Introduction to Premiere Carefully planned and well executed video clips can make a dramatic difference in a multimedia project. However, delivering video in a multimedia environment is especially problematic because video files require huge amounts of data to describe the video and audio components, making for extremely large files. Few users are willing to sit and wait what seems like an eternity [even if only a few minutes have passed] for a couple of minutes of video "fun." Therefore, before deciding to add video to your project it is essential to have an understanding of the medium, its limitations and costs, as well as a planned "pay-out" for users beyond mere "eye candy." In this exercise students will be given a chance to explore the basics of desktop digital video by completing a tutorial exercise using Adobe Premiere 5.0. Specifically, this week students will: Log-on to the Social Science Mac Lab Computers Review a brief "primer" on Premiere's Work Environment Learn about Transitions in Premiere Complete a "movie" editing assignment At your leasure, learn more Premiere Tips & Techniques Finally, don't forget to Log-out! Just the Basics The Desktop Environment The Timeline Window How to Digitizing Media Clips The Monitor Window Like audio, video clips were "plugged-in" to multimedia titles [whether CD-ROM or Web] since the earliest days of multimedia's development and frequently required special hardware &/or software to function well -- each pretty much platform specific. Nowadays, newer Macs and many of the latest Pentium-based computer offerings come with video hardware built-in as "standard" features. If you are not lucky enough to own one of these machines, and you wish to digitize video to put into your multimedia project, you will probably need to add some video capture hardware to your computer. The good news is that the best software packages on both the Mac and PC platforms for creating and editing video are from Adobe -- Premiere 5.0 being the "grand-daddy" of them all! Premiere is an extremely powerful video-editing tool that can create video files that work on both Mac and PC platforms and can also create many special visual &/or audio effects working in tandem with other Adobe products [After Effects, Photoshop, Streamline, etc.]. Lets explore some of the basic video-editing attributes of Premiere before beginning our lesson... Premiere's Desktop Environment It's always a good idea to get used to the "look & feel" of a software package before getting down to business. Fortunately, Premiere shares much in common with its still-image cousin PhotoShop in terms of familiar layout -- even if Premiere seems to "overwhelm" the computer screen at initial startup! Lets take a look at the desktop to seen how each "window" functions... Simply "mouse over" any of the above "menu items" to view information on each! Digitizing Media for Use in Premiere To start any project, you first need to capture &/or import the media clips that you'll be using for your video program. A media clip can be digitized film, video, audio, a still image, or sequence of still images. A video or audio clip might be several minutes to only a few seconds in length -- how much you need will be a function of your pre-production planning, file size limits of your operating system [for Mac OS, the limit is 2 GB] and the memory/storage capabilities of your computer. When you launch Premiere, you may be prompted to review &/or change settings in the "New Project Settings" dialog box. Many of the project settings you define will determine how the video program will be built and eventually exported. Although digital media equipment is becoming increasingly common, a great deal of video and audio media continue to be recorded and stored in analog form. For this reason, you may need to "capture" [ie., digitize] analog video &/or audio as part of your workflow. You can digitize analog media directly into your computer using Premiere if you also have digitizing hardware [typically, an AV card installed inside your computer] connected to an analog VCR or camcorder. Capture Settings for QuickTime. Settings will vary depending on the selected Capture Fromat which will also vary depending on the type of AV card installed in your computer. Most of the settings that control how a media clip is to be captured [digitized] from a camcorder or VCR are in the "Capture Settings" section of the "Project Settings" dialog box. You should specify an appropriate scratch disk for captured media clips [if possible, a seperate AV-certified hard disk with nothing else on it]. Choose the "File" menu and the "Preferences", "Scratch Disk" option and set accordingly -- removable media may be acceptable if they are fast enough. Next, you set up the video source. For QuickTime video on Macs, click the "Video..." button in the "Capture Settings" dialog box, choose "Source," and select the appropriate video source from the "Digitizer" menu. You should do the same for audio capture. If you do not have a controllable playback device, you can capture video by watching the picture in the "Movie Capture" window and manually operating the VCR/camcorder and Premiere controls to record the frames you want. For example: Make sure your VCR or camcorder is properly connected to your computer and that your video/audio capture settings are set appropriately. Choose the "File" menu's "Capture," "Movie Capture" option. Use the controls on the VCR or camcorder to move the videotape to a point several seconds BEFORE the point where you want to begin capturing. Be sure to leave enough time for the hardware to reach the proper speed. Press the play button on the VCR or camcorder, and then click "Record" in the "Movie Capture" window. When you see the point where you want to stop recording, wait a few seconds to provide room for editing, and then click the mouse to stop recording. the captured clip appears in a "Clip" window and exists as an UNSAVED TEMPORARY file in the capture disk you specified. Make sure the "Clip" window with the capture clip is active. Choose the "File" menu's "Save As..." option and specify a location and filename, then click "Save." Capturing digital video from a digital camcorder or VCR to a computer is a simple file transfer if your computer's AV card has a FireWire port. Premiere includes support for DV codecs and can read digital source video without further coversion. In general, however, capturing digital video is similar to capturing analog video. One final note, on Macs you can import digital audio from CDs as AIFF files without loss of quality using a converter built into QuickTime. As always, make sure you own the copyrights or have licensed the copyrights to any CD tracks you use! The Project Window There are several ways to bring clips into a project. For purposes of this discussion, we will assume that you have already digitized your media clips [as per above discussion] and will be importing them directly into the "Project Window," the one place where Premiere lists each clip associated with a given project. In Mac OS, open the "File" menu and choose the "Import" and then "Multiple" option, navigate to the folder where you copied or installed your media files and double-click on the items you want. The files should appear in the "Project" window as you double-click them [and disappear as selectable items from the selection dialog box]. For each file that you import, the "Project" window lists its name, type, and duration. Premiere also provides other columns that let you add your own descriptions or labels. If you wish, you can scroll or enlarge the window as desired. The Timeline Window The clips you imported do not become part of the video program until you place them into the Timeline. The" Timeline" window is where you will construct and edit your video program -- adding, copying, and moving clips, adjusting their lengths, and so on. The Timeline provides an overview of your work by showing where in time each clip begins and ends, as well as the relationships between clips. When you first open the "Timeline" window, it displays several separate rows, called "tracks," underneath the time ruler. The tracks act as containers for the media clips; by involving multiple tracks and arranging your media clips within the tracks, you create sequences and effects that become the video program you are making. You will learn more about these tracks and the options associated with them [among other things] when you complete the tutorial lesson below. For many projects, you may want to begin by creating a rough cut of your video program. A rough cut is simply a sequence of media clips assembled in the general sequence you want, with little or no editing. A rough cut can quickly give you some sense of your video program's effectiveness as well as allowing you make decisions about where to cut, trim, and add transitions and special effects. Simply "grab" [click & hold] the media clip you want, "drag" the clip to the "Timeline" window and "drop" it in place on the Video1 track. Repeat for each media clip in the sequence you desire. The Monitor Window Using the "default" settings, the "Monitor" window resembles the monitors in a conventional editing bay with one monitor for the SOURCE [your "raw" media clips -- media clips outside the Timeline], and another for the PROGRAM [the edited video -- media clips in the Timeline]. The "Monitor" window contains similar controllers for the "Source" and "Program" views. Many of the controls work like the tape transport controls on a video deck and serve the following functions: Source Controller [under the Source view]: play or view a source media clip and to specific the clip's "In" and "Out" points -- defining the portion of the media clip that will be added to the program. There is also a "pull-down" menu for selecting "nested" source media clips for editing. Program Controller [under the Program view]: play or view the video program in the "Timeline" window and to specify a media clip's program "In" &/or "Out" points [as appropriate] for professional 3-point editing. Under the Program view are two "pull-down" buttons for selecting your target tracks for video &/or audio. When a controller is active, its timecode readout is green, and the view above it is outlined with the highlight color set for your computer. The number at the bottom left of each controller is the current time position for that view. The number preceded by a "delta" symbol at the bottom right of each controler is the time difference between the "In" point and the "Out" point of the currently displayed source or program media clip. The buttons in the middle between the "Source" and "Program" controllers allow you to place [insert or overwrite] or remove [cut or lift] source media clips on/off the Timeline. Likewise, there are general controls that allow you to set audio play-back levels and jump to program media clip "In" or "Out" points in the Timeline. With the above "basics" of Premiere under your belt, you should be able to arrange a set of media clips in a desired order to make your video program. But, in reality, editing a video program can require many iterations as you refine the editing decisions that make all your media clips flow together smoothly. As you work, you will become more adept at using the "Monitor," "Timeline," and "Project" windows to build a video program. However, to add more nuance, texture, or special effects between your assembled media clips, you might want to us more sophisticated transitions than the simple "cut." If so, then read on! Working with Transitions in Premiere As any student of video or film can tell you, the "cut" -- an instantaneous switch from one clip to another -- is the most common and simplest way to combine video clips. Indeed, the cut is the most-used transition in video and film and is often the most effective. There are times, however, when certain projects require more specialized transitions, such as dissolves or wipes in order to provide an aesthetically pleasing change of visual image. Premiere provides a wide variety of transitions for many different creative effects. Many of these transition devices can provide texture, nuance, and add special effects to an otherwise simple [dare I say, "dull?"] video project. Overlapping Clips To create a transition between two clips, you need to overlap them in the Timeline window. Only the overlapping area -- the end of one clip and the beginning of the next -- is involved in the transition. Typically, you overlap portions of the clips that are not essential to the video program, since they will likely be obscured by the effect of the transition. In the Timeline window, make sure the Video1 track is expanded so that it displays the Video1A, the Transition, and the Video1B tracks. If it's not expanded, click the arrow to the left of the Video1 track. Drag your first video clip from the Project window to the Video1A track in the Timeline window, placing its "In point" [beginning] at the start of the timeline. Now you'll overlap the beginning of the second video clip with the end of the first movie clip by moving the second clip on to the Video1B track and overlapping the clips by the desired transition time. That's all there is to it! Adding Transitions If the Transitions palette is not open, click on "Windows" in the menu bar and select the, "Show Transitions" option. Each transition will be represented by an icon next to the transition name. If descriptions are not already visable for each transition, click on the small black arrow in the upper right corner of the Transitions palette and deselect "Hide Descriptions" in the menu. The icons in the palette will then be shown at a larger size. If necessary, click the black arrow again and this time choose "Animate" from the menu. The icons for each transition will become animated, showing you more precisely how the transitions work. Scroll through the Transitions palette and select a transition that suits your fancy. Once you've selected a transition, drag it to the Transition track of the "Timeline" window, in the area where the two clips overlap. Premiere places the transition between the two clips, automatically sizing it to the duration of the overlapping area. Simple, isn't it! The arrow button [called the "Track Selector"] in the transition icon is used to set the direction of the transition [from Video 1A to Video 1B, or from Video 1B to Video 1A]. In most cases, Premiere sets the direction of the transition automatically, and you won't have to worry about it. Transitions operate from one track to another in the direction set by the Track Selector. To preview transitions [& other effects] by dragging in the ruler, you need to hold down a modifier key, otherwise, Premiere previews only the video clips, without any transitions or effects. Hold down the Option key [for Macs] and then drag in the ruler to move the edit line across the transition. Note that the pointer has changed into a smaller arrow, indicating that you are previewing effects. The preview plays in the Program view of the "Monitor" window. Previewing Transitions Whereas holding down the modifier key and dragging in the ruler does display the transition, it cannot show you the transition at "normal" speed. To preview transitions [& other effects] at the intended frame rate, you need to generate a preview file on your hard disk. Premiere then plays this file in the Program view of the "Monitor" window. Before you generate a preview in this way, however, you need to set the work area bar. This bar specifies the portion of your project that you want to preview or export as a movie file. Begin your selection by drag the arrow on the right end of the work area bar to cover the desired clips and transitions you wish to preview. To make the work area bar cover all contiguous clips, press the Option key as you click the work area bar. Choose "Project" from the menu and select the "Preview" option, or press Return on the keyboard. Premiere will then generate the preview, displaying a status bar [the first time you do this, you will be prompted to save the sequence before the preview is generated]. When it has finished, all selected clips and the transitions between them will play in the Program view of the Monitor window. As was illustrated above, Premiere provides a wealth of tools for the manipulation of digital desktop video. As is the case with other computer software, however, learning how to work with Premiere is far easier if you have a task to complete and clear instructions in how to go about doing it rather than discussing the process in the abstract. So, lets get started! To begin our Basic Editing lesson in Premiere, first download the "01Lesson.sit.hqx" compressed file from the "lab_11" sub-directory in the "summer_2000" directory on the "www.soc.hawaii.edu" server. If Stuffit Expander does not automatically uncompress the downloaded file, you will need to launch in manually. The compressed lesson file contains everything you need to complete this lab assignment [6 movie clips & the instructions in pdf format]. Alternatively, the "pdf" documentation -- 01Lesson.pdf -- can be accessed through your web browser [if equiped with the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in] which will provide you with an online guide for completing this assignment. If you wish to experiment with Adobe Premiere 5.0 at home, Adobe has made available a Try-Out version for you to download. The Try-Out version is feature complete, except that it will not capture video, save files, build previews, or export movies. You can, however, open files, import media, and try third party plug-ins with this version. PAY ATTENTION!As was the case with our Photoshop lessons, you will NOT be able to access the the "Adobe Premiere 5 Prefs" file in the "Adobe Premiere Settings" folder because of the security software installed on the Macs in the Lab. Instead, you will have to launch Premiere and return the working environment to its default settings based on your computer monitor's resolution. To do this, choose the "Windows" menu and then the "Arrange" and "Layout..." options, then click on the appropriate pixel dimentions [e.g., 640 x 480 or 832 x 624 or 1024 x 768, etc.]. If you are uncertain what your monitor's resolution is set to, visit the "Monitors & Sound" Control Panel under the Apple Menu. In this lesson, you will learn how to do the following: Assemble clips in the Timeline Use the Monitor window to trim and insert clips Preview the video program Set In and Out points Perform a ripple edit and a rolling edit Save the Project as a QuickTime movie When you have finished the above outlined tasks, and your project movie looks similar to the one above [approx. 7924 K], you should save the Project file to your Mac's "Guest" folder. Since we are working on Macs, our QuickTime movie files must be Flattened before they can be played on non-Macintosh computers. "Flattening" a movie is the process by which we make the movie "self-contained" and playable on all computer platforms. To ensure your file has been Flattened, do the following: Open the program "Movie Player 2.5.1" [click ONLY if you want to download the utility] contained in the "COM 337" folder on your computers hard drive. After you've launched the application, you should select File > Open... from the menu options and select your recently saved movie file. After opening your file, the movie will be displayed, so you can review it. Choose "Save As..." from the File menu options and name the file "first-initial_lastname.mov"; click on the self-contained radio button as well as "playable on non-Apple computers" check box [this "flattens" the movie file]. After the file is saved, quit the application. That's it! Once flattened, you should upload your movie file to the "all_pau" sub-directory in the "summer_2000" directory on the "www.soc.hawaii.edu" server as a RAW DATA file. Now it's "pau hana" time! PLEASE NOTE: If you are a Windows user [poor thing!], the following keyboard equivalents apply: Control = Command on Macs Alt = Option on Macs Right mouse button = Control on Macs Tutorial excerpted from Adobe Premiere Classroom in a Book, part of the official training series for Adobe graphics & publishing software. Published by Adobe Press & available in several languages. ISBN: 1-56830-466-8, US$45, 378 pages, paperback. Available from Amazon.com FYI: Premiere Tips & Techniques Communication Computer Lab's Premiere Quick Guide [version 3.0] Thomas Fox McManus's Premiere Tutorial [version 4.0] Premiere 5.0 In Depth Feature Review Adobe's "official" Premiere Tips & Techniques page HelpTalk Online's Premiere Support Jim Heid (1997, November), "Adobe Premiere Secrets: Tips & tricks for the Mac's most popular video editor." MacWorld, UK [http://uk.macworld.com].   [ Syllabus ][ Lab Assignments ][ Downloadable Resources ][ Back to Home ]   Copyright © 1999-2000   By: M. R. Ogden -- ogden@hawaii.edu   (Rev. 20 June 2000)