Adobe Premiere CC
Introduction
BEST PRACTICE: Always.... Always... Always begin by creating a Project Folder and storing it in your portable drive. Be cautious about leaving any of your files on a lab computer as they are not protected and could be deleted mistakenly by other students. It's crucial that you store your work, including your project files, media files and any other file that is relevant to your project, inside a project folder, essentially keeping everything under one roof.
File > New Folder - then name the folder. It's imperative that you name your project folder and your project files so you don't waste time trying to find them.
BEST PRACTICE: Name the Project Folder after an individual project rather than a single folder keeping multiple projects. Again, it will save you time to find what you're looking for if each folder were a separate and distinct project.
Copy your footage directly into the Project Folder
This is another crucial step to keeping everything together. Once you start importing footage into your Premiere project, get into the habit of importing the footage from your Project Folder. Never import media from outside your folder as you risk losing that media. Always copy the media first to your project folder before you import it into your project. It's that simple.
Open Adobe Premiere
On the computer, click on the Premiere Pro icon. From the dialogue window, click New Project (if you have an existing project you can click Open Project).
Once you click on New Project, a new dialogue box opens asking you to Name your project and to save it to a specific Location, which should always be your Project Folder. In the example below, the name of the Premiere project is CubeSat Project and the project file is being saved in a folder called CubeSats. Keep the names simple or as specific as you want it.
You don't need to make any other changes within the New Project window. After you name your project and save it to a location, click OK.
The Adobe Premiere Interface will open.
Just one more thing that will prove helpful. Set the Media Cache to your Project Folder, which should help you avoid always having to render media when you transfer from one computer to the next.
Premiere Pro CC > Preferences > Media and then under Media Cache Files, browse to select your Project Folder as the location to save your cache files. Do the same for the Media Cache Database. Otherwise, the cache files will automatically save to a default folder on the computer.
The Interface
Let's look at the major sections of the Adobe Premiere interface, or workspace area. There are four quadrants, clockwise from the top left:
- Source Monitor Panel - use this panel to preview clips, add markers and effects
- Program Monitor Panel - use this panel to view your edits
- Timeline - use this panel to assemble your clips into sequences
- Project Panel - use this panel to store your clips and also to apply effects
The description above is quite basic. You'll also find yourself using
- Audio Meter - located to the right of the Timeline
- Tool Palette - typically found between the Timeline and the Project Panel
The workspace configuration can be changed for various needs, from basic editing to effects to colour correcting. You'll find these configurations at the top of the interface - just click on the one you want. You can also click on the following:
Window > Workspaces
...and then select from among the options. However, you'll most often end up using simply the Editing configuration to do basic edits.
Importing footage from SD cards
Hopefully, you already copied the media from your SD card into the project folder. It's always more efficient, and prevents clutter, if you save your media clips into a folder within your Project Folder. Name the folder something as simple as Media Clips. When you go to import the clips into your project, just select the folder containing your media clips (instead of selecting all of the individual media clips).
The contents of your Project Folder would look something like this:
NOTE: Media typically refers to your video clips, but you can also import other forms of media, such as Still Images and even Audio clips (from recorded narration tracks or even music). You can create separate folders for these files as well. Remember, keep all of the media relevant to your project under "one roof" so-to-speak. With additional folders to store your media, the Project Folder contents might look like this:
Import the clips
File > Import and then select the folder containing your clips.
Another way to import clips is to right-click within the Project Panel and select Import.
Or you can double-click within an empty space of the Project Panel - the Import window will open and you can then select the folder containing the media you wish to import.
NOTE: Don't make the mistake of importing your entire Project Folder because it contains other files, such as your Premiere project file, that will not import and even leave you with error messages.
Once you import the media, the Project Panel will start to look like this:
Not at all cluttered! To open a folder and view its contents, simply double-click it. The folder will open a new, floating window to show the contents. If you want to avoid a floating window then hold the Command key down when you double-click the folder.
