Scale | Glenn Ward

Adobe Premiere Pro – Speed up editing processes by working with numbers

There are many little tips and tricks to speed up your repetitive editing processes but one of the main things I find is to get used to working in numbers for resizing, scaling positioning etc

One of the major pluses to editing using premiere pro is the ability to drag and drop different video formats straight into you project and then on into the timeline, no rendering and no re encoding video to a specific .mov file but this means you’ll often need to re size clips. You can set this to automatic as you bring it into the timeline but I often like to do this manually and refreme the shot too.

I work with a notepad in front of me and any values I think I will repeatedly need in that project I jot down. This is also a good tip for scaling over time, timecodes, clip lengths and color values. It might seem obvious but on a large project it’s amazing the amount of time and frustration it can save. I’ve included a screen grab where you might find this useful in the video effects tab.

Adobe Premiere Pro – Pause video in the timeline by creating a still frame

Unfortunately there is no means to simply pause a video on the first or last frame to get that still to motion effect you often see when multiple interviews are shown on screen at once.

I have found the simplest way to achieve this in Adobe Premiere Pro is to create stills by exporting a tiff then re importing it into you projects portfolio.

Begin by aligning and resizing your clips on the timeline (see how to scale video here) in the order you wish them to appear. At this stage you will see black before and after the clip. Place the playhead on the first frame of the video you would like to begin on a paused / still frame. Choose File > Export and select tiff, be sure on the next drop down to export the tiff in the aspect ratio you are working in. It will make lining the image up a lot easier later. Export as usual using Adobe Media Encoder to the correct folder in your project folder (see setting up a project here) import the file back into your project and place it on the timeline prior to your clip. Adjust the length and play through to see the effect. If you need to scale the tiff do so to complete a smooth still frame to motion effect.

Adobe Premiere Pro – Panning, scrolling and scale images over time

It is often necessary to scale and move the images you have brought into your timeline. Often you will want to create a slow zoom in, zoom out or pan across an image to add a little movement to your video and have it look a little less like a slide show.

If you familiar with Adobe After Effects you will find this very easy as it’s a process of adding keyframes at start and end points to inform Premiere as to where motion should begin and end.

Start by creating an image in photo with dimensions (Understanding dimensions) bigger than your frame dimensions. Bring it into Premiere and drag it down to the time line. You will see the image appear in the window on the right.

Now place your playhead where you would like the animation to begin and then with the clip selected click on the effects tab in the first preview panel.

You will now see a mini timeline appear for your particular clip. Locate the symbol that looks like a stopwatch, next to the scale controller, click and you will see a keyframe appear on the timeline. Now move the playhead to your proposed endpoint either on the main line or the mini one, again hit the keyframe button and you will see another black diamond appear, signifying the end of the motion. Note that as you move the playhead away from this diamond it is no longer black. You must have the playhead directly on the frame in order to effect it, otherwise another keyframe will be generated. With the playhead properly aligned change the scale numbers to 80 percent. Now drag the playhead back in the main timeline and play your video, you should see a slow zoom out.

Change the scale to more than 100 percent for a zoom in. Exactly the same theory applies to motion the only difference being that you must change the x and y axis in order to create a pan.

It is possible to place as many keyframes as you like on the timeline in order to create more complex movement.