Premiere Pro Manual01 - Basics - Toolbars, Options and Panels2017 1st edition

This Premiere Pro Manual is one of an introductory series specially written for the Arts and Humanities Students at UEA by the Media Suite Team.

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OrientationAfter you have opened a Premiere Pro project you will find that it is divided into 4 obvious quadrants

As with all programs you have the file menu system toolbar at the top of the page.

Premiere Toolbar

Top LeftThis top left quadrant can show either the preview of your media, (photo, audio or video), or switch tabs and you can see any effects that have been applied to your footage.

You can also alter/delete those effects from this area.

Top RightThis is the edit timeline preview window, where you will be able to watch your film assembly develop.

AudioJust to the side of the edit timeline you will see the Audio meter which will indicate the volume levels during playback.

Preview - Effects TabsAbove the preview area are a few different tabs the most useful of which are the Source (preview) tab and the Effect Controls tab

ToolsPremiere Pro doesn’t have many visible ‘tools’ as with many other Adobe software, but in the centre on the lower area you will find the essentials.

The selection tool, the razor to split clips, and the rolling and ripple edit tools.

Bottom RightEdit TimelineThis is the timeline area where you can see the tracks V1, A1, A2 (Video Track 1, Audio Track 1 etc) and where you will be able to assemble you edited film.

Bottom LeftSome of the most important Tabs are in the bottom left area, this is where you will find your Project Bin (where any media you bring into the project will sit) and where you can open the Effects tab to apply any of the many video effects or transitions such as fades, dissolves and audio effects.

LayoutAdobe lets you organise the layout of Premiere to your liking, start with the basic editing view.

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FileThe file menu has all the usual save or save as and open recent options, import media and capture from a connected device, or bring in After Effects compositions with the Dynamic Link.

You will export your finished piece from here.

EditNormal edit functions, copy/paste/cut. Also use this to take attributes from one clip to another such as colour correction, with the Paste Attributes

ClipChange values of the entire clip, or unlink the audio from the video, or group clips together from here

SequenceReset your sequence settings and add default audio or video transitions and effects straight from this menu.

Also add tracks and zoom in and out of the timeline view.

MarkerAdd markers to your timeline for important cues or use this menu for in and out marking, or just to clear the points.

Menu OrientationA closer look at the menus, this is also useful to see the short-cuts.

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TitleThe titler has it’s own menu and all of the normal textual elements are available to alter in here.

WindowIf you can’t see a panel ot tab you would expect to see they have probably been accidentally closed, so access them in this window menu.

Menu OrientationA closer look at the menus, this is also useful to see the short-cuts.

Premiere pro basics - Importing, editing and exportingOpen a new project, then go file>new>sequence to set up your settings for your project.

Choose from the Presets one that matches your shot footage the closest, if you are unsure, use the HDV 1080p 25 (this sets it up to be high quality, running at 25 frames a second - the UK standard) and name it sensibly.

On opening premiere it’s divided into 4 distinct areas

Top Left (1)where you will be able to preview footage from your media ‘bins’ and control effects and advanced options.

Top Right, (2) this is the preview area of the edited sequence, playing from the timeline

Bottom left (3), this is where you can select shot video, import media and select effects to add to your footage.

Bottom right (4), this is the timeline, where you will assemble your edit in order and trim/ move clips and add tracks for titles and extra audio tracks

Importing MediaIn the bottom left quadrant you should see the ‘project tab’ either double click in the space (it should say ‘import media to start’ if you’re in the right tab), or right click in this project bin area to import. Browse to the video you want to use and bring all clips, images and audio into your project before we begin any editing.

Preview your shot footageDouble click on the media clip that you would like to use and it will appear in the top left preview window where you can watch it.

Look through your clip, either by pressing the spacebar to play, or the use on-screen controls directly underneath the preview, and find the beginning of a section you would like to use in your edit. To fine tune your start point you can use the arrow keys to move one frame at a time.

Press ‘i’ to mark an in point, you should see that a grey highlight goes from your in point until the end of the entire clip.

Press play (spacebar) or move the blue marker (playhead) until you reach your desired end point and press ‘o’, this marks your out point, and now only a shorter section of your clip should have the grey highlight showing.

By selecting your in (i) and out (o) points this is how we start to assemble an edit, essentially this is how you get sections of audio or video into your final edit.

Once happy with your selection, we need to bring it down onto the right hand timeline. we can do this 3 simple ways, either 1, click in the middle of the preview clip (you should see the arrow icon change to a gripping hand icon) and drag and release in the timeline area, 2, press ‘V’ on the keyboard to insert our clip, or click on the insert icon to the right of the play buttons (we will discuss the overwrite option later).

For good practice keep the primary video timeline on V1 and A1with overlays or extra video on V2 and titles/photos on V3.

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If you only want to bring the sound or the audio from your media, mark your in and out point as normal but then use the drag audio or drag video icon to only drag and drop that part of the media into the timeline.

At this point if you have set your project to be a slightly different size from the clip you are currently bringing into the timeline, Premiere may ask if you want to change your sequence settings and whether you click keep or discard will be down to a few factors, if all of your footage is shot the same as this clip click change, if it is from different sources keep the high quality settings you already specified (and then you may need to resize some of your footage).

Add extra shots in exactly the same way, preview the footage in the top left preview window, select in and outpoints and bring it down next to the last edit.

You can also use the insert option, which will literally insert the clip in between other clips (dependant on where your blue playhead is sitting) or you can overwrite footage already on the timeline.

You can also trim the end or beginning of any clip, hover over the end you wish to trim and as soon as you see it change to the red arrow, you can trim back or rollout more (if available) footage.

Once you have assembled your rough edit, watch it through on the final timeline, if you want to see it full screen simply press shift and the tilde key (just to the right of the shift on a mac) press again to go back to edit mode.

TitlesIf you want to add a title into your video, place your cursor in the timeline where you want the title to appear (so that you can get a preview of the layout).

Then go up to the Title heading across the top menu and select new title>default still, and name your title, press OK and this will open up the title editor.

Simply use the text tool in the titler to draw your title area and then type in your text.

You can edit the text as you would in any text editor, size, font, colour etc and if placing your title over video, you can move and align your text to sit nicely in the frame, but, you can always double click the title to edit it at a later stage. Once happy with the title just close the titler with the red circle on the top left of the titler window.

Your title will now appear as a piece of media for you to add onto your timeline.

Just drag it directly from the project bin into a video track (I prefer to use V3), for good practice always use a seperate track to add any titles - it just keeps everything easy and organised.

If you want the title to be longer or shorter in duration either drag an end out or in, or right click on the title in the timeline and select speed/duration where you can type in the desired length of time.

TransitionsTo fade in video or fade out sound we need to add a transition onto our media.

To fade in from black or fade out to black on either video footage or a title (or a photo) select the Effects bin tab in the bottom left quarter and open the Video Transitions folder by clicking on the small point icon to the left of the folder which will open to show more choices. To perform a simple fade (or dissolve) open the dissolve folder so that you can see the cross dissolve.

Make sure that you can see the end of the footage - in the edit timeline - that you would like to add this transition too and then simply drag and drop it on the very end of the intended clip, you need to drop it onto the end or the beginning of the clip and you will see the cursor change when you are in the right place.

To add any effect you simply drag and drop the effect directly onto the media clip you want it to affect in the edit timeline.

Once successfully applied your media should display a purple fx icon in the top left of the clip. Be aware that you cannot add audio transitions to video tracks or vice versa so be accurate where you try to drop.

To fade sound, just use one of the 3 choices in the Audio Transition>Crossfade folder and drag it directly onto the correct end of your sound clip in A1.

ExportingOnce happy with your edited timeline, it’s time to export your finished film. Making sure you have the edit timeline active (the blue frame is around it) then go file>export>media which will bring up the export settings window.

If you named your sequence sensibly you will find that the output file takes on that name.

To browse to the correct output folder just click on the Output Name in blue.

There are dozens of options under the Format drop-down, but let’s start with a simple cross platform format type - H.264, use the preset option to change it to Match Source (again the importance of setting it up correctly benefits here) and put it on the Medium Bitrate setting (a good balance between size of file and playability) and then hit Export.

Just to the left of the Export button is the estimated file size of your output file.

If the output file is too big, or it doesn’t playback smoothly you may want to take the bitrate (which is the compression - how many ‘bits’ get played in each video frame) down to low, but this may affect how the video looks.

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Top TipsActive AreaBe aware of which area is active, indicated by the blue line running around the outer area of the quarter, this is especially important when you want to apply an effect or alter advanced options.

Add TracksAlthough premiere starts off with 4 Audio tracks and 3 Video tracks if you need to add more simply right click above the track area and click add track, or go up to sequence on the top menu and add tracks from there.

Unlink MediaYou can also separate you video and audio tracks by right clicking and unlinking, then deleting the unwanted track if you wish to - when on the timeline.

Quick Reverse/ForwardScrub through the footage like a pro using the spacebar to play and then the keys J, K, and L.

J will reverse the playback, K to pause and L to fast forward, press J or L successively to speed up the playback even more.

Ripple DeleteClick in between any gaps in the timeline to make the space go white, then right click and use ‘Ripple Delete’, which will move all footage to the left and remove the space leaving no gaps and will also move all clips to the right along with it.

Waveform EditUse the waveforms that you can see in the audio tracks to accurately edit interviews, you can increase the viewing depth by dragging down in between the audio tracks or using the zoom slider on the right hand side.

Fullscreen PlaybackWatch your edit timeline in full screen mode by pressing shift and the tilda key.

Watch It!Once you have exported your footage it’s always good practice to watch the output file before quitting out of Premiere.

Clear PointsIf you are having problems with placing your in and out points for any reason, just clear them through the right click menu in the timeline of the preview.

Get Familiar and Faster!Whilst you’re getting into the swing of Premiere take note of all of the keyboard shortcuts that you see in the menu system to your most used actions.

Mute or SoloUse timeline controls to Mute or Solo Audio tracks so you can focus on particular elements before bringing it back together.

Audio PeaksKeep an eye on those audio peaks using the visual audio meter monitor. If it stays too much in the red, you’ll need to sort out your audio levels.

Useful to know...TimingPremiere gives you many areas where you can keep an eye on timing.

In the source clip preview window (top left) it will initially show you how long the clip that you are previewing is in it’s entirety (in grey on the right).

As soon as you have selected an in point and/or out point this will then show you how long the highlighted/selected area is.

On the left in blue it shows where your playhead is in the timeline, so if you know your first good ‘take’ didn’t happen until 2 minutes in, you can scrub straight to it. You will also find the same visual timecoding when you preview your edit timeline in the top right quarter.

Next to the blue and grey timecode information there are two more drop down menus.

The one on the right will change the resolution preview, this will generally say 1/2 quality and in the drop down menu you can choose either full quality or reduce the quality further to 1/4, or 1/8 which will give you smoother playback if your computer is struggling with rendering/playing

complex edits and effects on the timeline.

The one on the left will change the zoom level and this usually defaults to ‘fit in window’ but if you need to view it 100%, this is where you can do that.

Zoom in If you want to zoom into your timeline so that you can do fine tuning at a frame by frame level in your edit, use the zoom function underneath the timeline area.

You will see a small grey bar with circle handles that will adjust the viewing window

- if you simply slide it left and right you will move left and right along the entire timeline

- if you pull one of the handles in and out you will zoom into or out of the frames.

Watch the time indicator change from seeing minutes and seconds down to seeing individual frames.

This Premiere Pro Manual is one of an introductory series specially written for the Arts and Humanities Students at UEA by the Media Suite Team.

The UEA Media Suite Faculty of Arts and Humanities

With State of the Art digitisation equipment the newly built Media Suite will allow researchers and postgraduate students to digitise, interpret and visualise materials using the recording studios, radio drama studio, a twenty workstation teaching suite, a

digitisation lab, a breakout room and nine dedicated edit suites and will become a high quality focal point for digital humanities research at UEA..