Working your way through Premiere’s layout and learning some key terms along the way.

This is the section of the interface in which all your assets are organized. This bin can be organized further with additional folders to keep video, pictures (stills) and audio from being hard to find.

CRTL + I to import new assets The Options Button for this panel is here And it will allow you to change between List and Icon mode for your project bin.

The Effects Panel is where video effects, such as color correction and greenscreening can happen, as well as audio and video transitions.

This window previews assets so you can assess what you want to use before placing it into your sequence (timeline)

This section also has Effect Controls, which are instrumental to animate using keyframing allowing effects to happen over time according to your directorial vision. More to come on that later.

The Audio Mixer panel is here, which will be crucial for learning how to do voiceovers.

The Program Monitor is found next to the Source Monitor, and it previews the contents of your sequence (timeline) as it’s been laid out by your efforts. The white rectangles in the program monitor are the Safe Margins. The inside safe margin is the ideal placement for text (titles, subtitles) The outer safe margin is the maximum placement for your subjects Actors, action, etc.

The bread and butter of the whole process is the sequence, where your various clips of video and stills (photos, titles, etc.) are arranged into tracks. Audio tracks are arranged in the same manner here. Remember that Adobe Premiere editing is NON-LINEAR meaning it is possible to place clips with gaps between them!

 Assets ◦ Video Clips ◦ Audio Clips ◦ Stills  Photos  Title Cards

 Just like Photoshop!  Resolution of a TV means vertical pixel line count  They keep it to the vertical count for consumers to know quality easily  480 resolution means just 480 lines of pixels high  Actual dimensions are 640px wide x 480px tall  720 resolution  Actual dimensions are 1280px x 720px  1080 resolution  Actual dimensions are 1920px x 1080px ◦ THIS IS WHY FULLSCREENING A 480p VIDEO MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A VASELINE-COATED NIGHTMARE NOWADAYS!

 Not just for Counter-Strike players!  Frames per Second determines the overall quality of your video.  Most phones shoot 24 to 30 frames per second, meaning that every second that passes you’re seeing a sequence of 24 or 30 rapidly moving still pictures.

 That’s why the time configurations in Premiere look a little unfamiliar:  In Premiere, time is  Hours; Minutes; Seconds; Frames  The Frames portion of the time will vary depending on the FPS of your project.

 Frames ◦ Videos are pictures in motion ◦ When you pause a video, you are either looking at a:  Frame  or a Field  A frame is a complete picture, one of X per second, in your video.  A field is one-half of a completed frame.

 Interlacing ◦ The old style of making pictures move on TVs ◦ Old school TVs had a system in which light was shone through the pixels at excessively high speeds.  This made the familiar “TV hum” that new TVs lack. ◦ It was super fast, but the technology worked like this:  Starting from the top, it would light every other line of pixels  Odd numbered lines were lit first  Even numbered lines would be lit second  This was an elegant solution, because the video looked smooth on those old TVs and didn’t flicker.

In interlacing, the older TVs drew up to 60 interlaced fields per second to create your video. 60 fields = 30 frames per second

 Gets you this:

 Progressive video ◦ As TVs evolved, the need for interlacing to smooth video out declined. ◦ Some bargain TVs can do 1080i resolution, which means it “cheats” to get you 1080 resolution by Interlacing. It’s best mode is actually 720p. ◦ Progressive renders the entire frame of video at once and plays it, without the need to break the frames apart into fields.

 Let’s move on to the quality of our content.  To make a good video takes more than just the casual click of the record button ◦ Planning… planning… plannnnnnnnnnnnnning…  You need to not only know what the plan is, but also: ◦ Shot type ◦ Shot angle ◦ And framing

 The exact terminology varies between production environments but the basic principles are the same.  Shots are usually described in relation to a particular subject. In most of the examples that follow, the subject of the camera shots is the boy.  In any shot you take with a camera, the intended focus, be it a person, object, or otherwise, is the “subject”.

 The view is so far from the subject that he isn't even visible. Often used as an establishing shot.

 The subject is visible (barely), but the emphasis is still on placing him in his environment.

 The subject takes up the full frame, or at least as much as comfortably possible. ◦ AKA: long shot, full shot.

 Shows some part of the subject in more detail (in this case his upper body) while still giving an impression of the whole subject.

 Half way between a Mid Shot and a Close Up.

 A certain feature or part of the subject takes up the whole frame.

 The ECU gets right in and shows extreme detail. ◦ Sometimes called a choker.

 A shot of something other than the subject.  Used constantly in MTV “Reality” shows.

 A shot of two people, framed similarly to a mid shot.

 Looking from behind a person at the subject.

 Usually refers to a shot of the interviewer listening and reacting to the subject.

 Shows a view from the subject's perspective.

 B-Roll is a filler shot of the subject doing something related to the subject he’s talking about. ◦ Example: He talks about playing guitar so you cut to B- Roll footage of him playing guitar while he’s still speaking.