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It’s time to roll up your sleeves and dive into Premiere Pro 2.0. But before you make your first edit or apply your first transition, I want to present a brief overview of video editing and how Premiere Pro fits into the video production workflow. Then I’ll introduce you to its completely revamped workspace. Even those who are old hands at editing videos on a PC will find the new workspace features in Premiere Pro 2.0 worthy of exploration.

Timeline

workflow

workspace

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Topics covered in this lesson:

• Video editing: then and now.

• Premiere Pro 2.0: a non-linear editor.

• Presenting the standard digital video workflow.

• Enhancing the workflow with high-level features.

• Incorporating Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio Premium® into the workflow.

• Touring the Premiere Pro workspace.

• Customizing the workspace.

GettingstartedWe’ve come a long way from clunky old videotape machines and expensive production equipment to professional-level editing on a PC. In this lesson I want to give you some video editing history. Knowing what came before can help make where we are now look that much better. Following that overview, I go over the basic workflow most video editors follow and explain how Premiere Pro fits in the eight-product Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio Premium. Finally I introduce you to unique and revamped workspace in Premiere Pro.

Touring Premiere Pro 2.0

�Touring Premiere Pro 2.0LESSON 1

Videoediting:ThenandnowThirty years ago, engineers acted as video editors. They had to. Only they knew how to handle massive, unruly, and complex tape machines. They had to monitor things such as color framing, sync timing, and blanking. Back then videotape editing was a technical task, not an artistic endeavor.

As editing machines became smaller and easier to use, engineers gave way to artists, but editing on analog (non-digital) videotape still had its limitations. Each edit resulted in “generation loss,” a reduction in visual quality caused by the less-than-perfect copying of the analog signal from the original videotape.

Transitions, such as cross-dissolves, required the use of three VCRs and expensive switchers. Frequently the VCRs did not synch-up properly, leading to a flicker or jump-cut at the edit point.

Thanks to the advent of digital videotape and software video editors, generation loss, jumpy transitions—and expensive tape machines and editing hardware—are things of the past. Now, anyone with a PC, or even a laptop, can do broadcast-quality video editing.

PremierePro2.0—AnonlineareditorPremiere Pro is a nonlinear editor (NLE). Unlike older videotape editing systems where you generally need to lay down edits consecutively and contiguously, Premiere Pro lets you place, replace, trim and move clips anywhere you want in your final edited video.

ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 2.0 �Classroom in a Book

On videotape systems, if you decide to insert a sound bite in the middle of a story already edited on tape, you need to insert that sound bite over your existing edits and re-edit everything after it. Or you can make a dub (copy) of the story segment after the new edit point and re-record that part after adding the sound bite (causing generation quality loss in the process).

With Premiere Pro and other NLEs you can make changes by simply clicking and dragging clips or segments around within your final video. You can edit video segments separately and tie them together later. You can even edit the closing sequence first.

Premiere Pro lets you do things non-sequentially.

NLEs have another huge benefit over videotape-editing systems: immediate access to your video clips. No longer do you need to endlessly fast forward or rewind through tons of tape to find that one elusive-but-essential shot. With Premiere Pro, it’s a mouse click away.

PresentingthestandarddigitalvideoworkflowThere is a basic workflow to creating videos with NLEs like Premiere Pro. After a while, it’ll become second nature. Generally that workflow follows these steps:

1 Shoot the video.

2 Capture (transfer) the video to your PC’s hard drive.

3 Build your edited video by selecting, trimming and adding clips to a timeline.

4 Place transitions between clips, apply video effects to clips, and composite (layer) clips.

5 Create text, credits or basic graphics and apply them to your project.

6 Add audio—be it narration, music or sound effects.

Note: Audio can also be the first thing you lay down when editing a video.

7 Mix multiple audio tracks and use transitions and special effects on your audio clips.

8 Export your finished project to videotape, a PC file, streaming video for Internet playback, or to a DVD.Premiere Pro supports each of these steps with industry-leading tools. Since this book is geared to the beginning and intermediate video editor, becoming facile with these standard workflow tools is the primary goal of the other lessons.

10Touring Premiere Pro 2.0LESSON 1

Enhancingtheworkflowwithhigh-levelfeaturesPremiere Pro goes well beyond providing a full-featured toolset for standard digital video editing. It is loaded with extra features that can enhance the video production process and improve the quality of your finished product.

You are not likely to incorporate many of these in your first few video projects. But as you ramp up your skills and expectations, you will begin to tap these high productivity features. I will cover the following topics in this book:

• Advanced Audio Editing—Premiere Pro provides audio effects and editing unequaled by any other nonlinear editor, and by most audio software. Create and place 5.1 surround-sound audio channels, make sample-level edits, apply multiple audio effects to any audio clip or track, use the included state-of-the-art plug-ins and other VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plug-ins.

• Advanced Color Correction—Correct and enhance the look of your footage with two new color correctors.

• Advanced Keyframe Controls—Premiere Pro 2.0 gives you the precise control you need to fine-tune your visual and motion effects without requiring you to export to a compositing application.

• Broad Hardware Support—Choose from a wide range of capture cards and other hardware to best fit your needs and budget. Premiere Pro 2.0 support extends from low-cost computers for DV (digital video) and HDV (a compressed high definition video format) editing, up to high-performance workstations capturing high definition (HD) video. Further, when it’s time to upgrade your hardware to work with HD and film, you don’t need to leave the familiar Premiere Pro interface—unlike with some proprietary systems that provide different interfaces for different formats.

• eReview—Speed your client review and approval process by embedding Premiere Pro projects in PDF documents. Your client watches the video with Adobe Reader, enters comments into the PDFs feedback form, and then emails the comments to you.

• GPU-accelerated Video Effects—Use the Graphics Processing Units (GPU) on modern graphics cards to create real-time page curls, page rolls, spheres with video mapped on them, and other image distortion effects that typically require expensive hardware or long render times.

ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 2.0 11Classroom in a Book

• High-definition Video Support—Work with every high-definition format including HDV, HDCAM, DVCPRO HD, D5-HD, and 4K film scans. Premiere Pro 2.0 supports these formats at any resolution (720p, 1080i, 1080p) and frame rate (24, 23.98, 30, 60fps, etc).

• Multicam Editing—You can easily and quickly edit any production shot with multiple cameras. Premiere Pro displays all the camera tracks in a split-view monitor, and you set the edits by clicking in the appropriate screen or by making single keystrokes.

• Project Manager—Manage your media through a single dialog box. View, delete, move, search for, and reorganize clips and bins. Consolidate your projects by moving just the media actually used in a project, and copying that media to a single location. Then reclaim drive space media by deleting unused media.

IncorporatingtheAdobeCreativeSuiteProductionStudioPremiumintotheworkflowEven with all of the exciting extra features in Premiere Pro, there are some digital video production tasks that it cannot do. For example:

• High-end 3D motion effects

• Detailed text animations

• Professional DVD authoring

• Layered graphics

• Vector artwork

• Music creation

• Advanced audio mixing, editing, and effects processing


To incorporate one or more of these features into a production I suggest you turn to the Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio Premium. It has all the tools you need to produce some absolutely amazing videos, including:

• Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0

• After Effects 7.0 Professional

• Adobe Photoshop CS2

• Adobe Audition 2.0

• Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

• Adobe Illustrator CS2

• Adobe Dynamic Link

• Adobe Bridge

ThehuboftheAdobeCreativeSuiteProductionStudioPremiumPremiere Pro 2.0 is the hub of the eight-product Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio Premium (the three-product, Standard version consists of Premiere Pro 2.0, After Effects Professional 7.0 and Photoshop CS2). All eight tools feature tight integration to complement and enhance each other.

Here’s a brief rundown of Premiere Pro’s seven Production Studio Premium teammates:

• Adobe After Effects Professional 7.0—The tool-of-choice for motion graphics and visual effects artists.

• Adobe Photoshop CS2—The industry standard image-editing and graphic creation product.

• Adobe Audition 2.0—A professional-level audio recording, editing and sweetening product that also ships with more than 5,000 loops—music snippets that editors can use to create entire musical selections.

• Adobe Encore DVD 2.0—A high-quality DVD-authoring product designed to work closely with Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop CS.

• Adobe Illustrator CS2—Professional vector graphics creation software for print, video production and the Web.


• Adobe Dynamic Link—This cross-product connection allows you to work in real time with native After Effects files in Premiere Pro and Encore DVD without rendering first.

• Adobe Bridge—A visual file browser that provides centralized access to your suite project files, applications, and settings.

AdobeCreativeSuiteProductionStudioPremiumworkflowYour Premiere Pro/Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio Premium workflow will vary depending on your production needs. Here are a few mini-workflow scenarios:

• Use Photoshop CS to touch-up still images from a digital camera, a scanner or a Premiere Pro video clip. Then export them to Premiere Pro.

• Create layered graphics in Photoshop CS and then open them in Premiere Pro. You can opt to have each layer appear on a separate track in a timeline, allowing you to apply effects and motion to selected layers.

• Build custom music tracks using Audition music loops, then export them to Premiere Pro.

• Use Audition to do professional quality audio editing and sweetening on an existing Premiere Pro video or a separate audio file.

• Using Dynamic Link, open Premiere Pro video sequences in After Effects 7. Apply complex motion and animation, then send those updated motion sequences back to Premiere Pro. You can play After Effects compositions in Premiere Pro 2.0 without first waiting to render them.

• Use After Effects 7 to create and animate text in ways far beyond the capabilities of Premiere Pro. Export those compositions to Premiere Pro.

• Import Premiere Pro-created video projects into Encore DVD to use in DVD projects. You can use those videos as the foundation of a project or as motion menus.

Most of this book will focus on the standard, Premiere Pro-only workflow. However I will present several lessons that demonstrate how you can incorporate Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio Premium products within your workflow for even more spectacular results.


TouringthePremiereProworkspace:Lesson1-1You’ll dive into nonlinear editing in the next lesson. At this point I want to give you a brief tour of the video editing workspace. In this lesson you will use a Premiere Pro project from this book’s companion DVD.

1 Make sure you’ve downloaded all of the lesson files to your hard drive. Copy them into the My Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\2.0\P Pro 2.0 CIB Assets\ folder.

2 You should have copied the P Pro 2.0 CIB Workspace.layout file into the Premiere Pro 2.0 Layouts folder at: My Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\2.0\Layouts.

3 You should have copied the Lesson Intro Videos file folder and its contents to the same place you copied the lesson assets folders. Play this lesson’s introductory video by opening Windows Media Player, selecting File > Open, navigating to the P Pro 2.0 CIB Assets\Lesson Intro Videos file folder and double-clicking Lesson 1 Intro.wmv.

More Info on the introductory videosI created brief, introductory videos for this book’s lessons to give you a feel for what’s to come, and make it easier to learn these new concepts.

They are WMV (Windows Media Video) files that you can play in Premiere Pro or the Windows Media Player. The Media Player’s viewing area is larger than the Program Monitor in Premiere Pro so I recommend you view these videos in Media Player.

I created these videos in a resolution of 1024x768 so they will look sharp running in the Windows Media Player’s full-screen mode. I recorded them at 10 frames per second (about one-third the regular digital video frame rate so there is some occasional minor blurring during any kind of action.

When you finish viewing an intro video, simply close Media Player and move on to the next step in the lesson. If you need a quick review of a lesson, feel free to watch a video again.


4 Start Premiere Pro.

5 Click Open Project.

6 In the Open Project window, navigate to the P Pro CIB Assets > Lesson1 file folder and double-click Lesson 1.prproj. That opens the user interface.


TheworkspacelayoutIf you’ve never seen a nonlinear editor, this workspace might overwhelm you. Not to worry. A lot of careful consideration went into its design and layout. I’ve identified its principal elements in the next figure.

Project panelTools panel Monitors

E�ect Controls panel Timeline

The Premiere Pro workspace might seem daunting to first-time NLE users, but you’ll soon see the logic behind its layout.

Premiere Pro 2.0 sports a revamped workspace with many new features that I cover in this lesson. With this update comes some new nomenclature. Gone are palettes and most windows. Added are panels, frames and floating panels.

Each workspace item appears in its own panel. And you can dock multiple panels in a single frame. Some items with common industry terms stand alone, such as Timeline, Audio Mixer, and Program Monitor. I list all the new (and some old) names in the following workspace descriptions.


• Timeline—This is where you’ll do most of your actual editing. You create sequences (Adobe’s term for edited video segments or entire projects) in the Timeline. One strength of sequences is that you can nest them—place sequences in other sequences. In this way you can break up a production into manageable chunks.

More tracks than you can use

You can layer—composite—video clips, images, graphics, and titles in an unlimited number of tracks. Video clips in higher-numbered tracks cover whatever is directly below them on the timeline. Therefore, you need to give clips in higher-numbered tracks some kind of transparency or reduce their size if you want to let clips in lower tracks show through. I cover compositing in several upcoming lessons.

• Monitors—You use the Source Monitor (on the left) to view and trim raw clips (your original footage). To place a clip in the Source Monitor, double-click Video 1a in the Project panel. The Program Monitor (on the right) is for viewing your project- in-progress.

Single or dual monitor view

Some editors prefer working with only one monitor screen. I prefer two and the lessons throughout this book will reflect that. You can change to a single monitor view if you choose. Click the little ‘x’ in the Source tab to close that monitor. In the Main Menu, select Window > Source Monitor to open it again.

• Project panel—This is where you place links to your project’s assets: video clips, audio files, graphics, still images and sequences. You use bins—file folders—to organize your assets.

1�Touring Premiere Pro 2.0LESSON 1

• Effects panel—Click the Effects tab at the top of the Project panel to open the Effects panel (on the left, below). Effects are organized by Presets, Audio Effects, Audio Transitions, Video Effects and Video Transitions. If you open the various effects bins you’ll note that they include numerous audio effects to spice up your sound; two audio crossfade transitions; video scene transitions, such as dissolves and wipes; and many video effects to alter the appearance of your clips.

Effects panel (left) and Audio Mixer (right).

• Audio Mixer—Click the Audio Mixer tab to the right of the Effects tab (on the right, above). This interface looks a lot like audio production studio hardware with its volume sliders and panning knobs—one set of controls for each audio track in the Timeline plus a Master track.

ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 2.0 1�Classroom in a Book

• Tools panel—Each icon in this panel (on the right, below) represents a tool that performs a specific function, typically a type of edit. Older versions of Premiere had many more tools but now the Selection tool ( ) is context-sensitive. It changes appearance to indicate the function that matches the circumstances.

• Effect Controls panel—Click the Effect Controls panel (on the left below) to open it and then click on any clip in the Timeline. That will display that clip’s effect parameters in the Effect Controls panel. This will give you a small taste of many lessons to come. Two video effects are always present for every video, still or graphic: Motion and Opacity. Each effect parameter (in the case of Motion: Position, Scale Height and Width, Rotation and Anchor Point) is adjustable over time using keyframes. The Effect Controls panel is an immensely powerful tool that gives you incredible creative latitude. It comes up in many of this book’s lessons.

Effect Controls panel (left) and Tools panel (right).


• Info panel—Click the Info tab (left of the Effect Controls tab). Info presents a data snapshot of any asset you’ve currently selected in the Project panel or any clip or transition selected in a sequence.

• History panel—Click the History tab (left of the Info tab). History tracks every step you take in your video production and lets you back up if you don’t like your latest efforts. When you back up to a previous condition, all steps that came after that point are also undone. You cannot extract a single misstep buried within the current list.

History panel (left) and Info panel (right).

Customizingtheworkspace:Lesson1-2Adobe revamped the user interface of Premiere Pro 2.0 and several other products in the Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio Premium. Here’s what’s new:

• As you change the size of one frame, other frames change size to compensate

• All panels within frames are accessible via tabs

• All panels are dockable—you can drag a panel from one frame to another as a means to customize your workspace

• You can peel away a panel into its own separate floating panel


In this lesson you’ll try out all of those functions and save a customized workspace. You’ll continue where you left off at the end of Lesson 1-1. Before changing the interface layout you’ll adjust its brightness.

1 Select Edit > Preferences > User Interface.

2 Slide the Brightness slider to the left or right to suit your needs. When done, click OK.

Cave-like editing bays

As you approach the darkest setting, the text switches to white on gray. This is to accommodate those editors who work in editing bays in darkened rooms.


3 Place your cursor on the vertical divider between the Effect Controls panel and the Timeline. Click and drag left and right to change the sizes of those frames.

Note: The cursor stops briefly as the vertical divider between the two frames snaps to—lines up with—the divider above it between the Project and Source Monitors (holding down the Shift key as you drag a divider temporarily turns off the Snap function).

4 Use the Snap feature to adjust those frames so those dividers line up. Those four frame corners should like this next figure.

Premiere’s context help

Premiere Pro provides immediate context help in two ways: tool tips and messages displayed along the bottom of the interface. For example, as you click on a frame divider, a message appears at the bottom letting you know about the Snap feature. If you hover the cursor over the Program Monitor controls, tool tips pop up.

5 Place the cursor on the horizontal divider between the Effect Controls panel and the Project panel and slide them up and down.

6 Click on the History panel tab’s upper left corner (its drag handle) and drag it to the top of the interface, next to the Project tab, to dock it in that frame.


Note: As you move a panel around, Premiere Pro displays a drop zone. If it’s a rectangle, the panel will go into the selected frame. If it’s a trapezoid, it’ll go into its own frame.

Dealing with a crowded frame

With the History panel added to the frame with the Project panel, you cannot see all the tabs. In this case a slider appears above the tabs. Slide it left or right to reveal all the tabs. You can also open a hidden (or any other) panel from the Main Menu by selecting Window and then clicking on a panel name.

7 Click and drag the Effect Controls drag handle to a point about mid-way up into the Project panel to place it in its own frame.As shown in the following figure on the left, the drop zone is a trapezoid that covers the lower portion of the Project panel. Release the mouse button and your workspace should look something like the following figure on the right.


8 Click on the Program Monitor’s drag handle and hold down the Ctrl key while dragging it out of its frame. Its drop zone image is much more distinct, indicating you are about to create a floating panel.

9 Drop the Program Monitor anywhere, creating a floating panel. Expand it by dragging one of its corners.Use a floating panel to increase the viewing area of a panel beyond its frame’s borders. This can come in handy when adjusting the many parameters in the Audio Mixer, Effect Controls, and Program Monitor.

10 As you gain editing acumen, you might want to create and save a customized workspace. To do that, select Window > Workspace > Save Workspace. Type in a workspace name and click Save.

11 Open the workspace created for this lesson by selecting Window > Workspace > P Pro 2.0 CIB Workspace. This is a great way to get back to square one if your workspace customizing efforts run amok.

ReviewReviewquestions1 Why is Premiere Pro considered a non-linear editor?

2 Describe the basic video editing workflow.

3 What purpose does the Project panel serve?

4 How can nested sequences simplify your editing?

5 What goes on in the Monitors?

6 How and why do you create a floating window?

Reviewanswers1 Premiere Pro lets you place video, audio, and graphics anywhere on a sequence (timeline), rearrange media clips within a sequence, add transitions, apply effects, and do any number of other video editing steps in just about any order that suits you.

2 Shoot your video; transfer it to your PC; create a sequence of video, audio and still clips on the timeline; apply effects and transitions; add text and graphics; edit your audio; and export the finished product.

3 You store and organize links to your media assets in the Project panel.

4 A sequence can be an entire project or a project segment. Sometimes it’s easier to work on one segment of a larger project, then nest that sequence into the final project sequence. Breaking up your project into constituent parts can make your work easier.

5 You use the Monitors to view your project and your original clips. When working with two Monitors—Source and Program—you can view and trim your raw footage in the Source Monitor and use the Program Monitor to view the timeline sequence as you build it.

6 Frequently you need much more real estate when working in a panel. The Effect Controls panel can display enough parameters to fill a full screen. To expand your view of a panel, hold down the Ctrl key while dragging a panel tab to create a floating window.