Timeline | Glenn Ward

Adobe Premiere Pro – The difference between Track Volume and Clip Volume

If you are used to using Final Cut Pro you will no doubt prefer to control your audio channels in the timeline rather than on the effects tab. At first this appear difficult if you use the button to the left of the timeline depicted here you shall reveal further controls in Adobe Premiere Pro.

This will allow you to control the levels from the timeline over time which is very handy if you have a soundtrack or voice over that needs to be taken in and out during your edit. Often these level changes will be clip dependent, meaning that if you move the clip around the point at which the levels need to change will remain the same. Sometime these changes in sound level will be relevant to the edit and if you move certain clips you will still require the levels to change at that point. Using the drop down here you have access to show clip toggles or show timeline toggles. Remember that clip levels works on that clips audio independent of the timeline and the timeline audio works on the timeline audio independently of the clips.

Add keyframes at the playhead using the black diamond next to the track or by using the Pen Tool.

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.

Adobe Premiere Pro – Controlling Sound and Volume Level over time

There are two main ways to control the sound levels in Adobe Premiere Pro over time outside of a simple constant gain, expositional fade transition.

Firstly, it is not straight away that obvious that this can be done in the timeline in much the same way as in Final Cut Pro and the use of pushpins.

Locate the button to the left of the timeline and highlight it. You should now be able to place pushpins along the levels line.

Place the playhead where you would like your fade or gain to begin and then click the grey diamond where you see the text “Audio” to the left of the timeline. You will notice a pushpin / keyframe appear on the audio track and the grey diamond turn black.

Move the playhead and the diamond will turn grey again, place the playhead where you would like your fade to finish and add another pushpin / keyframe in the same way. Grab the level beyond your second pushpin / keyframe and drag it down.

You have created a gradual fade over time.

The second way is much the same as creating motion with images and takes place in the effects tab. If you have the Show Clip Keyframes drop down selected, you will notice this in the timeline to. With your clip selected place your playhead where you would like the fade to begin.

Expand the levels controls under effects and locate the stopwatch symbol. Press this and a small black diamond (keyframe) will appear in the clip timeline. Drag the playhead to the end of the fade and repeat. You should now be able to reduce the levels beyond your second keyframe without affecting the sound before the first. The diagonal fall between the two signifies the fade over time.

Adobe Premiere Pro – Selecting audio or video independently in the timeline

In Final Cut pro you are probably used to toggling on and off this button in order to break he linkage between audio tracks and video tracks. It is not as obvious in Adobe Premiere Pro although once you know how it makes sense and it might even be easier to incorporate the action into your editing.

Simply hold the alt Key while clicking either the audio or video track. You will notice only one is selected, you can now move this independently from the other, delete a track or copy and paste it. Note if you move the track a indicator will appear showing just how many seconds and frames you are out of sync from the original partner.

1.1 Introduction to Adobe Flash – The Workspace and Tools

The Flash Workspace

I know what it’s like to open a program for the first time and be overwhelmed by all the windows so I’m only going to explain what is necessary to get started. Fortunately if you are familiar with Adobe Photoshop or Dreamweaver the rest will begin to come clear as you begin to work with flash.

The Stage and Properties Inspector
The white square in the centre of the screen is known as the Stage. As you have nothing on the stage, tale a look at the properties inspector (top right) it will currently should the Stage properties. The main Properties you will be concerned with is FPS (Frames Per Second) The Size of the Stage, default is set to 550 x 400 px, you can alter this buy clicking edit. Also the Stage background color, set this to whatever best suits your intended output.

The Timeline
Next, lets take a look at the Timeline, as you will see your first layer is pre populated. For those familiar with Photoshop, layers can be stacked on top of each other and can also be sorted in folders. The main difference here is that each layer has a timeline made up of keyframes. Each keyframe is like a page in a flick book, you will notice the counter running above the timeline, if your FPS is set to 15 you quickly be able to calculate each second of footage.

There are three tools for operating the timeline and layers these are from left to right. New Layer, New Folder and Delete.

The Library
The library can be found in the bottom right of the workspace and is used to locate all of your imported graphics, imagery, sound and video clips. You can drag and drop these assets to the stage from the library.

Ok that’s enough to get started, much of the other windows Will become apparent as you begin to work with Flash.

Introduction to Drawing in Flash
Things to Remember #1 – when drawing in Flash only place one ‘object’ in a layer – treat it as if you were drawing on separate layers of acetate. For example – sky (Layer 1), grass (Layer 2), sun (layer 3), tree (layer 4) etc…

Start drawing and see how shapes, lines and fills work in Flash. Save all your experiments to your journal.

The Toolbar
Click on the different icons to see what each tool function does. Whenever you click on a tool you will notice it’s properties appear as icons below the Tool Bar. Make sure you click around to experiment with these so you can gain an understanding of Flash’s functionality.

Arrow: (Selection Tool) This is used for when ever you are not using any of the other tools. It selects individual objects or frames or a marquee for selecting multiple objects. It operates the tool bar and menu systems. Etc.

Subselection Tool:

Brush: The Brush tool is not unlike the pencil but it allows you to create thicker objects for freehand drawing.

Dropper: Use the eyedropper tool to copy fill and stroke attributes from one shape or line and immediately apply them to another shape or line.

Eraser: Pretty self-explanatory really..

Lasso: This is used for selecting single or multiple objects in hard to reach places by allowing you to draw a line, which then becomes the selection.

Line: This tool does what the title suggests. It draws lines. Useful for drawing polygons and other weird shapes the Oval and Rectangle tools can’t deal with.

Pen Tool: Allows you to draw very precise lines vector lines and curves for filling

Magnifier: You will be able to zoom in on your stage and objects with this tool. Holding down the “Alt” key will change the pointer to a “minus” sign. This will enable you to zoom out.

Paint Bucket: This will fill objects with a colour of your choosing. Ink Bottle: This tool creates lines around objects. For example, after selecting the tool and clicking on a circle object it will create a circular line around it. This can then be turn into a separate object.

Pencil: This tool draws freehand lines. Some bright sparks at Macromedia have granted you the ability to straighten and smooth the ravages of your unsteady hand. Have a play with this by choosing Modify> Curves> …

Rectangle: Another useful tool and you guessed it! It draws squares. When you draw one it will create a border too if you have to border colour selected. Clicking on the border once and it will only highlight one side. A double click will highlight all four sides. Oval: A very useful tool, which allows the designer to create circles and ovals of any size. Remember: When you draw an oval, Flash creates a border around it if you have a border colour selected. So if you don’t want it there either turn the border colour off or click on the border of the object, this will highlight the border, and delete it. (These borders can be useful in your design)

Text: This tool allows the designer to create text or text fields. Fill Transform tool; Adjusts the direction and angle of a gradient or bitmap fill