== THE LESSON
A friend asked me to make him an object last week, so this lesson will use this object. He wants the Batman intro for something. It needs to be resized to hide some mess at the bottom of the screen, and to cover up the overscan noise. It will have a few basic transitions added (dissolves, "fade to black" and "fade black to picture"). It will then get more fancy and have an image dropped on top of it. This is the kind of thing that will be useful for making custom motion menus. This sample has no audio, just video.
== GETTING SETUP TO EDIT
For me, the first order of business in Premiere is making the workspace more useful. Some of those windows are just sized wrong and not needed.
[img]uploads/lordsmurf/671_prem1.gif[/img]
== SOURCE NOTES, PRE-FILTERING/POST-FILTERING
Because I wanted to pre-filter the video file, not post-filter, you'll see I'm using an M2V as source. The actual capture file was an AVI that needed some work, so it's already seen a restoration filter set in
TMPGEnc. It gave the cleaner file desired for the NLE. Post-filtering would have meant the Premiere effects would have been filtered, and this was not at all desired.
== TEACHING YOURSELF PREMIERE
Much like Photoshop and any other numbers of intricate/complex softwares, the best way to learn in Premiere is to literally "play around". This mini-guide should introduce you to the location and workflow of common elements found in this NLE ("NLE" means non-linear editor, and is usually confined to describing software like Apple Final Cut Pro,
Adobe Premiere, and
Sony Vegas Video).
== WORKING WITH THE TIMELINE
The first step is to make sure the video is properly imported. Then drag the video/audio (or video and audio separately if they are separate files) to the timeline. In the image above, I already dragged the M2V file to the VIDEO1A timeline slot.
Become familiar with the timeline tools. It'll affect how you work in the timeline:
[img]uploads/lordsmurf/627_prem2.gif[/img]
The "hand" tool works much like it does in Photoshop. You can select this tool, click on the timeline footage, and then hold the mouse button and slide the mouse to move down the timeline with handheld accuracy. This is an alternative to using the scroll bars. Much like photographers prefer this tool, videographers tend to like it also.
The arrow is "default" status with no tool selected. This lets you move object around on the timeline.
The "cut" tool will slice items on the timeline into smaller parts. You can then move these smaller parts around or use the arrow to select them and then press DELETE on the keyboard to delete unwanted footage. A good trick for using the CUT tool is to move the timeline slider to the exact position. The slider controls what the preview window shows, so you can see precisely when the cut is being made. When you get the slider in the correct position, move the cut tool on top of the slider line and the cut tool will disappear. This means you have a perfect alignment and will be cutting in the exact spot shown in the preview window.
The "distance" meter select the visual increments on the timeline. The clip in this guide in 30 seconds long. The default 8 minute mark makes 30 second nothing more than a sliver, and near impossible to accurately insert those 1-second additive fades. Cuts are also harder to make at such long intervals. A 2-second span was chosen for this clip. Usually, 10 seconds is good for long footage, change it as needed. (FYI: There is a max length the Premiere timeline can hold, many hours, I forget the amoun. I never have more than 3 hours in a timeline, so I never paid much attention to that high limit, not something that affects me.)
The DELETE button in general removes items from the timeline.
== NOTES ON SCREEN RESOLUTION
Not sure if I've said this yet, but 1024x768 screen resolution is the minimum screen res you can comfortably have in Premiere. If you have a good video card, I'd actually suggest raising it to 1600x1200 when editing video, simply because all that headroom in the Premiere workplace is nice. This guide was made in the 1024x768 space and feels a bit crammed. Both digitalFAQ.com and digitalFAQsupport.com are based on the suggested video desktop res of 1024x768 minimum.
== ADDING FILTERS/EFFECTS/TRANSITIONS
As shown in the workspace image above, this clip has already had 2 effects and 1 transition added. Go to the effect window. Notice how it has effects organized in 3 tabs (transitions, video effects, audio effects). Both a crop filter and clip filter were added to the video in this example. Click on the filter you want, hold the mouse button, drag to the timeline item (video in this case) and drop it on the item when it is highlighted. A green bar will appear at the top of the timeline item and the effect will now appear in the effects window. Most effects are "virgin" and must be altered to actually add the effect (much like clip and crop, which come set to all "0").
[img]uploads/lordsmurf/68B_prem3.gif[/img]
== BASIC EFFECTS
What's CLIP? What's CROP?
This is by far a high-use filter for those editing VHS tapes, and often used interchangeably, which is INCORRECT. "Clip" is another term for "MASK" or to "cover up" parts of the video. It will not resize the video. "Crop" is the process of removing extraneous image/footage, and will result in a resize of the remaining image, as it must now fill the canvas with less data. While it is possible to crop without resize, your final video will not be the correct size compliant with DVD. Clip is great for covering up overscan noise.
See this guide for more info on overscan, near bottom:
">http://www.digitalfaq.com/understandsource.htm
While not necessary, clipping off noise will result in better bitrate allocation for the final MPEG file.
Cropping is used for many things, explained in here:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/restoration/video/videorestore.htm
These are just two of many, many filters. Most PREMIERE filters are named so that they are self-explanatory.
In this video in the example (Batman), I wanted to clip out noise, as well as crop in on the video some. Some of the noise over-spilled the typical overscan, so both filters were needed.
The next effect I wanted to add was a fade-in and fade-out of the video. The final video will be used in a loop, so this is required. Therefore, I'll be adding both.
[img]uploads/lordsmurf/prem4.gif[/img]
Like any other affect, you drag the effect from the effects menu to the timeline. However, you'll be putting it into the TRANSITIONS slot instead of the VIDEO/AUDIO slots. It will be dropped at default size, but can be dragged out to larger or smaller length. If you hover the mouse over the left or right sides of the effect, a resize icon with arrows will appear that you can use to stretch or shrink the effect.
Once it is in the right position, double-click on it (must be on the ARROW tool) to launch the properties window. As shown above, for this dissolve, you can view it on the actual video. Click the up/down arrows to flip the direction of the fade. Move the sliders to preview it in action.
This will now get you a clip that is edited to the correct size, has noise covered, cropped as needed, and transitions in place. This will serve for most home editing. It's a good handful of basics.
== ADVANCED EFFECTS (optional, example only): STEP 1
The Batman video needs to occupy 2/3rds of the screen on the left side, and then a black semi-circle will be on the right, partially covering the image (and specifically hiding the TVLAND logo).
Now, most of this is based off the CONAN tutorial found here:
http://www.wrigleyvideo.com/videotut...premiere65.htm (the "Lips Thru Still Image" video). That guide shows the skills used for the Batman (although that guide will have a much different-looking output).
I need to first move over the video. This is done by adding a TRANSFORM filter, and then adjusting the settings. I choose to play with the numbers (click on the underlined links) instead of messing with those slider bars.
[img]uploads/lordsmurf/prem5.gif[/img]
== NOTES ON EFFECTS EDITING AND PREVIEW
Note how I have TWO transform filters. I messed up the first time, made mistakes. The history only goes so far back, so rather than start over, I just deselected that filter (the "f" in the box) and added a new filter to start all over.
Also, sometimes Premiere does not want to preview the effects properly. It's a software bug. The way to fix this is to deselect the effect ("f") and then select it again. The cursor will change to the number count-down and apply the filters in the preview window.
== ADVANCED EFFECTS (optional, example only): STEP 2
Now that the video has been positioned, I created a PSD image in Photoshop. (For learning how to use Photoshop, I suggest investing $20 in PHOTOSHOP FOR DUMMIES. The software is worth it, but takes a book and lots of images to understand. Again, one of those play-with-it softwares.)
Again, this is using concepts learned in the CONAN tutorial.
[img]uploads/lordsmurf/prem6.gif[/img]
I import the PSD file. When it is added, it asked how to treat the image. Because I want to maintain the transparent part of the PSD, I select "LAYER 1" (the name of the layer in the PSD document). I do not want to flatten the image (and therefore lose the invisible portion).
[img]uploads/lordsmurf/prem7.gif[/img]
I then add it to the VIDEO2 layer, which takes priority over VIDEO1, and is therefore on the top. (To make an image transparent or partially transparent on top of the video, like a logo, follow the CONAN instructions, and drop the VIDEO2 window using the down arrow. The using the FADE tool, lower the opacity of the ALPHA KEY.)
Here is my final timeline:
[img]uploads/lordsmurf/prem8.gif[/img]
My basic and advanced editing have made a custom object suitable for a menu on a Batman DVD.
== END OF PREMIERE GUIDE ==
Note: Although I'm far from an expert on Premiere, I can find my way around things. The WVP site is a valuable place for advanced technique. If there is something special you want to know, ask, and I'll see what I can do.
And one more time, for good luck's sake:
SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN! SAVE OFTEN!
Edited by: lordsmurf
