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An Introduction to Premiere Pro

In this project and our video project we will be using Premiere Pro CC 2014. While the interface can be somewhat daunting at first we will slowly begin to learn the basics over the next couple of days. This post also contains info on how to export your video and a link to a cheat sheet of keyboard commands.

  • Post author By Ric
  • Post date

In this project and our video project we will be using Premiere Pro. While the interface can be somewhat daunting at first we will slowly begin to learn the basics over the next couple of days. For our first exercise download the Kitty Cat Countdown file below:

Kitten Countdown

Kitten Countdown

Part 1 – Media Management

The first thing to understand is that Premiere Pro will link to your media files. This means if you do anything to modify the media outside of Premeire like moving or renaming the files Premiere will not be able to find them. To help prevent this you will create a file structure on your external hard drive. The steps below will help you do this.

  1. If you haven’t already create a folder called ‘Time Arts’ on your external hard drive.
  2. In this folder create a folder for your media called ‘Media’.
  3. Drag all of the media from your media from the Kitten Countdown Media folder in your Downloads folder to the Media folder you just created. Hint: you can select all of the files by presseing the COMMAND and ‘A’ keys.

Part 2 – Setting up your project.

You are now ready to create your project. While you may be really excited to start editing kittens please pay attention to the next steps as they will help you avoid any some future problems.

  1. Open Premiere Pro and click on the ‘New Project’ option.
  2. Give your project a name under the ‘Name’ option; I would suggest something which will make sense to you a year from now like – ‘Kitten Countdown’.
  3. IMPORTANT! I don’t use all caps and exclamation points lightly so please make sure that my doing so isn’t in vain. Click on the section that says Location: now navigate to the Kitten Countdown folder you created in your Time Arts folder on your external drive and click the ‘Open’ button. This will make sure that your project and all of the cache files are on your external drive and not the documents folder of the computer you are currently on.
  4. Click on the ‘Scratch Disks’ tab to make sure everything else is also set to your Kitten Countdown folder on your external drive and then press the ‘OK’ button.

Part 3 Importing and editing clips

OK you are now ready to cut up some kitties… on the computer. We will be using a number of keyboard shortcuts here. The use of these shortcuts will make your life much easier so give them a try.

  1. First we’ll import the kitten clips into Premiere the keyboard shortcut for this is COMMAND I but you could also go up to File>Import…
  2. Navigate to the Media folder in your Kitten Countdown folder and select all of the clips by clicking on one file and then pressing COMMAND A. This should highlight all the files, now press the ‘Import’ button to import the files into your project.
  3. We are going to create a countdown sequence from 10 to 1 with each frame featuring a different cat lasting one second. Double click the clip called Kitten-10.mov to add it to the Preview Pane. You can preview the still image by pressing the SPACE BAR. The Preview Pane is where you will trim unwanted parts from a clip before you add it to your movie but for the time being just create your opening scene by draging it to the timeline. Hint: You can increase or decrease the size of the timeline by using the + and – keys on your keyboard.
  4. Most clips will contain some unwanted footage that you will not want in your final move in this step we will cut out the extra footage to make sure the Kitten-09 clip is exactly one second long. You can jump to any time point in the clip you have in the  Preview pane by clicking on the current time code (loacted on the right of the Preview Pane) and typing in the time code of the frame you want to go to. Since you want the clip to be one second long type in 1;00 (the numbers 00 represent the amount of frames you are at within the current second). Open Kitten-09.mov and truncate it down to 1 second using an out point (keyboard command ‘O’). Add it to your project.
  5. In the last step you set when you wanted to leave a scene by pressing the ‘O’ key you can also set when you want to start a scene. Set an in point (Keyboard command ‘I’) to Kitten-08.mov to avoid some unwanted media at the beginning. Now, set an out point to make sure the video is 1 second long, add it to your project. Hint: You can use the left and right arrow keys on you keyboard to advance or go back one frame.

Part 4 – Editing on the timeline

We will now be adjusting some of the clips on the actual timeline.

  1. Kitten-07.mov is too short at only 15 frames. Add Kitten-07.mov to your timeline. Now go down to the timeline and highlight the Kitten-07 clip by clicking on it. Use copy (Command C) to copy the clip. The large blue vertical line on the timeline is called the playhead by default all items dropped down to the timeline or pasted will start where the playhead is. Make sure the playhead is at the end of the timeline and paste (Command V) another 15 frame clip onto the timeline.
  2. Add Kitten-06-04 to the timeline.
  3. You will need to use an insert edit to add Kitten-05.jpg to the timeline in the next step. Select the timeline panel and then using the arrow keys move the playhead to the point where the image switches and set an in point on the timeline by pressing ‘I’. When you set an in point on the timeline it start the cut there no matter where the playhead is.
  4. Set in and out points on Kitten-05.jpg and use an insert edit by pressing the “,” key to add the video in between the numbers 4 and 6.
  5. Add the full 2 second clip of Kitten-03.mov to the timeline. We will be using an overwrite edit to add the next clip to the timeline, so move the playhead to the point you want to overwrite, one second in and set an in point using the ‘I’ key.
  6. Set Kitten-02.mov to 1 second and overwrite the second half of the Kitten-03.mov clip by pressing the “.” key.
  7. There are about 3 frames worth of something we don’t want in Kitten-02.mov. On the timeline use the arrow keys to find unwanted frames and then cut that section out using the Blade tool ‘C’.
  8. Delete the section by pressing the OPTION and DELETE keys.
  9. Extend Kitten-02 movie out on the timeline to make it exactly 1 second by dragging the end of the frame.
  10. Add a title to the a still of your choice and add it to the timeline.
  11. Export the movie by Pressing COMMAND ‘M’.
  12. Make sure you name your video something that makes sense and not Untitled Project.

Other Resources

More resources will be available soon.