Premiere Pro
From TechHelp
Adobe Premiere is a non-linear, non destructive video editing suite.
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[edit] A New Project in Adobe Premiere Pro
Unlike most computer programs Adobe Premiere doesn't open with a blank document when you start the program. It starts with the option to open an existing project or starting a new project. If you have never created a project in Adobe Premiere you will actually start by creating a project file and saving it to a specific location.
We will assume that we are creating a new project. So you will want to click on the icon labeled New Project.
This will open a menu where you have some options on what kind of project you are creating. You will see that there are two types of projects DV-NTSC and DV-PAL. These are the two types of television standards in the world. If you are working in the United States you will want to use DV-NTSC.
Under each of these types of Television standards you will notice that there are four basic preset project types:
- Standard 32 kHz - This is the standard 4:3 aspect ratio used in television with 32 kHz audio sound
- Standard 48 kHz - This is the standard 4:3 aspect ratio used in television with 48 kHz audio sound
- WideScreen 32 kHz - This is the 16:9 aspect ratio for widescreen television with 32 kHz audio sound
- WideScreen 48 kHz - This is the 16:9 aspect ratio for widescreen television with 48 kHz audio sound
The setting you will want to choose depends on what you shot your video in. If you shot it in widescreen you will want to use this setting. If you aren't sure what setting your film was shot in I would choose 4:3 since this is the default for most cameras. You can change the setting here, but this will affect your final video, either cutting out sections of the video or adding bars to the edges.
The next step is choosing a location to save the project, and give it a name. Location is where you will be saving the file and Name will end up being the file name. Once you click OK you will be brought to Premiere’s main interface. The main interface may seem overwhelming, but don’t worry each screen has a specific function and once you start working with the video you will feel much more comfortable.
[edit] Capturing Video
Once you have a project the next step is to actually add some video to work with. At this point you will want to connect your camera to your computer via the firewire connection, and turn the camera to VCR.
Now you are ready to begin capturing the film from the tape onto your computer. You will want to go to File>Capture. This will open a new screen that looks similar to this.
This window is a preview monitor for you to decide what to capture from your initial footage. At this point you don't need to be very precise with what you are capturing, as a rule of thumb take in more video here than you need, you can cut it out later. Initially you should see the first frame that the camera is on in the window.
You will notice that below the preview window are VCR like controls. This allows you to manipulate the capture device that you have attached. This way you can watch the video as you are importing it. You will also notice the time codes and markers. This allows you to set in and out points for you capture. You also have the option to capture the entire tape.
If you are logging a specific scene from a tape you will likely want to find the beginning of that section. Once you have found where you want to start importing from you will want to set the in-point 
then you can fast forward to the end of the scene and then set the out-point
. Now you are ready to import the footage. If you are working on a rather large project you will probably want to label this clip with some information so that you will know what it is about a month from now. This is where the clip data comes into play. By labeling the clip and tape with information you will be able to easily find information later on down the road.
Now that you have your clip data entered, your in and out points sets you are ready to capture your clip. Simply click the in/out button under the capture section of the screen, this will log the clip that you have set. You can also choose to capture the tape if you have a lot of footage on one tape.
The three sections that are important for the actual capture process are the Timecode, the Capture, and the area below your movie. Each of these gives you the option of importing the clips in a variety of ways. One important piece of terminology that you will hear referred to is the in and out points of a clip. This is where you want to start and stop recording your movie.
The icon that looks like this represents the in point.
The icon that looks like this represents the out point.
The best way to think of these points is to think of the starting and stopping points of a movie. To set the in and out points you can use the controls under your movie. Go to the point in your movie where you would like to start and click on the in point icon, do the same for the out point when you have found the end of your clip. Once you have set these two positions you can simply go to where it says capture and click on the button that says In/Out this will import that section of your movie. If you would like to import an entire tape simply click on the button Tape where it says Capture. Once your tape is done recording you will see the name you have given it appear in the Project window. Now we are ready to begin editing the video.
[edit] Importing Video
Another option to add clips to your video is to import clips. This is a way to add clips that you might have taken at another time, or perhaps they are stock footage that you have available to you. To add these clips to your project you will want to go to File>Import. There are quite a few file types that you can import, such as images, video, and even entire folders. When you import a file it will be placed inside of the project window.
The project window can be very helpful in organizing your project. It allows you to create bins that you can use to separate videos, still images, and audio files. If the project is large enough you may even want to separate them by scene.
[edit] The Editing Workspace: An Overview
Now that we have some video inside of our project we are ready to start actually editing our video. To actually begin working on a clip you will want to double click on the file from the project window, this will open the file inside of the the preview monitor, which you will use to further refine the clip.
To take a look at the workspace we will start at the top left-hand corner and work clockwise around the screen.
The first screen is the Project window.
This window holds your movie clips, sounds, and allows you to create bins to help you organize the pieces of your movies. There are a lot of different things that can be done in this window. One part shows you the name of your project and all of the video that you have saved to the project. The other tab allows you to add effects to the clips. We will take a look at this later. The different types of clips that you can store in your project folder are; still images, different types of movie files that can be imported from a camera or from a computer, and sound files. Premiere also saves something automatically called a Sequence once you have started a project. This can be the different pieces of your movies perhaps you have a car chase sequence that you want to use more than once, this is where you could create that sequence and use it multiple times in your movie. The project box can also be used to storyboard your movie.
The next screen to right of the Project window is the Monitor window.
The Monitor window is where you can accomplish two different processes in your editing. You can rough cut your video in the Monitor window or preview the different clips or sequences in the Monitor window. The monitor window on the left side that has (no clips) in the tab is where you can preview individual clips and trim out the pieces that you don’t want. The window on the right is where you watch your movie or sequence.
The next window is the Information window.
This window may not seem that significant at first, but as you begin to work on your project there may be times that you have clips that are so similar that the only way you might be able to tell them apart is from the information provided in this window. The nice feature about information is that you can simply click on a file and see a list of properties that this segment has.
The next window that can be very useful and really save you some frustration is the History window.
This window works in much the same way as the Undo button except it can be used to create multiple files without losing the undo process. For example I could take all of the process out of this history except New/Open and Overlay save it as movie one, then add all of the other pieces and name it movie two.
The Timeline is the next window.
The timeline window is its most basic form is your storyboard. The timeline is where you take you clips in to create individual movies, or sequences. You will notice that there are places for multiple video and audio tracks and that you can add and edit. This allows for you to manipulate the video is endless ways.
The last window is the toolbar.
This has all of the different tools that you can use, but they are specific to the timeline window. If you are unsure of what tool you have selected by holding the cursor over the tool you will see the name and keyboard shortcut.
[edit] Tool Overview
- Selection tool
- This tool allows you to select the specific clip that you want to work with in the timeline.
- Track select tool
- This allows you to select the individual tracks in the timeline. If you wanted to the entire track you would simply click on the furthest track to the right.
- Ripple Edit tool
- This moves the in and out point by shortening the length of the clip. This would be a good tool to use if you wanted to eliminate the last few seconds of a clip without editing all of the clips around it, but you also either increase or decrease the length of your sequence.
- Rolling edit tool
- This allows you to take a clip and change its duration within the movie. The frames that are added delete the adjacent frame, which keeps the entire sequence the same length.
- Rate duration tool
- This takes the clip and either lengthens or shortens the clip, but it does this by either increasing or decreasing the speed of the frames, so you have the “Chipmunks” talking instead of your students.
- Razor tool
- This gives you the opportunity to split clips into smaller pieces for applying different effects or simply to eliminate unwanted material.
- Slip tool
- Takes the clip you are working on and moves the beginning and end of the clip itself, so you can move to a different point in one clip.
- Slide tool
- Changes the length of the two clips that are adjacent to the clip you are working on.
- Pen tool
- Deals with keyframes, which is beyond the scope of this handout.
- Hand tool
- allows you to move around the timeline without selecting anything.
- Zoom tool
- allows you to focus in on a specific area of your project.
[edit] Working with Captured Video
Now that you have imported the film you want to finish editing it. Your clips will appear in the Project window with the names that you gave them. If you know specific parts need to be cut out you will want to bring them into the left hand side of the Monitor window. This window is the preview window. By double clicking or dragging the movie from the Project window into the Monitor window you can set in and out points to further edit down your movie, without adding it to the timeline. By dragging the clip into the Timeline window or into the right hand side of the Monitor you will be putting the video into the timeline. Once the movie is in the timeline you can begin to put other pieces of the movie together.
[edit] Sequences
By default when Premiere creates a new project it creates one sequence, which appears in the timeline. Sequences are best explained as shots in a movie. For example if I know that there are going to be three shots in my movie, a dinner scene, a fight scene, and a car chase, I would create individual sequences for each of these. Then I would create one master sequence that each of the shots is placed into. This way I can manipulate the scenes individually and still maintain the overall feel of the movie. This gives you the true power of non linear editing.
Of course you can simply create one sequence and then turn it into a movie also.
[edit] Adding Clips to the Timeline
When you are adding video, audio, or still images to the timeline they are basically treated very similar. The only thing that you will have to remember is that audio goes in the audio tracks and still images go into the video track.
As you are previewing video in your preview monitor in Premiere you can set in and out points to begin editing the video. So this process might proceed this way. I would find the segment that I had originally shot from the project window, double click on the segment to open it in the preview monitor, and then find my in point and out point. Now that I have the segment edited to the specific scene, I would then hold down the Ctrl and click and drag the clip to the area I wanted. Holding down the Ctrl key allows me to place this clip non destructively, if I simply placed the clip in the timeline and I happened to place it on top of an existing clip I would replace the existing clip.
The next step would be to find the next clip that I want to use and set in and out points again, dragging the final clip into the timeline. I can do this in such a way as to snap to the end of the last clip, or by using the CTRL key even placing the new clip in the middle of an existing clip and splitting the existing clip at a specified location.
In this hand out we will stick to three basic tools the Ripple Edit tool, the Rolling Edit tool, and the Razor tool. With these three tools you should be able to edit most of the movies you want.
[edit] The Razor Tool
The first tool that we will look at is the Razor tool
. This tool is similar to a real razor blade, it allows you to rough-cut or precisely cut out unwanted film. To rough cut the film simply select the razor tool find where you want to make a cut and click on that area. You will see that the clip splits where you wanted it. To make a more precise cut you would approach this in a little different way. Say that you are viewing a piece of film and you notice that someone puts their finger in front of the lens, but not long enough to destroy the flow of the film. Simply find the area that you want to cut out using the play head, the blue triangle in the timeline 
, then go to Sequence>Razor at Current Time Indicator this will cut the clip at the play head. For our example you might make two cuts to eliminate the finger.
[edit] The Ripple Edit Tool
This tool allows you to edit the film without having to make multiple cuts in the film. The way this edit tool works is it takes either the in or out point and lengthens or shortens the clips next to the clip you have selected. For instance, say clip A is 5 minutes long and clip B is 3 minutes long. You want to take out a section of clip A so your entire movie is 5 minutes long. You would select the ripple edit tool and place it so you were pulling clip B into clip A making clip A shorter, but not changing clip B. Think of it as cutting the clips outside of the one you are working on and eliminating them totally. This also changes the duration of the film making it longer or shorter.
[edit] The Rolling Edit Tool
This tool allows you to edit your film without cutting clips also. This tool lengthens or shortens the clip that you are working with, but doesn’t change the length of the movie, but it does eliminate parts of the clip that you are dragging into. So with clip A being 5 minutes long and clip B being 3 minutes long, by dragging clip B into clip A your movie will stay 8 minutes, but you will eliminate the end of clip A.
[edit] Titles and Transitions
No epic film starts without a title. Premiere allows you to create and add titles wherever you would like. To open the Title Designer go to File>New>Title. This will open up the Title Designer window. When you open the Title Designer a picture will be placed in the middle of the title depending on where your play head is. If you do not want a picture inserted in the title simply make sure that the check box that says show video is unchecked. Premiere gives you the option of picking from templates that have been pre-designed also. Depending on what you have in mind for a title you may simply want to use one of these or experiment with the titles yourself. The title designer gives you the options to insert shapes and text. Also you can have titles roll and crawl across the screen. The basic menu on the right of the screen deals with the shapes and text that you are inserting. Fill is the color attributes, Strokes are the way the colors appear (think brush strokes), and Shadow deals with secondary colors that create shadows within the images.
Transitions would be the last thing that you may want to add to your first video production. Transitions are short sequences between scenes or sequences that help to mask the cuts in the film or change the setting and flow of the storyline. Transitions are added just like other clips. If you click on the Effects tab in the Project window you will see a list of different effects for both audio and video.
[edit] Effects
[edit] Keying and Mattes
These two tools allow you to manipulate the backgrounds and video so that you can replace certain aspects of the video. By layering the clips in different tracks and applying mattes you can make objects disappear or add objects to them.
[edit] Chromo Keying
Chromo keying is the use of a green screen or other solid color background where the actor does their scene later filling in other aspects of the scene, such as other backgrounds.
When doing chromo key there has to be a solid color that is well lite. Once this is done and you have imported the footage you will want to drag the green screen footage to the top video track that you are working on. Once you have done this you will want to place the footage that you want as the background at a lower track.
Now you are ready to actually add the effect to the green screen footage. By clicking on the effects tab in the lower right hand corner of the screen you will see all available effects. You can also find this window by going to Window>Effects. You will notice that there is a search feature for the effects, so start typing chroma and you will see the chroma keying effect appear.
Now drag and drop the effect onto the green screen footage. Now you are ready to manipulate the effect so that your lower video appears as the background.
You will want to click on the Effect Controls that resides behind the preview monitor in Premiere. You can also open the window by going to Window>Effects Control. Now you should have a list of the different effects that are added to the clip that you have selected. Yo will see chroma keying with a small arrow next to it. Click on this arrow to open the underlying menu.
There are seven sub menus within this area for adjusting the chroma keying. To start with you will want to select the color that you are using as the key. There are two ways of doing this. The first is to click on the rectangle that contains the color, this will open a window for you to choose a specific color. The other option that seems a bit easier is to click the eye dropper next to the rectangle. This will turn your cursor into an eye dropper, which by moving over the timeline monitor you can select the color to use for keying.
Now you may notice that depending on the quality of the green screen shot there will be some adjustment that you might want to do to fine tune the effect. By working with the similarity, blend, and threshold you should be able to fine tune the effect to display the background. Now you should be looking at the green screen footage as if you had shot it with the background there.
[edit] Garbage Matte
Image Matte
Garbage mattes allow you to take items with in a shot out of the picture. The idea behind this is that there are two video clips and one is going to be placed on top of the other.
A simple example of this is creating a shot with a television showing content that you want not the real programing. By using the garbage matte you can manipulate the shot so that the film that appears in the television is yours.
For example I have a clip of the road, but there is a hood of a car in this image. knowing that I am could place
Difference Matte key is a similar process--
[edit] Working with Audio
Premiere has some built in functionality to work with audio, so that you don't need a separate program to do this. To open the audio editing section of Premiere you will want to go to Window>Workspace>Audio, which will change the layout of your screen so that you now have a mixer in your preview window.
This gives you the control of the volume of each track, as well as the master volume of the movie.
[edit] Importing Additional Tracks
Since you may want to be able to add tracks to your Premiere project you can import audio tracks much like you would import video tracks. Simply go to File>Import and locate your audio track. Once this is done you will have access to the file to edit as you would like.
Note: Premiere only links to files you have imported, so if you delete or move the audio or videos in the future you will see a little icon like this next to the track 
. This means that the link to that track has been broken.
[edit] Voice Overs
Premiere also gives you the ability to add voice overs to the film if you would like to.
Setting up the mic on a window machine The first thing you will want to do is make sure that you have your mic plugged into the microphone jack on your computer. Then you will want to make sure that you have the right input for the sound card. To check this you will want to go into the Control Panel on your computer.
Find the Sound Control button and open it.
Now you will want to look at the tabs and find the Audio tab.
Now you will want to click on the Volume button to make sure that the mic input box is checked and that the level is high enough. You can also open the Voice tab and test the device when you are done, simply follow the wizards insturctions to make sure everything is working correctly.
and make sure that the microphone input is checked. Now you should be ready to do your voice over within Premiere.
Once your mic is connect properly you will have the ability to select an audio track of your liking, perferabley where no audio already exists, and then by clicking on the microphone icon of that track you can then begin to record, adjusting the input on the mixer. Once you have done this Premiere will add the audio to the track where you have the playhead.
[edit] Burning To DVD
In Premiere Pro up to version 1.5 you can burn DVDs, but not with menus a new feature within Premiere Pro 2 is that you can infact create menued DVDs. To do this you will want to first add markers to the final project that you have created.
Adding DVD markers can be done right from the timeline work space. Next to the small magnet in the top left hand corner of the timeline you will see two icons, the first is for setting DVD markers the second is for plan markers. By clicking on the DVD marker button a DVD marker will be placed in the timeline. At which point a menu will appear that gives you the option of what kind of marker you want placed. There are three types:
- Scene
- Menu
- Stop
Using these markers you can quickly create a final DVD for a project without having to take it into another application like Adobe's Encore.
Once you have placed the DVD markers in your timeline you will want to go to File>Export>To DVD. This will allow you to export the DVD to a disc, folder, or image.
[edit] Web Resources
Below are a few resources that you may find helpful as you use Premiere.
- Adobe Forums
- This is a rich community of Premiere users. Ask a question or search the forums either way there is a lot to be learned here.
- Creative Cow Podcast
- Creative Cow is a group of media producers out on the net. They also have forums that you can use as well as a free magazine avaiable in print or PDF.
- Lynda.com
- This is a pay site for tutorials, but they do have a podcast that you can subscribe to.
