Lesson 1 Importing and Organizing Footage using Premiere Pro CS3- CS5 When working with a video editor the video source will come from either a capturing process or importing video clips into the editing program. This lesson will focus on importing video clips into Adobe Premiere Pro. But before the videos are imported we'll need to look at the organization needed to keep all the files manageable on a local level. After that we'll add the clips to the timeline to create a new video,and learn some of the basics of editing, and producing a final video. Learn how to do the following in this lesson Importing of files Sorting and organizing clips Story boarding feature Video layers Sequences Working on the Timeline History Panel Export final video In this lesson your going to; 1. Create a Root folder and Sub folders. 2. Download 6 or more movie trailers to your computer > Save them to your Video Sub folder. 3. Launch Premiere Pro, Then Save the Project file 4. Import the movies from your movie folder to premiere pro. To start with one of the most important aspects of computer technology is File Management and working with video it is critical to make sure that you have a folder structure setup and enough storage for video to reside. 1. Start this lesson by creating a folder structure on your desktop. Always create folders first before starting anything else don't launch Adobe Premiere Pro yet. This is the most important process to be successful with editing video. What do I mean by this? Use network drives for storage and backup, but when editing video make sure the video folder is located on a hard drive whether it's the C -drive or a second hard drive for premiere pro to work correctly. When done editing drag the folder back or copy and paste the folder back to the network drive for safe keeping. If you're fortunate to have second hard drives your student's may not need to move the video back and forth. When starting a video project create a Root folder then create sub folders such as a video folder, audio folder and a image folder. Organize the files into these folder before opening Adobe Premiere Pro.
2. Go to the Video Gallery page. Find the Movie Trailer Clips and download 6 or more of the Movie Trailer clips to your computer for this lesson. Also select 1 Complete Movie to download to your computer. Now that you have a Root (project) folder, 6 or more movie trailer clips and 1 complete movie in your sub video folder located on your computer lets get started. Then Launch Adobe Premiere Pro, then go to File > Save > Save the project file in the Root folder. Name the project file "firstmovie.prproj" (See image above for example where project file should be saved to on your computer.) 3. Next go to File > Import > Navigate to your Root folder > then the video sub folder > Select 1 complete movie (I'm using "Killers from Space") and 1 movie trailer clip ( I'm using "The Day The Earth Stood Still"). Then choose 3 short movie clips ( I chose "Martian Robot", "Santa and the Robot", UFO On A String"). You don't have to use the same videos but if it helps to follow me then do so. File > Import > select movies > select the "Open button." Be patient for your video to import into Adobe Premiere Pro. You'll get a this dialog below while there loading. Note: If you double left click on the Project Panel (Bin area) it will bring up the Import dialog, it has to be in a blank area not on text. It's just a little faster. Once the files are imported they're located in your Bin in the Project Panel. The word "Bin" came from the old days when film was stored in bins.
Movies, images, and audio files have to be the bin in order to get them onto the timeline. To start this project I'm going to select a movie trailer clip from the bin to use as my Title for this movie lesson. 4. Now that there are movies in our bin select a movie trailer clip, I choose "The Day The Earth Stood Still" by left clicking and dragging it onto the timeline to Video 1 on the timeline. There should be 2 layers an- Video 1 and Audio 1 layer. This allows you to edit the video and audio together or separate. In this lesson we are using the audio but, if you need to separate the video and audio - Right click on the video track and choose > Unlink. You can now select the audio track and delete it to get rid of the track.
Example; if deleting the Audio - Click off both tracks, then select the Audio track - Right click > select Clear or just select the track and use your delete key. Notice that the Timeline Panel is selected because it has a orange outline around it which indicates that the Panel is active. Now at this point let's watch the movie... Preview what's on the timeline To play the movie you have a few choices. In the Program Panel there is a Play button or use the Space bar keyboard shortcut which works on most video editing software not just Adobe.
When the movie starts to play you'll see a red line with a blue triangle moving along the timeline. This is called the CTI (current time indicator), I usually call it the play head from other software, so hopefully I won't confuse you. The CTI is important because where ever this CTI is located is where you are in the movie and this is where you'll cut or trim the movie clip or start/ stop audio or add an image to the timeline. When I play the clip of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" I find an advertisement that I need to get rid of at the end of the movie. So the first thing I need to figure out is if I'm on the first frame of this advertisement. To maneuver use the Right and Left arrow keys to move one frame at time.
Cutting and deleting part of a video clip 5. I'm choosing at 2 minutes, 8 seconds, and 24 frames is where I'm going to cut or trim the video footage. I'm going to use the Razor Tool to cut the video to separate the advertisement footage. Left click with the Razor Tool (short cut key "C") on the CTI to cut the clip. Select the the clip to delete, then right click and choose > Ripple Delete from the menu or Shortcut on the tool bar, another is to choose the Selection Tool (short cut key "v") to select the end of the clip, once the end of the clip is selected use the Delete key. So now when you get to the end of the clip the last frame should look like the image below. Because this is the first working lesson with video, I'm using a pre-existing opening title since I haven't explained how to make your own title yet.
Next I had to go through the movie and the clips to decide on what to use next. You can either keep following me or make up your own movie by making your own choices on movie clips. 6. Next I selected the "Martian robot" movie clip by left clicking and dragging it on to the timeline and on Video 2 layer. Notice in the Program Panel that the new clip doesn't fit and there's black around the movie clip. To fix this select the Selection Tool, left click on the video clip in the Program Panel and anchors will appear.
Select any of the corner anchors to stretch it bigger. It might not be perfect but it'll be close enough and this clip we can do this, some clips at this point would pixilated so badly that it wouldn't be worth it. Next left click in the gray area to deselect the video once the size is set. Now both videos will be about the same size. Okay, I'm sure you figured this out already, but the second video clip I just added was a color video clip. Not very good color but it was color. So the best thing to do is to convert it black and white video to match the other video. To do this, go to the Effects Panel which is located in the bottom left corner of the program. If you can't find it go to Window > Effects if it doesn't have a check next to it here it's not activated. Click on it to activated it and then it should show up in the bottom left corner. Click the little triangle to the right of the Video Effects Folder, scroll down to the Image Control Folder, expand that folder select the Black & White effect. Left click on it and drag it to the "Martian robot" clip and let go. Notice in the Program Panel the image is black and white already. It's that easy. Adding a still shot from the video clip 7. Next go to the last frame in the Martian Robot movie clip. I'm going to add text on top of the video so I need to capture a still image of the last frame so it looks right. To do this go to File > Export > Frame this will create a still image of the last frame.
Name it "Santa" and make sure to save it in your video folder. Notice it's already in your "Bin", now just drag it onto the timeline on layer 2 next to the original clip. So now if you play the video from the Martian robot clip to the image. The image isn't going to move but it allows us to add text on top of it and not be to distracting.
Titling - ad doing text to you vide clip 8. Adding text on the timeline is called "Titling." To help blend the different clips together I'm going to create a title to help with that. Go to Title > New Title > Default Still. This is the Title dialog there are lots of choices, I'm going to keep it simple and as we progress with other lessons we'll learn more about what you can do with the Title creations. Notice the 2 rectangular boxes inside the video these are safe zones, keep lettering inside the larger (safe actions) box for sure and depending on the final out put of view on a TV you may want to keep in inside the smaller (safe title) box as well. I know that I'm only viewing on a computer so I now this will work. Also I choose center justification for the text and the font type is in the image below.
On the right hand side is Title properties if you scroll to the bottom you'll find "Shadow" if you click on the color palette you can change the color. I changed mine to a light gray to match the movie. From the Bin drag the "No ones safe" title to the timeline on the 3rd layer. Put it near the end of the Martian robot movie clip leave a couple of frames before the end of that clip.
Now create another title call this one "Santa", I used the same settings as the last title. Notice that when I added it to the timeline that it's the same length as the image below it.
To see what I have so far click on the image. 9. After watching the video clip I realized that the image (Santa and the Robot) I added at the end doesn't have any audio, and in the beginning there is a pretty long period of black video with audio. To fix the audio at the end of the clip I'm going to copy the audio from the clip of the robot and Santa and just repeat it. For the black video issue I'm going to cut out the black area of the video and replace it with the "UFO on a string video clip." So let's work on the audio needed for the image of Santa and the robot. First the video and audio need to be unlinked so the audio needed can be copied. Select the "Martian Robot" movie clip using the Selection Tool> then right click and select "Unlink" to separate the video and audio. Next select the "Martian robot" audio, then drag the CTI to about a third of the track length. Select the Razor (C) and cut the audio track, then select the Selection Tool (V). Tool Select the first part of the audio track that was just cut > right click and choose Copy or Ctrl + C. Next use the Selection Tool to click any where on the gray area of the timeline to de-select the audio clip. Then to paste the audio go to Edit > Paste or Ctrl + V, if it doesn't end up where you want it drag it to the end of the audio clip to extend it.
You'll probably have some of the audio clip extend past the image clip above, if that's the case put the CTI at the end of the image clip and select the Razor Tool to cut the audio the same length. Select the left extra audio and delete it. Now let's look at the black video in the beginning of the " The day the earth stood still" video. Select where the video first goes black and cut it, then select where the black video ends and cut that also. Select the black video footage and delete it. 10. Next go to the bin and select the "UFO on a string" movie clip and drag it onto video 1 layer towards the right, follow the image below. Don't worry about the space it will still be black but it won't have the green squares popping up.
Click on the image to view what the movie looks like now. So far we added a couple of short clips to start with, now it's time to work with a complete movie clip and cut it up and use segments of it. Use the " Killers from Space." 11. Notice the movie isn't 720 x 480 so it has to be enlarged to fit the screen. Click on the movie in the Program Panel.
Use the Selection Tool to enlarge the movie. Remember hold the Shift key and left click and grab a corner to constrain proportion so not to create distortion. Next I'm using "Killers from space" movie to complete this lesson. You can use any of the movies from the video gallery page you would like to use. I like this movie because now I can use it to show the earth peeps are going after the aliens. First I'm selecting the clip that shows an airplane taken off and soldiers getting ready for battle. So I'm using this clip to make it look as if they're going to go after the aliens. Then a clip of the inside of the airplane getting ready to drop a bomb on you know who! Next I'm using "UFO on a string" clip for my spaceship effect.
Then the man (hero) is captured by the space dude. Hero gets away, everyone thinks he's crazy. No problem the hero can always take care of business. The world is safe again. This is the final movie, it's nothing but bare bones editing to get the concept of how a timeline and basic editing work.