because the original Adobe Premiere (without "Pro") had years of problems around synching audio to video. This limited its professional use, and opened the door for Apple's Final Cut to take over.
Premiere Pro, released in 2003, was a rewrite of the program and fixed most of the issues. It's since been used for both offline and online editing of major motion pictures, commercials, and broadcast TV shows. And yes, it's still easy enough for us amateurs to use to edit the footage from either your toddler's second birthday party or your last debaucherous frat party (but do us all a favor and don't upload the latter to Youtube, OK?).
Here's a primer for anyone interested in using Premiere Pro to put together their next digital masterpiece.
Launch Adobe Premiere / Start New Project
You'll see the now-familiar Adobe start menu that lists options for recent files, new files, and other helpful choices. Click "New Project..." to get started.
The New Project dialog comes next. You can just click OK to proceed if you're raring to go, as all the setting can be changed later. However, you may wish to fill in a project name and choose where it save it. The other options are mostly application preferences that you will set once and leave alone. You can mod these later if the need to do so arises.
On to the workspace! By default, Premiere is divided into four tabbed/windowed sections. Clockwise from top-left they are:
Source Window (top-left) Displays selected source clips, i.e., original camera footage clips. Trimming and other work can be done in this section before placing the clip into the timeline.
Program Window (top-right) Displays the edited footage, with cuts, effects, and transitions.
The Timeline (bottom-right) This is the area where all the parts are put together, in chronological order.
Project Window bottom-left) This displays the source material, like the original camera footage, audio clips, and art. This window is sometimes referred to as the "bin," a reference to the editing days of yore.
Note that both windows on the left also have tabs, allowing for other content and data to be displayed within those windows.
Import Content
Begin by bringing in your content. In this case, WEgrabbed a few video clips of the brilliant silent-era actor Buster Keaton (let's save Keaton vs. Chaplin debates for another time!), Scott Joplin's classic song "The Entertainer," and a title slide WEcreated in Photoshop. WEprefer to just drag all items from their desktop folder into the Project Window to import files (note the "Import media to start" line that is displayed in that window prior to content being added). Alternatively, you can use the various Import options found in the File menu.
Pre-Roll
Before we begin dropping clips into the Timeline Window (bottom-right), take note of how you can move your mouse over a video clip in the Project Window and see the clip animate as you mouse left and right. Then you can double-click a clip to open it in the Source Window (top-left). In this window, you can "scrub" (move the "Time Thumb" back and forth) or click the play button to get a feel for the video content, its timing, and hear its audio track.
You can also set the Mark In and Mark Out points, which determine the clip's start and end times when dropped into the Timeline. Do this by moving the Time Thumb to the start frame desired, and then simply click the Mark In button at the bottom of the window. Next, move the Time Thumb to the desired end frame, and click the Mark Out button. Like all actions in Premiere, this is a non-permanent edit and can always be changed later. Now when you drag this clip from the Project Window to the main Timeline, it will be dropped in pre-edited for its In and Out points.
This is a good time to look at some of the other tabs in both the Project and Source windows, and use the tools found there to make other modifications to the clip. The default interface of the Source Window contains these tabs: Source, Effect Controls, Audio, and Metadata.
The Project Window tabs include: Project, Media Browser, Info, Effects, and Markers. Aside from the Project tab, the second most-used tab is Effects, where you will find video and audio filters and effects, as well as editing transitions that you'll use later in the main Timeline. Effects for both video and audio can be drag-and-dropped over the clip in the Source Window to apply them (or later, over any clips in the Timeline). After an effect is applied, click in the Effect Controls tab to set the controls. Keep in mind that effects are not static, and can be changed over time, i.e. animated, using a smaller Timeline in that window.
Animated effects are created by first activating the mini timeline by clicking any attribute's "stopwatch" icon at the left side of the window. You then create keyframes along the way, as needed. This is like having a mini After Effects within Premiere, and is very intuitive once you play with it a bit. Keyframes are automatically created at the frame the Timethumb is currently sitting on, anytime you modify an attribute.
In order to see what changes you're actually making, you will need to drag the Effect Control tab out of that window stack. In our example, we simply dragged it to the Program Window at the upper-right. Clip's effects can be further refined later after they're placed in the main Timeline.
So, if the Timethumb is on frame 00:01:05:11, the "stopwatch" icon had been made active, and you change the value of an attribute, a keyframe will automatically be created and show up as a diamond on the mini-timeline.
Effects can be stacked, so you could apply a few different effects and have them all do their thing to a single clip. Fast computers, efficient software design, and graphics-accelerated cards (Adobe uses the "Mercury" engine) all make for real-time playback of clips with effects applied. At least to a point. Add too many effects and your playback performance will suffer. You can adjust for this by lowering your preview playback expectations. Do this in the Program (i.e., the playback window), using the Zoom and Resolution playback popup menus. A smaller playback image size, or lowered resolution will give a better playback efficiency.
Putting It All Together
Now comes the fun part: dropping the video clips and other elements into the main Timeline Window. This can be done by dragging one—or many—items from the Project Window, and dropping it/them in the Timeline Window. Dragging one item at a time gives you more control over where it's placed. If you drag multiple clips at one time, they will be dropped into the Timeline sequentially along a track, in one clip after another. You can also drag the current clip open in the Source Window to the Timeline.
Before you start all this dragging, be aware that if you simply drag a clip into the Timeline, Premiere will automatically create what it calls a Sequence. Any Premiere project can have multiple Sequences, which are great for advanced work (although we won't be covering advanced topics here). But this automatically created Sequence will inherit that first drag/dropped clip's name and specifications, which you may not want to happen. To avoid this, go to File > New > Sequence (or Ctrl + N) and choose the specs you want. This newly created Sequence will now appear in the Project Window, along with the other content items.
In our example, WEcreated a Sequence with settings for HDV 30fps, progressive. With that in place, when the first clip containing different specs is dropped into the new Sequence, you will be asked if you would like to change the Sequence specs to match the clip. Generally, we would instead prefer the clip to be modified to match the Sequence we just created.
When you begin to drag items into the Timeline, you'll see that Premiere places the elements around a center horizontal line. Video/visual items stack above the line, and audio items stack below. Video clips with an audio track will show up with two timeline elements, one for the video content, and another for the audio content. These can be placed on V1 and A1, or V2 and V2, etc. Though locked together when first placed, once placed, the two elements can be treated independently and moved around to better suit your editing needs. You can even Unlink the two item completely, which would allow one to be deleted while keeping the other (either right-click, or use the Clip menu to get to Unlink option).
Like all timelines, it starts at zero time at the far left, and moves chronologically as you progress to the right. As you drop items in, you may find it easier to change their Label Color, so that each clip visually stands out from its neighbor (right-click or use the Edit menu for Label options).
As seen in the screen grab above, we can both stack items next to one another on the Timeline across time (left to right), as well as on top of each other to create various transparent and multiplied effects. With the basic elements in place, we now want to start massaging these elements into something worth watching.
We'll start by working on our main title art. Note that while WEcreated this title in Photoshop and imported it, titles can also be created right inside Premiere Pro by going to the Title menu. These can be static or animated. Obviously, use the method that best fits the needs of your situation. Photoshop can create a much wider range of imagery and effects, and quite beautiful typography. When creating any kind of art in PS that is destined for video use, you can start your project by using one of the Film & Video presets in PS's New... dialog.
The Timeline Window allows an item's In and Out points to be set, though it is done a bit differently than in the Source Window. The Timeline Window has 12 tool options, which can be selected in a vertical bar just to the left of the Timeline. We'll just work with the default tool for now, the Selection Tool.
When you roll over the left or right edge of any item in the Timeline, the cursor will change into a red bracket (facing left or right, depending on which edge), with an arrow. Simply clicking and dragging will modify the clip's In or Out point.
For the title art, WEwanted the In point to be flush left, and the Out point to be a about five seconds later. The next step is to set its opacity so that it fades in at the start, and fades out at the end. There are a few ways to do this in Premiere, but for this clip I'm just going to use the Effect Controls. Double-click the clip in the Timeline, and it will become active in the Source window.
Once inside the Effect Controls tab, you will see Motion, Opacity, and Time Re-Mapping. All of these are default effects for clips with visual content, so we won't actually have to add any additional effects. Here's what we need to do:
1. Turn the rotating arrow in front of Opacity, to open its attributes.
2. Click the Stopwatch to activate animation.
3. With the time set to zero, also set the opacity to zero. A keyframe diamond will appear.
4. Move the time a few frames ahead, perhaps 10 frames. (TIP: Use the arrow keys to advance the frame one at a time.)
5. Now, change the opacity a second time, to 100 percent, and another keyframe will appear.
6. Move ahead to about 4.5 seconds, where we want to put another keyframe at 100 percent opacity. Since this doesn't actually change anything, it is referred to as a "holding" keyframe. And since you are not changing anything, you need to force its creation by clicking on the Add/Remove Keyframe button, which can be found to the right. It looks like a diamond, sitting between a left- and right-facing arrow.
7. Now, move the Timethumb another 15 or so frames to the right, and bring the opacity down to zero.
That's it. You can scrub or play the segment now and should see a quick fade up, a hold, and then a slower fade out. One thing you will also notice is that the video clip sitting further down is at the start of the timeline. This is easily fixed by either dragging the clip to the right and tucking it away, or by clicking the edge of the clip—its In point—and editing the intruding frames out.
By default, the Timeline is rather dull to look at. It's better to work with it set to show more information and controls. This can be done clicking on the Wrench icon menu, part of five such icon menu items near the top-left of the Timeline window. Select the Expand All Tracks option, and you will see the Timeline change.
Now for a quick run through the audio. Since we don't want to use the audio tracks that are part of the videos, we can simply click the M icon at the left of the Timeline, which stands for mute. We could also click on the audio items, Unlink them from the video sections, and delete them. Either option will work. But leaving the audio in the file will let us add some sound from them back in later, if we decide we want to.
Next, we drag "The Entertainer" clip in and place it, and we're set. More tweaking is always possible, and there are many audio filters that can be used to make this track sound better. We leave these more advanced treatments to you to play with on your own.
We're ready for the final two adjustments. The first one is something that falls under the heading "Creative Accident." This is when you happen upon something that may be more creative and interesting than you originally imagined. The trick with this type of creativity is to be open to it when it happens.
For some reason, our first clip is showing very small in the frame. At first, we were just going to enlarge it to a reasonable size. But then we thought that it might actually be more visually interesting to allow it to start small and then enlarge it a little while later, which a zooming move.
After playing the footage once through, with the music in place, we found the perfect place to do the zoom effect, right when the music changes directions around the eight second mark. This zoom is done in the Motion effect, using the keyframing as we did before, but this time on the Scale property.
As part of our Creative Accident, we decided to fill the entire HD frame, which required some cropping of the original 4:3 ratio. After all, we're not doing archival work here, and the cropping didn't adversely effect the material (sometimes it might).
The last step is now to edit the last clip onto the end of the project. This last clip was never pre-trimmed in the Source Window, so we just scrubbed through some of it in the Timeline and found a part that would be good to start with. Going to the vertical toolbar, we selected the Razor Tool, used for cutting a clip into two parts. This is done very easily with a single click at the point you want the split. (One click will do this to both the video and audio sections.)
We then went back to the selection tool, selected the new clip to the left of the split-point, and deleted it. Then we selected the remaining part of the clip and slid that over to abut our first video clip. What we have now is a hard cut edit, in other words, no transition effects.
Many productions use hard cuts all the time, but for this we will drop in a cross-fade transition. This is done by opening the Effects tab and then the Video Transitions folder. There are many transition effects here, but the cross-fade that WEwant is found in the Dissolve folder. Click and drag it to insert right in between the first and second clips. As you prepare to drop the transition in place, you will see you have three options: to have the fade execute only on the first clip, only on the second clip, or across the two, which is usually our preferred option.
This last clip also came in with the video smaller. But unlike the first clip, enlarging the material in this clip to fill the screen would not work well, so we simply made it as large as possible and will live with two black letterbox bars along the left and right of the screen.
Obviously, more clips can be added, and a host of additional effects can be used to do a wide range of treatments. We can preview the project by simply hitting the spacebar to start and stop play in the Program Window. Or, we can hit the Enter/Return key to render the previews first before playing. This is a better option in many situations, but of course, takes longer.
Rendering
The very last step in making a movie is to render it out. This is done by either rendering a Sequence directly out of Premiere, or by sending the project out to Adobe's Media Encoder. Either option is done by opening File > Export > Media…. The details of compression and encoding can and have filled many books. But sending the file to Media Encoder by choosing the Queue button, offers quite a few presets that can make your work easier—though still not always "easy," simply because there are so many preset options it is often hard to decide.
Rendering, even on a fast computer, is anything but instant. And the more effects you add, the longer it will take. High-def resolutions also take a big toll, so if you don't really need 1080, why render it?
It's a Wrap
Adobe's Premiere isn't a two- or three-button solution like some consumer-editing options. But with a little bit of effort, almost anyone can learn to use it. There is no need to learn it all, just learn what you need, at least for now. You'll get your clips done, and can always add more as you go.
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