Basic Editing
General Concepts
Adobe Premiere is a non-destructive, non-linear editor (NLE) that uses 3-point edits. At its most basic level, it gives you the ability to assemble multiple clips into a single movie and tie them together with other media such as still images and sound. Premiere has many editing tools, and many ways to use each tool. This Web site only touches on the most basic editing tools in Premiere. More information is available in the manuals and online.
Objectives
- Learn about editing concepts
- Understand the interface
- Use basic editing tools to modify media
- Move media to the Timeline
- Understand the basics of 3-point editing
Non-Linear Editing
An NLE gives you the ability to move between any two points in the Timeline without having to scrub through the material between them. For example, on an audio cassette, if you wanted to listen to song 3 and you were on song 1, you would need to fast forward through song 2: this is linear editing. On a compact disc however, if you are on song 1 and you wish to hear song 3, the unit simply jumps to song 3 without having to move through song 2: this is non-linear.
Basics of 3-Point Editing
The basic concept of 3-point editing is that when you add media to the Timeline, you are defining 4 points. The In and the Out point of the clip, and the In and Out points on the Timeline. Editing this way is based on the idea that you really only need to define 3 of those 4 points, and the last one can be computed by the program. In the "drag and drop" methods above, we have been defining the In and Out points of the clip, and then used the position of the playhead in the Timeline to define the In point on the Timeline, then the clip is placed and the final Out point is calculated. This is the most common form of 3-point editing, but you can define any 3 of the points, and the 4th will be calculated for you. This becomes very useful when you are trying to get media to fill a gap in your Timeline, or you are trying to match up a sound track to media. This is one of those things you have to play with to get a feel for, but once you do, your proficiency as a DV editor goes way up.
Start Up
When you first launch Adobe Premiere you are presented with this window, asking where you would like to start. You can either create a New Project, Open Project or open a recent project if there are any available. If you create a new project you will be taken to the New Project window, where you choose the type of project you would like to work on.
DV - NTSC (DV-1394 Input)
- For projects where clips are captured from a digital VCR (as in the labs) or digital camera.
- For projects where clips are captured both a digital source (camera) and an analog source (VHS tape).
- For projects being distributed to countries that support the NTSC video format.
DV - PAL (DV-1394 Input)
- For projects where clips are captured from a digital VCR (as in the labs) or digital camera.
- For projects where clips are captured both a digital source (camera) and an analog source (VHS tape).
- For project being distributed to countries that support the PAL video format.
The Interface
In order to edit video efficiently, you must first become familiar with the layout of the basic working windows in Premiere. These windows can be moved about, but most of the time they will be in the default layout.
Premiere's editing interface consists of three primary windows: the Project window, the Monitor and the Timeline. We will need to look a little closer at each of these three windows.
- The Project Window: This is where your media is stored.
- The Monitor: There are two sides to the Monitor: the Source Monitor and the Program Monitor. The Source Monitor is where you preview clips and mark In and Out points in your media. The Program Monitor is where you view your edited film and preview changes you are making.
- The Timeline: This is where your edited work lives, and where most of the basic editing takes place. The basic edit tools are located in the toolbar to the left of the Timeline.
The Project window is where all the media for your project is organized and accessed. Only one project may be opened at a time.
- The Preview pane: When selecting an item from list, information about that file is displayed in the Preview pane.
- File Browser: Contains Bins (see note), clips, still images, audio files and all other media associated with your project. This is a basic explorer type window. The view can be changed from details to thumbnails or list view.
Note: Bins are a way of organizing your media into groups according to your preferences: e.g., Audio Bin, Video Bin, Still Frames Bin, etc.
The Tools
Once you have material in the Timeline, there is still a great deal you can do with it. This section is going to briefly go over each of the tools found in the the upper left corner of the Timeline. These basic tools are:
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Most of the tools have sub-tools that are available by clicking and holding on the main tool itself. These sub-tools provide modifications to the basic tool.
Moving Media to the Timeline
The most basic way (and the most like iMovie) to put clips into sequence is to simply drag them from the Project window to the Timeline. You can then move the clips around in the Timeline to organize them as you wish. This, however is usually not very practical, as you will most often only want a part of each clip you have in your Project window.
The more effective way to bring items into your Timeline is to set "In" and "Out" points for a clip in the Source Monitor (you can get a clip into the Source Monitor by dragging it there, or just double clicking on it). Once the clip has its In and Out points set, you can drag it to the Timeline, and only the part of the video between those points will be copied to the Timeline.
If you drag a clip from either the Source Monitor or the Project window to the Program window, then you get even more choices.
These basic steps should get media into Premiere in a useful way for most people.