Learn Editing Skills

These are notes on the Adobe video - https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/how-to/create-edit-sequence.html. Download the sample files from the website.

I have put some key basic points in italics below.

Move Clips in a Sequence

Open the 03_04 project file.

If you click on a clip in the Timeline and drag it onto another clip on the Timeline, because you have snapping turned on (the horseshoe icon at the top left of the panel is blue), it will snap into place at the beginning of the clip because it is jumping into position. The place where I took the clip is now empty, and the new clip has overwritten the original clip in that position. It's laid on top of the original clip. Do Ctrl-Z to undo.

If you repeat the same operation, but press the Ctrl key before releasing the mouse, the moved clip is inserted and the original clip is moved to the right so that there is no overlap.

If the "Linked Selection" icon (the icon immediately to the right of the horseshoe icon) is turned on (it's blue), then the video and audio portions of a clip are moved together; if the icon is off, they are moved separately. For an individual clip, you can right click on the clip and choose "Unlink" to move the audio or video section of just that link separately.

You can divide a clip into two parts by clicking on the razor tool (the fourth icon from the top on the left hand side of the Timeline panel) and then clicking in the clip where you want to divide the clip into two parts. You could then delete or move one of the parts. [This I think is very useful because you may not want the entire clip.]

Make Simple Audio Adjustments

Open the 03_05 project file.

You'll want to make sure that the audience can hear the dialogue above the music volume and this is easy to do by adjusting the volume. If you play some of the clip, you'll probably conclude the music is too loud, especially later in the clip, in order to hear the voice over clearly.

In the Source panel (top left), click on the Audio Clip Mixer heading. If it is not visible, choose Window>Audio Clip Mixer. You'll notice at the bottom of the panel there are some names, Audio 1, Audio 2, etc. and that these names match the names of the tracks in the Sequence panel. In this example, the music is in Audio 1 and the voice is in Audio 2. I'm going to pull down the Fader Control (the vertical rectangle next to the numbers) for Audio 1 down to about -12 and listen to it again and the voice over is more easily understood.

At the top of each audio control, there several buttons:

You might decide you want the vocals to come from a different direction and you can do this by using the Audio Pan control which adjusts the balance between what comes from the right and left side of the speakers or headphones. There is the Left Right control at the top of the audio control. When you change this you can see the effect in the Audio meters at the right of the sequence panel. You can change the value by clicking on a number and then entering a numerical value (from -100 to 100) in the box or by clicking on the blue number and dragging left or right. This dragging technique works anywhere in Premiere Pro where you see a blue number.

The Audio Clip Mixer works on clips so the adjustments you make pertain to whatever clip the playhead in the Sequence panel was over, and thus would not apply to an earlier or later clip..

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The following can be skipped if lack of time.

Create a New Sequence

Open the 03_01 project file. When you add clips to a sequence, their size and frame rate are automatically adjusted so that everything will play smoothly. You'll want sequence settings to match your clips, to minimize conversion and maximize playback quality. We create a new sequence by clicking the New Item icon at the bottom right of the project panel (lower left) and choosing Sequence. The settings in the New Sequence dialog box are based on camera format rather than output format. Choose a preset based on the camera that you used to record the video.

We will choose to expand Digital SLR, and choose 1080p, and then choose DSLR 1080p30 and give the sequence a name Travelogue and click OK.

Now let's drag one of the clips into the sequence in the Timeline panel at the lower left- we get a warning saying the clip does not match the sequence settings - do you want to change the sequence settings to match the clip? We'll say yes, so it's OK if we made the wrong initial choice for the sequence setting.

We are zoomed out in the Timeline Panel; in order to zoom in, you can drag the Navigator slider at the bottom of the Sequence panel.

These instructions don't seem to be working in Premiere Pro 2020 - To see how sequence settings can be based on a clip, we will single click on a clip in the Project panel and drag it onto the New Item icon at the bottom right of the project panel and Premiere Pro will automatically create a new sequence with settings based on the clip and a name that matches the name of the clip. You can see this sequence in the Project panel (note that the icon there is different than the other clips, matching the icon of the Travelogue sequence) and also in the Sequence Panel in the Timeline panel at lower right..

You can select multiple clips and drag them onto the New Item icon and the sequence created will be named that of the first clip you selected; you may want to rename it to avoid confusion with the clip of the same name.

You can check the sequence’s frame size and frame rate by viewing it in the Project panel using List view.

Add Clips to a Sequence

Open the 03_02 project file.

One way to add clips is to drag them into the Timeline. When you drop, the video will be on the v1 track with the associated audio on the a1 track. Remember that audio clips play at the same time but video tracks play in front of each other; anything on v2 will play in front of something on v1. Drag over another clip and place the video on v2 and the audio automatically goes on a2.

You can also drag clips from the source monitor (top left). If you've added in and out marks, you will get just that portion of the clip. At the bottom of the source monitor in the middle, just above the Timeline, there are icons to drag only the video portion ("Drag Video Only") or only the audio portion ("Drag Audio Only").

Remove Clips from a Sequence

Open the 03_03 project file.

To remove a clip from a sequence and leave a gap, click on the clip in the sequence and hit delete. You may want to leave the gap because you want to put something in its place. To undo the deletion, hit Ctrl-Z.

To remove a clip from a sequence and not leave a gap, click on the clip in the sequence and hold down the Shift key while you click the Delete key.

To select multiple clips, hold down the shift key while clicking on them in the Timeline; hitting delete will now delete all the selected clips. Ctrl-Z to undo.

If you click first on the Track Select Forward Tool (the second tool from the top (a rectangle with an arrow pointing to the right), immediately to the left of the Timeline panel, and then click on a clip, it selects everything on every track to the right of that clip, including the clip.

If you click first on the Track Select Forward Tool, and then hold down the Shift key, when you click on a clip, it will select that clip and everything to the right, but only on that track.

The functionality that deletion of the video track will delete the corresponding audio track is controlled by the "Linked Selection" icon, which is the third icon in a group of 5 icons at the top left of the Timeline panel. In its default "blue state", both video and audio will be deleted; in the other state, only the track selected will be deleted.

Revised: April 17, 2022. Comments to William Pegram, wpegram@nvcc.edu