Premiere pro cs6 guide 2013/14 by Sean Offord

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

How this guide is organised Adobe Premiere Pro is industry-standard video editing software, so it’s a bit complicated! Nevertheless if you get to know a few basic things everything will start to fall into place, and you’ll soon be creating your own masterpieces! The areas you have to know about are:

THE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

BASIC USER GUIDE Getting your footage onto the Mac in THE RIGHT PLACE! Setting up your PROJECT FILE IMPORTING your footage into Premiere Pro Knowing your way round the WORKSPACE Basic editing - CUTS Basic editing - FADES

THE 7. 8. 9. 10.

ADVANCED USER GUIDE Adding more complex TRANSITIONS, like dissolves Adding and controlling video EFFECTS Adding TITLES Various OTHER TECHNIQUES

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

GETTING YOUR FOOTAGE ONTO THE MAC (and in the right place!)

Log in to the Mac with the local username and password your teacher will give you. (Don’t use your own network username.) This username corresponds with the timetable block you are taught in: “MediaA”, “MediaB”. This is the username you will use all year for video production.

Double click on the “Macintosh HD” icon on the desktop and navigate to “Macintosh HD/Users/MediaX/Movies” (where “MediaX” is the username you logged on with).

Create a new folder there with the name of your group or a project name you will definitely remember. For example “A2 Summer Work, 2011” or “BTEC Induction Assigment” (or whatever it is called). This is your project folder.

Mount the SD card onto the computer by attaching a USB lead from the camcorder to the computer. The icon for the SD card on the desktop will look like this.

Open the SD card icon by double clicking it and find the folder named “Private”. Copy this (right click/copy), then paste it (right click/paste) into the folder you created in step 1.

Now car ef u lly single click and then rename the “Private” folder you have pasted, using today’s date, followed by the word ‘footage’ for the name (‘21/6/11 footage’ or whatever). VITAL: MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS EVERY TIME YOU ADD NEW FOOTAGE TO YOUR PROJECT FOLDER.

Go back to the desktop and eject the SD card by dragging its icon to the wastebasket bin in the dock at the bottom of the screen or by right clicking and selecting ‘eject’. The wastebasket will change to an eject symbol when you pick up the SD card icon.

Remove the USB drive from the Mac and the camcorder. Delete all your video files from the camcorder using the delete button on the bottom right of its LCD screen. Turn the camcorder off and return it to the AV office if you have finished shooting for the day.

SETTING UP YOUR PROJECT FILE

1. Set up your project settings. Open Premiere Pro by clicking its symbol from the dock at the bottom of the screen. After Premiere has loaded for a while you’ll get the following screen:

Click on ‘New Project’, and you’ll get another screen: A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

Here you must input some information into both tabs. In the ‘General’ tab you must first select the location on the Mac you want your project file to be placed into. Click the ‘Browse’ button and navigate to the folder you created earlier in “Macintosh HD/Users/MediaX/Movies”. This is the location you should choose to save your project file to. You must also name your project here. Call it a name you’ll remember, that is appropriate for your project – eg “Sean’s Horror Trailer”. Leave the other drop down menus as shown.

Next, in the Scratch Disk tab, make sure ALL the locations are set to “Same as Project”. Then click ‘OK’, and you’ll be off to the NEXT screen, where you have to select the settings for your “Sequence”, which is the timeline where you’ll build up your work in the project. Here select AVCHD, 1080i25 (50i). You can give your sequence a name if you like, or leave it blank. Click OK. Premiere Pro will then open and you can go ahead and save all your settings by straight away clicking ‘File>Save”. Well done, you have set up your project.

The next job is to get your footage into the project.

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

3. IMPORTING YOUR FOOTAGE INTO THE PROJECT You have already saved your footage onto the computer (remember when you dragged the “Private” folder from the SD card to the folder you created in “Movies’?). So now you simply have to import that footage into Premiere Pro. Just go “File>Import” as below:

Navigate to the folder you renamed into ‘21/6/11 footage’ or whatever, and click “Import”. The files will begin importing and then Premiere Pro will tell you which files it did not import because they were not video files: Go ahead and click OK, and then if you look at the bottom left of the Premiere Pro workspace you’ll see that the folder containing your video footage has appeared in the Project panel, which will look like one of the following two panels:

To switch between these different views (“Icon View” and “List View”) click here. Icon View is very useful at times. Double click the folder to reveal your footage. If you find that when you double click a folder it opens in a new window go to Premiere Pro>Preferences>General tab, and change “Bins Double Click” from “Open in New Window” to “Open in Place”.

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

4. THE WORKSPACE You are now ready to explore the workspace and start getting used to what does what. Here is an image of the basic editing layout. Other layouts can be selected in the “Window>Workspace” menu, and you can even create and save your own preferred layout, which you might like to do as you learn more.

Program Panel

Source Panel

This shows the footage you have added to your Sequence, or timeline. It therefore shows the actual media text that you are creating.

This shows any clip that you double-click on in the Project Panel, below it. You set in and out points here. Later you’ll also use it for controlling effects that you add to clips.

Project Panel (in List View mode)

Toolbar

This is where your footage is stored and also where, later, you’ll find a range of effects you can apply to clips

A range of tools you’ll need for editing in the Sequence Panel

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

Timeline Marker This little yellow blob and red line shows, in the Program window, the frame from the timeline that it is over. You’ll need to position the timeline marker for various operations like adding transitions and effects. Click in the time measurements either side of it to make it jump to wherever you need it. Practice this now!

Timeline Panel A ‘timeline’ of your project or the sequence of it you are working on. You can zoom in to see particular sections in detail, or out to see the whole sequence, using the grey slider at the bottom. ‘V’ tracks are visual (video), and ‘A’ tracks are audio. Tracks can be added easily if you need more.

Sound Levels Monitor

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

5. BASIC EDITING - CUTS You cut clips and put them together on the timeline by opening them from the Project Panel into the Source Panel above (double click or drag and drop them), then setting in and out points (i/o on keyboard) and finally dragging them to the Sequence Panel timeline. (You can drag them to the Program Panel instead but most people find it more intuitive to drag to the timeline). Use Video 1 track unless you have a particular reason not to. You can also set in and out points directly in the Project Panel if you have it set to “Icon View”. You do this by ‘hover scrubbing’ through the clip by placing your mouse above it and moving it left and right. But initially it’s best to do it using the Source Panel. Note that if this window appears when you add your first clip to the timeline you MUST select “Change Sequence Settings”.

When you are dragging clips to the timeline, they will snap together as you bring them close to each other, providing you have the ‘Snap’ magnet on. This is very useful and stops you accidently erasing bits of your footage.

As your timeline gets longer, or as you want to look more closely at edits, you can select different areas of the timeline by using this slider, and magnify or shrink the view of the project using this square button at the end. The Selection tool Once you have some clips on the timeline, you can fine tune your edits using a range of tools. The simplest way to change an in point or out point is to hover over the edge of a clip using the Selection Tool (the top arrow on the timeline). The cursor will go red with an arrow indicating that you can pull out further footage (assuming there is some hidden ‘tail’ footage) or reduce the length of the clip by pushing it shorter.

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

However, if you want to extend a clip which is already in the middle of other clips, you won’t be able to. And if you want to shorten it you’ll leave a gap like this, which you have to close by right-clicking in the gap and selecting “Ripple Delete”. So a much better tool to do this with is the ‘Ripple Edit’ tool, the third one down in the tool panel. Have a play with it and you’ll see how powerful it is. Make sure you have no clips selected, then click on the Ripple Eddit tool. As you now select a clip the cursor will turn yellow to show you are about to make a ripple edit. This will allow you to extend and to reduce the length of a clip in the timeline, and it will not affect the in point of the next clip, or leave a gap if you are shortening. It will also show you in the Program Panel a dynamic view of the new out point or in point you are selecting:

Program panel showing new out point for first clip (left image is first clip’s out point, right second is second clip in point)

Yellow cursor showing ripple edit

Moving clips in the timeline If you want to shift lots of clips in the timeline at once you can either swipe across them using the Select tool (top tool in the tool panel), or you can use the Track Select tool (second one down) to select everything forward of where you click. To select multiple tracks shift click on them using the track select tool. You can then move them around all in one go.

Note that when you want to play back your footage at full screen size all you have to do is to press Control (Ctrl) and Tilde (~) at the same time (or just Tilde if you want to see the tools). Press the same buttons to return to normal view.

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

6. BASIC EDITING – FADES

To add a fade down or up the easiest way (though not the only way, as you’ll see later) is to use the pen tool and the yellow Opacity and Volume indicator lines on tracks in the timeline. First select the Pen tool, third from the bottom on the toolbar.

Now, for a fade up at the start of a sequence, click the yellow Opacity line at the point where you want the fade up to end (ie where you want the shot to become fully visible). You will see a little diamond (called a KEYFRAME) appear. Then click again on the yellow line at the very start of the clip, to create another keyframe, and drag it down as far as it will go to the bottom of the clip. You might not be able to see this initial keyframe as it might be hidden by the ‘Head Frame’ image of your clip, but the yellow line should end up looking like this:

Starting keyframe – opacity 0%.

Ending keyframe – opacity 100%

Note that the equivalent yellow line in the Audio track affects SOUND VOLUME in the same way. Go ahead and have a play with it.

Congratulations – you should now be able to set up a project, import footage, cut your clips together by setting in and out points, cut in the timeline, move clips around in the time line, and create fades (up and down) for visuals and sounds. BUT DOUBLE-CHECK your skills!! Spend some time playing around with these basic editing tools and concepts. Once you’re happy with them all, move on to the more complex stuff below!

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

7. ADDING TRANSITIONS A “transition” is an edit between two shots which is different to the basic cut. The most common transitions are fades and dissolves but there are others you can explore. Dissolves and other transitions can be applied between individual clips in the Timeline window. To see the range of video and audio transitions click the “Effects” tab which is in the same panel as your project and footage bins. Then open the relevant folder. Here we can see the various ‘dissolve’ video transitions. Note that the Cross Dissolve is outlined in yellow as it is the default transition. To add a transition simply drag it to the point where two clips meet on the timeline. You can adjust it by double clicking it or by pulling on its ends in the timeline.

If you want to quickly add the default transition without even opening the effects tab, then simply move the playhead marker to the relevant edit point (either by clicking in the time bar at the top of the timeline, or by using the up and down arrows, which jump from edit point to edit point), and then simply press the command key on the left of the spacebar and the D key at the same time:

= default transition

Here is a transition on the timeline. Remember you can double click it to open it in the Source panel, and can adjust it there.

IMPORTANT: ANY TRANSITION WHICH INVOLVES A GRADUAL CHANGE FROM ONE SHOT TO ANOTHER WILL ONLY WORK BETWEEN TWO CLIPS IF THERE IS SOME FOOTAGE BEYOND THE OUT POINT OF THE FIRST CLIP (‘TAIL’ FOOTAGE), AND BEFORE THE IN POINT OF THE SECOND (‘HEAD’ FOOTAGE). IF NOT, IT WILL NOT WORK. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND WHY?

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

8. ADDING VIDEO EFFECTS To add an effect you do the following: •

Make sure your timeline marker is over the clip you want to add the effect to, so that the clip is visible in the Program window.

•

Double-click the clip in the timeline to open it in the Viewer. You will see that the time indicator bar turns entirely green. This green colour indicates the section of a clip between a selected in and out point, so when you double click a clip in the timeline to load it into the Viewer the green colour provides a reminder that this is a timeline clip, rather than a clip from a bin in the project window.

Green colour reminds you that this is a clip already on the timeline

•

Now choose a video effect from the Effects tab (near to the Project tab in the lower left panel) and drag it on to the clip you want to adjust in the timeline, just like adding a transition. If you know the effect that you want you can type the first few letters into the search field at the top of the window and Premiere Pro will display it for you. Here I chose ‘Leave Colour”. I wrote “Leav” into the window and Premiere found the effect for me.

•

Now select the ‘Effects Controls’ tab in the Source panel so you can adjust the parameters of the effect. Using the ‘leave colour’ effect I took out everything except red, to give my Lake District holiday footage that Sin City look:

in as in

A Gui de to using Premiere Pro

Now you can see why you had to make sure the timeline marker was over the clip you were adjusting – you can no longer see it the Viewer window you are now adjusting the effect that panel.

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS KEYFRAMING - Varying the level of an effect over time One of the most powerful aspects of professional level video editing programs is their ability to alter the intensity of an effect as a clip progresses. For example, you might want to suggest someone gradually coming into consciousness by fading up from black and by having the shot start very blurred and gradually come into focus. You can do this by using Keyframes. These are added using the little stopwatch symbols which are found next to any effect in the Effects Control tab in the source window:

Here I have added a “Gaussian Blur” effect, then set the timeline marker to the start of the clip using the ‘Up’ arrow on my keyboard, then clicked the stopwatch next to the Blurriness setting. This added a keyframe at the start of the clip. Keyframes are little diamond shapes. Because this one is at the start of the clip you can only see half of it. Next I adjusted the level of blurriness by changing the yellow number to 287.0 (very blurry!). Changing the number is easy – just click and drag it left or right. Alternatively you can double click it and enter a specific value. At the moment the entire clip has now got a blurriness of 287. I need to add another keyframe later on in the clip to reduce the blurriness back to zero, so the effect gradually disappears and I get my “coming into consciousness” feel. So I play forward in the clip by pressing the space bar on the keyboard, and press it again when I get to the point where I want the clip to come back into full focus (ie where the value of blurriness is zero!). I have done this on the screenshot to the right. You can see the second keyframe (the diamond shape on the red timeline marker) and the yellow value set to 0.0 (no blurriness). Note also the controls which allow you to jump between keyframes and to delete them. Hover over them and a dialogue box will pop up telling you what they do. Now see if you can add a A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS slow zoom in to a shot using “Motion” keyframes (Motion is one of a number of variables always available in the Effects Controls tab). Note that you can see, adjust and delete, directly in the timeline, any keyframes that you have created on a clip by selecting the appropriate effect from the drop down menu that appears when you click on the “Opacity” label on any clip. Here I am selecting the blur I applied earlier so I can see the keyframes. Then by right clicking on them I can make adjustments or delete them. Click here… …and select your effect:

9. ADDING TITLES You can make titles in a range of software packages – Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Apple LiveType, or just straight away in Premiere Pro. This is best for straightforward titles without too many effects. You can produce superb and complex titles in the other applications, but simple ones with simple effects, like, say, a gradual zoom or drift across the screen, can easily be achived using the built in title capability and motion keyframes. To start a new title either select “Title>New Title” from the menu at the top, or click on the little “New Item” icon to the bottom left of the Project panel:

Selecting this will bring up a dialogue box to create the size and other properties of the title background. Leave this alone as it will be set to match the footage you specified when you set the project up. Give the title a name if you wish.

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS The next screen you will see is the Titler screen. It is composed of five areas:

Title Designer

Title Properties Title Tools

Title Styles Title Actions

The Title Designer is the central area – the ‘stage’ on which you will see your title develop as you create it. The Title Designer will automatically display the video frame at the current position of the playhead in the Timeline panel. You can change this to another frame by moving the playhead in the timeline. If you want a black background you can place the playhead on a part of the timeline with no clip on it. Note that in each case you’ll simply be creating a title with a transparent background. If you actually want a title with a built-in background you can achieve this by selecting the “Background” check box in the Title Properties panel and adjusting the various options there. Usually this is not necessary. In general the Titler works in a similar way to the way you manipulate text in Adobe Photoshop, so most of the tools should be familiar to you. Note that when you have typed some text the Title Properties panel changes to give you the menu for manipulating the text itself. See if you can recreate this title (yes, I know it looks terrible…) by using the ‘distort’, ‘gradient’ and ‘strokes’ options, which appear in the Title Properties panel once you have written your text:

The top part of your Title Properties panel should end up looking something like this:

There are even more options to explore at the bottom of the panel. They may not all fit on the Mac screen so scroll down to explore them.

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS

When you are happy with your title simply shut the window and it will be available for you to use in the bin in the Project Panel. You can drag it onto the timeline and treat it like any other clip. So if you want it to fade up just use the opacity line with the pen tool, like you did on page 8.

To Make Rolling Credits Type your text in a text box which extends beyond the bottom of the screen, then use the“Roll/Crawl” options button, which appears on the top left of the Title Designer Panel: Roll/Crawl Options

10. VARIOUS OTHER TECHNIQUES CREATING A FREEZE FRAME Click the “Export Frame” icon located in the Program panel to save a still of the current playhead position. Choose a format and a location to save it, then import it into your project.

BLEND MODES Blend modes allow a clip to interact with a clip below it on the Timeline. They work just the same as they do between layers in Photoshop. To access them go to Effects Controls and click on Blend Mode.

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS CREATING A VOICEOVER Firstly set up the microphone on the computer by going to Premiere Pro>Preferences>Audio Hardware. Select “Built-in Microphone/Built-in Output” and click OK.

From the Audio preferences (Premiere Pro>Preferences>Audio) also tick “Mute input during timeline recording” or you’ll get feedback.

Next mute any existing audio on the timeline by clicking the speaker symbols at the start of each audio track which has any clips on it.

Now Open the Audio Mixer for the sequence you are working on: Window>Audio Mixer>Sequence.

A Guide to using Premiere Pro

PREMIERE PRO CS6 – LEARNING THE BASICS Select an empty audio track and enable it for recording by clicking the little R (for record) button. Here I have selected Audio 3, and the R is red to show it is ready to record.

Now position the playhead marker where you want to begin recording from on the timeline. Then click the little red light symbol at the bottom of the Audio Mixer and then the Play symbol.

Click here first

Then here

UNLINKING AUDIO AND VIDEO You’ll need to do this if you want to edit audio at a different point from the visuals, for example if in an interview you want to cut to a door opening but have the sound from that shot (of the door beginning to open)begin before you actually cut to the door. Such sound bridges and cut aways are a very common editing technique. Unlinking is easy. Simply right click on the clip and select – you guessed it – “Unlink”. TAKING ONLY AUDIO OR ONLY VIDEO FROM A CLIP IN THE SOURCE PANEL TO PUT ON THE TIMELINE Again an easy one. Instead of clicking on the footage itself and dragging it to the timeline, simply click and drag the appropriate icon below it.

Well done. You’ve completed everything in this guide. But this is only a start. There are many other tools and techniques in Premiere Pro, and you have only really scratched the surface.

Take only video

Take only audio

There are plenty of books on using the software, and plenty of tutorials on the internet. The more you explore it the more you’ll find out, the more skilled you’ll become, and the better your products will turn out. Now go forth and edit!

A Guide to using Premiere Pro