2011 July | Post Tips-blog of Clay Asbury

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10 Things wish I knew the first time I opened Premiere Pro

Posted by Clay Asbury on Jul 19, 2011 in Premiere | 0 comments

I wrote a version of this for FCP 7 last year in 2 parts that is on the La FCP Users Group site.

(http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_10things_asbury.html)

http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_10_more_things_asbury.html

I also have a related article here on Premiere Pro. http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue67/EditSecret.html

AS FCP 7 is EOL and I am working mainly with Premiere Pro and Avid these days, I decided it was time for an update.

Set your Project Location & Scratch Disk when you create a new Project.

By Default your Project and Media (Scratch Disk) are being saved to user/documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro. I save my media/projects to a Media Folder on my media drive. I put my Premiere Auto-Saves on my boot drive and back up the projects to Dropbox (free online storage of 2 GB) daily. You could also save your Projects to a separate location. Whatever you choose, back up your Projects. If you forget or need to change your scratch after launching the project, go to Project>Project Settings>Scratch Disk. Side Note – there is a great free piece of software that will help you with organization called Post Haste. http://conigs.com/posthaste/

2. Create your own Workspaces.

Create your own Workspace to work more efficiently. I suggest starting with the Workspaces that ship with Premiere Pro, and modifying those as needed.

3. Create your own Shortcuts, Be Fast & Focus on Editing and Not the Software.

I create custom shortcuts based on the FCP Keyboard Layout (Premiere Pro>Keyboard>Shortcuts). If your coming from AVID, start with the Media Composer Layout.

Watch this video on moving your shortcut settings around. (should be easier than this). http://tv.adobe.com/watch/switching-to-adobe-premiere-pro-cs5/shortcut-keys/

Related to #2, I make “New Workspace” Control + N to add a new workspace as needed.

4. X- Marks in & Out (think X marks the spot), This also shows you the length of the marked clip. (you’ll need to map this shortcut) Option + X clears the In & Out. If you have multiple tracks, you need to target the top track and untarget the bottom track.

5. Audio tracks are either Mono, Stereo, or Surround.

You Can’t drop a Mono clip on a Stereo or Surround Clip. This is a little odd if you are coming from other editing apps. You can set this when you create a new project (2nd dialogue box “New Sequence”)

To change tracks in an opened project, right click on the track and choose “add tracks”, and add the appropriate track type (plus you can delete and rename tracks here.) Their is also a Menu command (Sequences>Add/Delete Tracks.

6. Maximize window shortcut. Works instant Zoom In/Out

If you use AE you probably know this one. Put your cursor over the window you want to maximize and press tilde (below the escape key). Press it again and it reverts back. I use this constantly. (Shift + ~ will maximize the Panel that is selected, not where the cursor is)

7. Render Entire Work Area & Effects in Work Area.

The work area defines what clips/effects are rendered. Below are the FCP Shortcuts.

Render Entire Work Area – Command + R

Render Effects – Option + R

8. Show Audio Time Units when making an Audio Edit.

Helpful when looking at video frames don’t cut it. You can do this in the Source or Program Monitor. Go to the the pulldown menu and select “Show Audio Time Units”.

You can read more on this here.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS095FFA27-635F-4e73-B2F4-C22394290F8C.html

9 & 10. Using the Replace Edit w Match Frame to make visuals line up with sounds.

Say I have edited some video clips to a music track, but now I want to retime the edit (ex. I want to the sun to start rising on a specific sfx). With your CTI over the video clip in the sequence, press M (adobe shortcuts) or F (FCP Shortcuts) to Match Frame. This loads the clip in the Source window. In the Source window put your CTI on the video where you want the edit to start. (replace edit will ignore in and out in Source). In the Timeline put your CTI where you want the edit to happen.In the Timeline right click on the video clip and select “Replace with Clip>From Source Monitor , Match Frame. I map Control + R to Replace Edit as I do this a lot.

You can watch a video tutorial here.