Create & Edit a Premiere Project

Open up the Windows & work areas that are not already open:  Projects, Timeline, Monitor, Transitions

Supported file formats you can import

If you have a project open, click File>New Project

Build a movie in the Timeline Window

• Import existing video and audio elements into folders (bins)
• To create bins for audio, video, and titles:
  • Click File>New and select Bins
  • Name each bin for the type of content it will hold
• Import video and audio elements from the 421video and 421audio folders into the appropriate bin
• File>import 
  • can select multiple files to import -- hold down CTRL key as you select
  • select avi (video) and import into video bin
  • Select aiff (sound) file clips, and import into audio bin
  • Include bird.avi or car.avi which contain both audio and video
  • Include beach.mov
• Save the project at this point (test.ppj) n the CIS421 directory in My Documents. 
  • The project file contains information about the components of the movie and where they are being used
  • it does NOT contain the actual video or audio clips. 
  • When you open up a ppj file it assembles all the movie components and remembers what is in the TIMELINE. 
• Warning: Premiere maintains large temporary scratch files while you are working on your movie.  You can set aside disk space for the scratch files.  Sometimes these scratch files take up so much space that Premiere will crash because it can no longer maintain them -- when that happens REBOOT to get rid of some of the temporary files stored in RAM!.
• Therefore:  SAVE YOUR PROJECT OFTEN to reduce the scratch file storage and protect your movie from destruction! 
• The movie does not get put into a single file until you EXPORT it. Then all of the video tracks and audio tracks are flattened into one video and one audio track.
• If you saved the .ppj file and the elements for the movie, you can go back and change the movie your exported. Otherwise it is almost impossible to separate the tracks out -- you need to start over!

Preview/Edit Clips

• Double click on a clip in the project palette to open it in the Source Monitor (looks just like Preview Monitor)
• You can clip frames in this monitor by scrubbing (dragging timeline marker) and setting in and Out points.
• Drag the clip down into the timeline to use. Original clip stays in project window.

Clip Size

If your assets (e.g., clips and images) are a different size than the dimensions of the movie, you can display them at the size of the source file or scale them to fit the movie.

• If you scale up, the clip may lose quality.
• Scale an individual clip in the timeline manually:
  • drag the clip onto a grack
  • select it
  • open the effects control panel
  • click on the arrow next to the Motion effect to reveal motion controls
  • click on arrow next to scale control and movie the slider left or right to decrease or increase size of frame.
• To scale all assets automatically
  • Click Edit>Preferences>General
  • Select Default Scale to Frame Size
  • Click OK

Assemble Clips to make a Rough Cut:

• butt 2 clips right next to each other in same track
• Overlap 2 clips in separate Video tracks with a transition between them
  • Transitions help your movie go from one scene to the next.
  • However they may add a lot to file size, so use them carefully
• Opacity of video in higher tracks can be reduced to let video in lower tracks show through
• Drag car.avi or another video with audio onto timeline
• Note how audio is placed in audio track
  • audio & video stay in sync unless you unlink them (Clip>Unlink)

Drag clips from Project Window to Timeline Window:

Video Tracks

• Expand Video 1 Track by clicking on twisty to open it up.
• Drag beach.mov clip into Video 1 Track right at left edge of track (00:00). 
  • click on the Set Display Style icon at the lower left of the track to change how the frames display in the timeline
  • Drag the slider at the bottom of the timeline to zoom the frames in or out in the timeline
• Save the project as a ppj file in the CIS421 directory in My Documents.

Audio tracks:

• Double-click the audio clip in the project window to play in the source window.
• If clip is monaural, one sound-wave shows
• If clip is stereo, two sound-waves show
• Stereo audio clips can be dragged into Audio 1, Audio 2, or Audio 3 tracks (have 2 little arrows at top)
• Mono audio clips can be dragged into Audio 4 track
• Lowest audio track is master audio track
• To view waveform in timeline track, open the track and click Set Display Style and choose Show waveform
• If you want to overlay mono audio clips, can add mono audio tracks, right-click Audio Track 4 and choose Add Tracks. Then select mono audio track
• Add some audio to the movie by dragging audio clips to timeline

Change total duration of selected clip

Changing a clip’s speed causes its source frames to be either omitted or repeated during playback, thereby making the video or audio play faster or slower.

Therefore, a change in speed results in a corresponding change in duration

• Select the clip in the timeline panel
• Right click and choose Speed/Duration on the popup menu
• Move the speed slider to the right to increase duration, to the left to decrease duration.
• To change the speed of a video that has linked audio, without changing the speed of the audio
• select the clip in the timeline panel
• open Effect controls panel
• Select Time Remapping and change the speed

Reverse frames in clip

• Right-click clip in the timeline
• Choose Speed/Duration on popup menu
• Click Reverse Frames

Preview your movie - 

• Save the project as a PPJ file.
  Lengthen the work bar area by sliding the arrow above the timeline to cover the part of the  movie you want to preview.
  Then hit <enter> to build the movie and preview it.
• Preview by hitting carriage return (asks you to save project if you have not already done so - save it with a name in the CIS 421 directory).
• Next drag clip of another one of avi clips into Video 1B Track.  Overlap beginning of Video 1B clip with end of Video 1B clip - otherwise there will be a gap in your movie which will be black and empty
• Save the movie project again, reset the work bar to cover part of movie you want to preview. Preview the movie again

Transitions between Video clips

• When you want to apply an effect as you move from on clip to the next, you can add a Transition
• Video & Audio Transitions are located in the Effects Pallete to the left of the Timeline
• Similar Transitions are located together in bins
• Most Transitions are double-sided
  • Double-sided transitions have a dark diagonal line through it
  • Combine last video or audio material from the clip before the cut with the first material from the clip right after the cut
  • Put transition over end of one cilp and beginning of next clip on same track or on upper track of two clips that overlap
• single-sided transitions affect only the end of one clip or the beginning of another clip
  • Single-sided transition is light above diagonal and dark below
  • Select a transition
  • drag the transition to the point on the clip on the upper track in the Timeline where the two video clips overlap
• Modify the Transition in the Effect Controls Palette
  • Select the transition on the timeline (you may have to zoom the track to see it)
  • Change characteristics of the transition that are adjustable
  • Change the duration of the transition by dragging the Duration slider to the right (lengthen it) or to the left (shorten it.
• Try several transitions, by highlighting and deleting the previous transition from the Transition Track, and dragging another one into the Transition Track at the same point, and then previewing

Add some sound and more video:

• Now add the one of audio clips to Audio 1 track
• Try different audio tracks to see which you like best with your video.  You can delete clip from track by selecting it and hitting delete key. 
• What you do to audio and video clips in tracks does NOT affect the clips that you imported.
• Test other sound files and other types of transitions between the  Clips

Add audio to the entire movie using two different audio tracks and mix the audio tracks, by fading one in and the other out.

• Drag a sound  file into the Audio 1 and 2 tracks.
  You can shorten the duration of the a sound file to fit any segment of the movie by double clicking on it in the project window to bring it up in the Monitor Source Window.  Then you can select starting and stopping points for a specific length in time.
• If you have a video with audio you can separate the sound from the video file, by selecting it in the audio track, copying it (edit>copy), and edit>paste-to-fit below any video segment on one of the audio tracks. 
• Audio tracks can overlap (one audio file overlaps audio file on track below it)
• Drag another audio  file down to Audio Track 3.
• The loudness of audio files can be adjusted (faded) by expanding the audio track and pulling the line on the white track below the blue audio waves up (for louder) or down (for softer) at any point along the audio recording.  Try varying loudness in and out.

Be sure to take notes about what you do, and save different versions of your files!
Go for it!