Editing video using Premiere

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After using Premiere's video recording features in our previous session, we will now use its editing capabilities to:

As before, you will find familiar features in this program, helping you to guess function and operation. The Title window has many of the standard facilities of drawing programs; the Project window displays a visual list of the elements to be edited (like the Cast window in Director); and the Construction window offers a timeline on which to arrange those same elements (similar to the Score window in Director).


Basic Operation:

  1. Unlike video recording, which requires special hardware, video editing can be accomplished (for small files) on any reasonably fast computer. You can therefore use any of the computers in the lab. To set up their configuration:
  2. Find and re-open the Premiere application. In the New Project Presets dialog, again choose 'Presentation - 160x120'.
  3. Start creating the title card. Use File-->New-->Title to open the Title window. This is a drawing program built into Premiere, with features and tools not unlike the ones we saw in other graphics programs (PageMaker, Illustrator, etc.). The dotted boxes at the margin of the blank document are the title-safe and action-safe areas, which are only relevant to work done for  TV. The boxes will not appear in the final version, however, and they may be useful to help position your title.
  4. Use Windows-->Title Window Options to bring up the Title Window Options dialog.
  5. Now enter and format the text of your title. Remember to make it legible by using uncomplicated typefaces at the largest size possible:
  6. While the Title window is still active (in front of other windows), use File-->Save to save your work to a Premiere Title file. Close the Title window.
  7. You are now ready to import the elements that will be combined into a video for the web.
  8. Premiere needs to know when, and for how long, each element will appear in the final video. This is indicated by dragging each item from the Project window to an appropriate location in the Construction window.
  9. Next, you'll replace the abrupt change from title to video (a jump cut) with a visual effect (a wipe).
  10. Save your edited project (you will need it again for any modifications): File-->Save.
  11. Use Make-->Movie to generate the final version of your edited video.


Additional Info:


Last modified 27JUN96 by Sandro Corsi