Starting a video editing project in Adobe Premiere Pro begins with creating a new sequence tailored to your clips' properties. You then build your sequence by adding clips, repositioning and removing them as necessary to achieve the desired outcome.
Picture a sequence as the canvas for your video masterpiece. It's where you add, arrange, and edit your video clips. To get started, you'll need to create a sequence. Click the New Item menu in the Project panel and select Sequence.
Don't worry if you're unsure about what preset to pick for your sequence. You can simply drag a clip onto the New Item menu, and Premiere Pro will create a new sequence with the clip's properties. You can also check your sequence's frame size and frame rate in the Project panel using List view. If you're still unsure about this, you might find this guide on changing the frame size quite useful.
Now comes the fun part: building your sequence. This is just a fancy way of saying you're adding your clips to the sequence you've created. You can simply drag clips from your Project panel onto a track in the Timeline panel.
If you've marked a specific portion of a clip using In and Out points, only that selected part will be added to your sequence. What if you only want the video or audio from your clip? Don't sweat it. Just use the Drag Video Only or Drag Audio Only feature at the bottom of the Source Monitor.
Let's say you've added a few too many clips to your sequence. You might as well remove some, right? To do this, select the clip you want to get rid of and press Backspace (or Delete if you're on a Mac).
You can even remove a clip and close the gap it leaves behind automatically. Just select the clip and press Shift+Delete (or Shift+fn+Delete on macOS). Remember, it's always okay to change your mind. The undo feature in Premiere Pro is there for you.
Once you've added clips, you'll probably want to play around with their arrangement. You can simply drag a clip to a new spot in your sequence. If you want to keep things organized and avoid overwriting existing clips, hold Control (or Command on macOS) while dragging.
Want to handle the video and audio parts of a clip separately? Right-click the clip, choose Unlink, and you're good to go. You can even use the Razor tool to split a clip into two parts. I'd suggest checking out this guide on how to duplicate a clip if you want to create variations of the same clip.
Believe me, the right audio can make or break your video. Luckily, Premiere Pro's Audio Clip Mixer makes it easy to adjust the volume of an audio clip. Simply open the panel (Window > Audio Clip Mixer), position the Timeline playhead over the clip you want to adjust, and drag the fader up or down.
Remember, 0dB is the loudest, so a volume level of -3dB is quieter than 0dB. To focus on specific audio tracks, you can use the Mute and Solo buttons. And if you're leaning towards fine-tuning your audio further, you might find this guide on how to detach audio useful.
And there you have it! While it might seem a lot at first, with a bit of practice, you'll be able to breeze through these steps. So, how about we get started on your Premiere Pro journey?
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Absolutely, you can! In Premiere Pro, there's no limit to the number of sequences you can have. It's like having multiple canvases for different parts of your project. You might have one sequence for your intro, another for the main body of your work, and yet another for your end credits. And hey, if you need a change of pace, you can always jump from one sequence to another, just to keep things fresh.
Custom sequence presets? No problem. Go to File > New > Sequence, and a dialog box will pop up. Now, you can pick from a whole bunch of pre-existing presets, but I guess you're not here for that, huh? Okay, so, go down and click on "Settings". Here, you can set your desired frame size, frame rate, pixel aspect ratio and other settings. Once you're done, just click "Save Preset" and give your shiny new preset a name. Boom, you've got a custom sequence preset in Premiere Pro.
Similar to creating a custom sequence preset, but there's a little twist. Go to File > New > Sequence, or just use the shortcut (Ctrl+N for Windows, Command+N for Mac). A dialog box will pop up. You can either pick a preset that matches your footage, or go into "Settings" to customize everything from frame size to frame rate. Once you're done, hit "OK". Your custom sequence is ready, and you're all set to start adding clips!
Multicam sequences? Sounds complex, but don't worry, we've got this! Here's a quick step-by-step guide:
And there you go! You're all set to start editing like a pro, even with multiple camera angles. You might as well get yourself a director's chair and a megaphone!