You must critically assess the development and principles of editing with supporting arguments and elucidated examples, and consistently using subject terminology correctly. You must also apply editing preparation techniques to a technical quality that reflects near-professional standards, working independently to professional expectations.
Episode 1
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Episode 1:
Hello and welcome to my editing guide video series for young filmmakers. This series will explore the development and principles of editing and the basics of using Adobe Premiere Pro for video post-production and Adobe Audition for audio post-production. The following episodes will also cover an introduction to the conventions, techniques and styles of editing video and audio clips alongside special effects technology like Green Screens. The aim of this mini-series is to make students feel more confidently about film editing and creating professional productions.
In this episode I will be exploring, the development and history of audio and video editing, the roles of an editor and the analysis of editing styles. So let’s start out with a brief historical overview of editing and its development over the years. The growth in the expressiveness of the film medium from the simple film records of the Lumiere Brothers to the sophisticated continuities of the late twenties was the result of a corresponding development in the editing technique. Thomas Edison and William Dickinson first helped pioneer the use of celluloid film to create motion pictures with their innovative camera, the kinetograph in 1890, and the Lumiere Brothers soon invented the cinematographe - a three way machine that recorded, captured and projected a motion picture. Although, they made it so that all the footage had to be shot on one long roll, a continuous shot.
However, it all began in the basement of The Grand Cafe in Paris on December 28, 1895, when the Lumiere Brothers showcased their film: Workers leaving the Lumiere Factory in the basement of The Grand Cafe in Paris - it marvelled audiences in the theatre. In the years of film’s infancy, dancing shadows and the machines behind them were the main attraction. The content of the film was not so important - they were essentially animated photographs. Inspired by the Lumiere Brothers, George Méliès started to create his own films with his own camera, and in 1996, Méliès was shooting a bus coming out of a tunnel when his camera jammed in the middle of the take. However, by the time Méliès got the camera working again, the bus had left and was replaced by a hearse. When Méliès later developed the film he found something incredible: the bus turned into a hearse on screen; Méliès had created the first ever jump cut, and thus came the birth of continuity editing.
The 1900s saw movies with multiple scene debuts, cut with scissors and tape on editing tables. Films soon began to include colour, close-ups, jump cuts, wipe transitions and special effects. In the early 1900s, Edwin Porter began experimenting with editing by sticking different parts of films together to create films consisting of several shots, for example: The Great Train Robbery (1903) and Rescued by Rover (1904) used jump cuts, later known as analogue editing. Other pioneers of cinematic film editing like Georges Méliès started their own trends of editing. In 1916, filmmakers were introduced to Technicolour, with Toll of the Sea becoming the first general-release Technicolour film on November 26, 1922. This technology revolutionized the way colour was added to film. 1924, Moviola, the world’s first successful editing machine was invented by Iwan Serruier, and in 1934 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded its first Oscar for film editing to Conrad A. Nervig for Eskimo.
Now past the infancy of film editing, came the dawn of videotape, as the first AMPEX video tape recorder (VTR) was released in 1956, allowing television to be recorded and edited using magnetic tape, replacing earlier film-to-TV telecines. In 1958, AMPEX VTR 1000s were widely used, encouraging new editing methods for a magnetic medium with no visible frames alongside the CMX600 later in 1970. Traditional film editing had now started to evolve beyond early Steenbeck flatbed machines with new Intercine and KEM editing tables by 1960. The following year saw the launch of the EECO 900 electronic controller that used precise timecodes. The AMPEX Electronic Editor made it possible to edit film and videotape without physical slicing or cutting. The emergence of nonlinear editing came into practice with the first computerized nonlinear editor (NLE), the CMX 600, which introduced filmmakers to offline editing, requiring disk drives the size of washing machines. In 1984, Lucasfilm created the EditDroid, a computer workstation that used multiple analogue LaserDiscs to enable random-access editing. In the successive years from 1988 to 1991 EMC and Avid introduced the world to nonlinear film editing software, followed by Adobe Premiere, ushering in an era of professional digital editing suites. The 2000s saw the incorporation of Multicore CPUs in editing, to grant ordinary computers the resources to edit digital video at progressively higher resolutions. Today, digital movie camera, digital film distribution and projection, and digital editing software dominate the industry, and these softwares have also much more accessible to more people globally, allowing amateur filmmakers to partake in film editing and filmmaking.
Editing is powerful, and as an editor you have the ability to be a storyteller in your own right. A film essentially has three stories, the first is created by the screenwriter, the second by the director and the third one by the editor. Each of these stages of production have tremendous ramifications on how a film is shaped and structured. The editor’s vision materializes in the editing room during post-production. A good editor needs time, patience and practice. You must keep in mind film continuity and the bigger picture (pun-intended) - from the early stages of pre-production through to production and post-production - when it comes to choosing the right clips to tell the story. One of the most basic skills you must master as an editor is a proficient knowledge and understanding of varying camera angles, types, movements and shot sizes and how to use them in your storytelling. Always remember to cut thoughtfully, so if you use a jump cut or a fade transition, make sure that you’re not doing it just for the sake of doing it and that it has purpose and significance. Each shot, cut, movement, zoom or pan must add to the story in some way - you won’t have your audience’s attention forever, so make their and your time count; you may use a fade to connote the passing of time, or a quick succession of jump cuts to allude action, or a J-cut and shot-reverse-shots to create a seamless and continuous flow in dialogue between two characters. When picking out footage, select the most significant and consequential clips and combine them with a suitable range of shot angles and types to engage the audience in the different perspectives and action generated through your varying shots of the same subject. Another important tip is to regulate the pacing and continuity of your film, as a disruption in either could pull the audience out of the film and disengage them. Each shot should stay on screen long enough for the audience to understand, but short enough for them to still engage and be entertained by. Editing is something that can be very intuitive and the more you do it the more you can trust your professional emotions about cutting. So if a cut feels right to you and adds to the character development, plot or narrative, then you should follow your instincts, this will develop with time and practice. So let’s have a quick look at some examples of different pacing in editing. First we have a really fast-paced editing technique used most often in action, adventure, fantasy and comedy genres to indicate a quick passing of time or to show a lot of action taking place in a very short amount of time. A great example of this is this car chase sequence from Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver. Have a look at this clip and see if you can pick out how many jump cuts (also called match cuts in this case) take place here. [CLIP] Now let’s have a look at the same clip but this time with markers for every single cut. [CLIP] There are a total of 53 jump cuts in this one minute sequence, this creates an intensely immersive experience for the viewers as the action shots blend in with each other seamlessly. In contrast to this you can use slow-paced editing, which is more common in drama films, a good example of this type of editing is this clip from the film Her. A 60-second long sequence for this type of clip contains significantly less match cuts, which slows down the pace of the narrative and allows the audience to truly observe the emotions the characters develop in screen, alongside the actor, hence they become even more engaged within the scene and this evokes pathos with the audience. Therefore, as you can see, editing can have a huge impact on the pacing of a film and hence is compatible with the genre of the film. Another large aspect of editing is the sound, there are two main kinds of sound: diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic sound comes from a source on the screen, this means that any dialogue or sounds of movement like footsteps that have been filmed during the production stage are all diegetic, so the characters in that scene can also hear those voices. Non-diegetic sound, however, is added to a scene during post-production in editing, this could include any dramatic music or film soundtracks or musical scores that the characters cannot hear, but that which enhances the tone, mood and emotions in the scene for an audience.
So in the end editing really is all about how it makes you feel and how it will make your audience feel. While it does require a more in-depth knowledge of technical aspects of filmmaking, such as the camera types, movements, angles and movements, and sound, as an editor, you must take care to keep track of the bigger picture and the final product. Ultimately, editing is a combination of different elements that come together during this post-production stage to construct a film. In the next segment, you will be introduced to Premiere Pro and some basic skills on how to operate it and interact efficiently with the interface. Thank you for watching.
Hello and welcome to my editing guide video series for young filmmakers. This series will explore the development and principles of editing and the basics of using Adobe Premiere Pro for video post-production and Adobe Audition for audio post-production. The following episodes will also cover an introduction to the conventions, techniques and styles of editing video and audio clips alongside special effects technology like Green Screens. The aim of this mini-series is to make students feel more confidently about film editing and creating professional productions.
In this episode I will be exploring, the development and history of audio and video editing, the roles of an editor and the analysis of editing styles. So let’s start out with a brief historical overview of editing and its development over the years. The growth in the expressiveness of the film medium from the simple film records of the Lumiere Brothers to the sophisticated continuities of the late twenties was the result of a corresponding development in the editing technique. Thomas Edison and William Dickinson first helped pioneer the use of celluloid film to create motion pictures with their innovative camera, the kinetograph in 1890, and the Lumiere Brothers soon invented the cinematographe - a three way machine that recorded, captured and projected a motion picture. Although, they made it so that all the footage had to be shot on one long roll, a continuous shot.
However, it all began in the basement of The Grand Cafe in Paris on December 28, 1895, when the Lumiere Brothers showcased their film: Workers leaving the Lumiere Factory in the basement of The Grand Cafe in Paris - it marvelled audiences in the theatre. In the years of film’s infancy, dancing shadows and the machines behind them were the main attraction. The content of the film was not so important - they were essentially animated photographs. Inspired by the Lumiere Brothers, George Méliès started to create his own films with his own camera, and in 1996, Méliès was shooting a bus coming out of a tunnel when his camera jammed in the middle of the take. However, by the time Méliès got the camera working again, the bus had left and was replaced by a hearse. When Méliès later developed the film he found something incredible: the bus turned into a hearse on screen; Méliès had created the first ever jump cut, and thus came the birth of continuity editing.
The 1900s saw movies with multiple scene debuts, cut with scissors and tape on editing tables. Films soon began to include colour, close-ups, jump cuts, wipe transitions and special effects. In the early 1900s, Edwin Porter began experimenting with editing by sticking different parts of films together to create films consisting of several shots, for example: The Great Train Robbery (1903) and Rescued by Rover (1904) used jump cuts, later known as analogue editing. Other pioneers of cinematic film editing like Georges Méliès started their own trends of editing. In 1916, filmmakers were introduced to Technicolour, with Toll of the Sea becoming the first general-release Technicolour film on November 26, 1922. This technology revolutionized the way colour was added to film. 1924, Moviola, the world’s first successful editing machine was invented by Iwan Serruier, and in 1934 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded its first Oscar for film editing to Conrad A. Nervig for Eskimo.
Now past the infancy of film editing, came the dawn of videotape, as the first AMPEX video tape recorder (VTR) was released in 1956, allowing television to be recorded and edited using magnetic tape, replacing earlier film-to-TV telecines. In 1958, AMPEX VTR 1000s were widely used, encouraging new editing methods for a magnetic medium with no visible frames alongside the CMX600 later in 1970. Traditional film editing had now started to evolve beyond early Steenbeck flatbed machines with new Intercine and KEM editing tables by 1960. The following year saw the launch of the EECO 900 electronic controller that used precise timecodes. The AMPEX Electronic Editor made it possible to edit film and videotape without physical slicing or cutting. The emergence of nonlinear editing came into practice with the first computerized nonlinear editor (NLE), the CMX 600, which introduced filmmakers to offline editing, requiring disk drives the size of washing machines. In 1984, Lucasfilm created the EditDroid, a computer workstation that used multiple analogue LaserDiscs to enable random-access editing. In the successive years from 1988 to 1991 EMC and Avid introduced the world to nonlinear film editing software, followed by Adobe Premiere, ushering in an era of professional digital editing suites. The 2000s saw the incorporation of Multicore CPUs in editing, to grant ordinary computers the resources to edit digital video at progressively higher resolutions. Today, digital movie camera, digital film distribution and projection, and digital editing software dominate the industry, and these softwares have also much more accessible to more people globally, allowing amateur filmmakers to partake in film editing and filmmaking.
Editing is powerful, and as an editor you have the ability to be a storyteller in your own right. A film essentially has three stories, the first is created by the screenwriter, the second by the director and the third one by the editor. Each of these stages of production have tremendous ramifications on how a film is shaped and structured. The editor’s vision materializes in the editing room during post-production. A good editor needs time, patience and practice. You must keep in mind film continuity and the bigger picture (pun-intended) - from the early stages of pre-production through to production and post-production - when it comes to choosing the right clips to tell the story. One of the most basic skills you must master as an editor is a proficient knowledge and understanding of varying camera angles, types, movements and shot sizes and how to use them in your storytelling. Always remember to cut thoughtfully, so if you use a jump cut or a fade transition, make sure that you’re not doing it just for the sake of doing it and that it has purpose and significance. Each shot, cut, movement, zoom or pan must add to the story in some way - you won’t have your audience’s attention forever, so make their and your time count; you may use a fade to connote the passing of time, or a quick succession of jump cuts to allude action, or a J-cut and shot-reverse-shots to create a seamless and continuous flow in dialogue between two characters. When picking out footage, select the most significant and consequential clips and combine them with a suitable range of shot angles and types to engage the audience in the different perspectives and action generated through your varying shots of the same subject. Another important tip is to regulate the pacing and continuity of your film, as a disruption in either could pull the audience out of the film and disengage them. Each shot should stay on screen long enough for the audience to understand, but short enough for them to still engage and be entertained by. Editing is something that can be very intuitive and the more you do it the more you can trust your professional emotions about cutting. So if a cut feels right to you and adds to the character development, plot or narrative, then you should follow your instincts, this will develop with time and practice. So let’s have a quick look at some examples of different pacing in editing. First we have a really fast-paced editing technique used most often in action, adventure, fantasy and comedy genres to indicate a quick passing of time or to show a lot of action taking place in a very short amount of time. A great example of this is this car chase sequence from Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver. Have a look at this clip and see if you can pick out how many jump cuts (also called match cuts in this case) take place here. [CLIP] Now let’s have a look at the same clip but this time with markers for every single cut. [CLIP] There are a total of 53 jump cuts in this one minute sequence, this creates an intensely immersive experience for the viewers as the action shots blend in with each other seamlessly. In contrast to this you can use slow-paced editing, which is more common in drama films, a good example of this type of editing is this clip from the film Her. A 60-second long sequence for this type of clip contains significantly less match cuts, which slows down the pace of the narrative and allows the audience to truly observe the emotions the characters develop in screen, alongside the actor, hence they become even more engaged within the scene and this evokes pathos with the audience. Therefore, as you can see, editing can have a huge impact on the pacing of a film and hence is compatible with the genre of the film. Another large aspect of editing is the sound, there are two main kinds of sound: diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic sound comes from a source on the screen, this means that any dialogue or sounds of movement like footsteps that have been filmed during the production stage are all diegetic, so the characters in that scene can also hear those voices. Non-diegetic sound, however, is added to a scene during post-production in editing, this could include any dramatic music or film soundtracks or musical scores that the characters cannot hear, but that which enhances the tone, mood and emotions in the scene for an audience.
So in the end editing really is all about how it makes you feel and how it will make your audience feel. While it does require a more in-depth knowledge of technical aspects of filmmaking, such as the camera types, movements, angles and movements, and sound, as an editor, you must take care to keep track of the bigger picture and the final product. Ultimately, editing is a combination of different elements that come together during this post-production stage to construct a film. In the next segment, you will be introduced to Premiere Pro and some basic skills on how to operate it and interact efficiently with the interface. Thank you for watching.
Episode 2
Episode 2: (script revised during filming)
- Welcome back to the second episode in my video editing for beginner series.
- In today’s episode, I will be introducing you to the basic interface of Adobe Premiere Pro and showing you some basic skills about operating the software.
- This video is going to cover the following:
- File name and saving protocol
- Importing clips
- Creating and managing your timeline
- Folder management
- FILE NAMING & SAVING PROTOCOL
- Even before you open the adobe editing program, you must make sure that you have organized all you RAW FOOTAGE and any audio you need, for example, background music/voiceovers, etc.
- this will not only make it easier for you to find your clips more easily, but it will also make your timeline and storage bins look clean, allowing you to access your media quickly.
- also an important tip: always back up your work. So in this case, you would have to make sure to store another copy of your raw clips and audio on another backup hard-disk, USB or desktop computer. So just in case, you lose all your data on one device, you have a copy on another, you won’t lose all your hard work this way. Anyways, moving on onto opening a file on Premiere.
- Once you have sorted through all your clips and audio files, you are ready to start editing.
- Open premiere pro on your computer. And you should be faced with this on your screen. I am going to open a NEW PROJECT by clicking here. Premiere Pro will ask you to name your project, so I’m going to name mine “VIDEO EDITING EPISODE 2’, and save it onto my desktop. You can obviously name yours whatever you’d like.
- Now you are going to IMPORT your files into the program. Now, there are a couple of different ways for you to do this:
- You can drag and drop your files in the media browser here in the bottom left corner.
- You can go to edit>import>and then select the files you want to import.
- Or you can press Ctrl+I if you are using a PC, and Cmd+I if you are using a Mac. SO since I have a MacBook, I will be pressing Cmd + I —> this is my preferred method of importing files, but you can do it whichever way feels most comfortable to you.
- So now having imported all my files, you can see that my media browser looks like untidy and slightly confusing. So I am going to organize my files into folders or as its called in Premiere Pro: “BINS”. So I am going to create NEW BIN by right-clicking here in the media browser and selecting “NEW BIN”. And here you have it: your new bin, you can name it whatever you’d like. I like to organize my files according to their formats: so I’ll have a “RAW FOOTAGE” bin, an “AUDIO” bin. And once I have divided all my media into video or audio, I can go in now and further organize the clips into more detailed categories such as: “DAY 1” of the shooting for my film project.
- After having organized all your clips, you can begin editing your video. To start editing I am going to drag my chosen clip into my timeline here and now I can do whatever I want with this clip without affecting the original.
- You will be able to see your clip in this window here. And if you look just under this window you can see the play button and these arrows. The arrows with a bar attached will take you the absolute start or end of your video on the timeline. These arrows, on the other hand, will allow you to move forward or back frame by frame, which can be very helpful if you’re trying to find a specific mark to cut your clip or apply an effect.
- Beside your timeline you will see a small sidebar that holds multiple tools. So let’s go over them. These tools are designed to speed up your editing process.
- First up you have the selection tool that is pretty much your mouse, that you use to select things, pick them up, drag them, change values. And a shortcut to selecting this tool is to press ‘V’. You can remember this by imagining the ‘V” as a mouse pointer.
- Next is the razor tool that you can take a shortcut to by pressing ‘C’ - I like to remember this by “cutting”.
- The razor tool allows you to make clean cuts on your clips and you can zoom into your timeline to make sure that your jump cuts are frame-accurate.
- You can also scrub your clip by placing your cursor on the ends of your clip and dragging the sequence up to where you’d like to.
- After you’ve finished editing and you’d like to save the project you go to FILE>SAVE.
- If you want to export your project as a video file then you can go to FILE>EXPORT>MEDIA. You can also use the shortcut Ctrl+M on PC and Cmd+M on Mac.
- When you do this, you will see this window open.
- Select the format H.264 for the highest quality video. This should automatically change the Preset to Match Source - High Bitrate, if not then you can make this selection manually by simply clicking on the Preset drop-down menu and making your selection.
- Below this, you should check the box for “USE MAXIMUM RENDER QUALITY’. If you scroll down on this section of the window here until you find ‘RENDER AT MAXIMUM DEPTH’ for a high-quality video.
- Below the “COMMENTS’ section, you can change the “OUTPUT NAME” to whatever you like by clicking on the blue text and choosing where you want to save your video file.
- Make sure that “EXPORT VIDEO” & “EXPORT AUDIO” are both checked.
- Once you’ve taken all these steps, you press “EXPORT”, and there you have it - your MP4 video will export and this may take a while depending on how big your project is. A helpful tip when editing on a schedule or with deadlines, always factor in time for the video rendering, because sometimes your ten-minute video can take up to an hour to render if you have a lot of content in it - and I speak from experience. So just keep the render time in mind when editing a project with a strict deadline.
- So that is all for this episode, in the next one, I will be introducing you to the basic terminology of the system, and discussing various editing styles.
Episode 3
Episode 3:
Hello and welcome to the third episode of my video editing for beginners series. Today I will be going over the varying and essential terminology and language, conventions, techniques and styles of editing. This episode will focus on the terms given to the essential tools and elements of Adobe Premiere Pro. Most of the following definitions have been derived from the Adobe glossary of terminology, and the link to that is in the description box below, so you check that out if you’d like.
So that is some of the basic, essential terminology for young filmmakers editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. In the following episode I shall introduce you to the basic auditory elements of Adobe Premiere Pro and Audition.
Hello and welcome to the third episode of my video editing for beginners series. Today I will be going over the varying and essential terminology and language, conventions, techniques and styles of editing. This episode will focus on the terms given to the essential tools and elements of Adobe Premiere Pro. Most of the following definitions have been derived from the Adobe glossary of terminology, and the link to that is in the description box below, so you check that out if you’d like.
- Aspect ratio is the ratio of an image’s width to its height. For example, a standard video display has an aspect ratio of 4:3. Most motion pictures use the more elongated aspect ratio of 16:9.
- The Capture is the process of transferring source video from a camcorder or tape deck to a computer. If the source video is analogue, the capture process converts the video to digital.
- Chroma key is a video effect that removes an area of specific colour. It is often used during newscasts to insert a weather map behind a meteorologist.
- A Codec, short for compressor/decompressor, is a device or program that uses algorithms to compress video and sound files, making them easier to work with and store, and to decompress files for playback. Common codecs convert analogue video signals to compressed digital video files (for example, MPEG) or analogue sound signals to digital sound files (for example, RealAudio®).
- Colour correction is the process of altering the colour of video, especially if it was shot under less than ideal conditions, such as low light.
- Compression is the process of reducing data, such as in an audio or video file, into a form that requires less space.
- A Dissolve cut (cross dissolve/film dissolve) is a fade from one clip to another.
- A Fade (to black or white/out) is a transition effect, which can often be used to represent the passing of time.
- A Wipe is a type of film transition where one shot replaces another by travelling from one side of the frame to another or with a special shape.
- A J-Cut is an edit in which the audio starts before the video, giving the video a dramatic introduction. Also known as an audio lead.
- An L-Cut is an edit in which the video starts before the audio, giving the audio a dramatic introduction. Also known as a video lead. In the L-Cut, the audio carries over from the previous scene into the following one, despite visual changes.
- Jump cut is an edit in which the scene abruptly cuts from one shot to another, this may be used to create a lack of film continuity as it leaves out parts of the action in the scene.
- Match cut is a cut from one shot to another where the two shots are matched by the action or subject and subject matter. For example, in a fight scene, a shot can go from a long shot on both fighters via a cut to a medium close-up shot of one of the fighters.
- The Final cut is the final video production, assembled from high-quality clips, and ready for export to the selected delivery media.
- The Rough cut is a preliminary version of a video production, often assembled from lower quality clips than those used for the final cut.
- Continuity editing is the process, in film and video creation, of combining more-or-less related shots, or different components cut from a single shot, into a sequence to direct the viewer's attention to a pre-existing consistency of story across both time and physical location.
- Crosscutting is an editing technique most often used in films to establish action occurring at the same time, and usually in the same place. In a crosscut, the camera will cut away from one action to another action, which can suggest the simultaneity of these two actions but this is not always the case.
- Letterboxing is a technique used to preserve the original aspect ratio of a motion picture when played on a TV. Letterboxing adds black bars to the top and bottom of the screen.
- Matte/mask is the transparent area of an image, typically defined by a graphic shape or a blue-screen background. Also called a mask.
- Preview files store information about tracks and effects in a project. Preview files are created during the rendering process and stored on the hard drive. They save time during the final export of a movie because the video edition application can use the information in the preview files rather than render clips again.
- Transforming is the process of changing the position of objects (for example, text or graphics) by moving, rotating, aligning, or distributing them.
- The Establishing shot sets up, or establishes the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects.
- Eye-line match is a film editing technique associated with the continuity editing system. It is based on the premise that an audience will want to see what the character on-screen is seeing.
- An Iris shot is a technique frequently used in silent film in which a black circle closes to end a scene. An iris-out is used at the end of a scene, and an iris in is used at the start of a scene, often after a previous iris out.
- Montage is a film editing technique in which a series of short shots are sequenced to condense space, time, and information. The term has been used in various contexts. In French the word "montage" applied to cinema simply denotes editing.
- The Sequence shot is a long take that constitutes an entire scene. Such a shot may involve sophisticated camera movement. It is sometimes called by its French term plan-sequence. The use of the sequence shot allows for realistic or dramatically significant background and middle ground activity.
- The shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.
So that is some of the basic, essential terminology for young filmmakers editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. In the following episode I shall introduce you to the basic auditory elements of Adobe Premiere Pro and Audition.
Episode 4
Episode 4:
Welcome back to my editing guide for beginner series. Today’s episode will cover audio manipulation, soundtracks, voiceovers and sound bites in Adobe Audition and Premiere. First I’m going to start with an introduction to removing unwanted background static and noise from voice overs using Adobe Audition.
When you first open audition, you will see this workspace on your screen. Adobe Audition will allow you to edit music and voice overs seamlessly. Now I will import my RAW audio clip that I want to edit. In order to import your files you can either drag and drop them, or go to FILE>IMPORT>FILE, or you can just use CMD+I on a Mac or CTRL+I on a PC. Once you have you have imported your clips, drag them into the timeline. There are two ways you can edit your audio clip: you can either edit in the Multitrack view, or in the Waveform view. These two are different editing workspaces. The Multitrack is the workspace of choice for video post-production, podcast and radio show creation and musical compositions as it allows you to layer your audio as you edit and it is also a non-destructive workspace, which means that whatever editing you do in the Multitrack workspace, is not going to affect your original RAW audio clips. The Waveform view on the other hand is a destructive waveform editing workspace capable of in-depth analysis and sample accurate selections and processing. Since the Waveform is a destructive workspace, any changes - like effects, cuts of other changes you make to the clip during editing will also be applied to the original audio file. Although you can go undo any changes by pressing CMD+Z on a Mac or CTRL+Z on your PC. For this tutorial I will edit my clip in the Waveform workspace. So after importing my clip into Audition I am going to get rid of this white noise in the background. In order to do this I will make a selection from my clip of the just the white noise. Next I’ll go up here to EFFECTS>NOISE REDUCTION / RESTORATION> CAPTURE NOISE PRINT. Now what I just did is I’ve captured the noise print of the white noise and Audition will recognise the frequency of this sound. Now I’ll go back to EFFECTS>NOISE REDUCTION / RESTORATION> and this time I’ll select NOISE REDUCTION (PROCESS). And here you will be faced with this window here. Below the graph here, you will be able to see this NOISE REDUCTION slider that you can use to adjust your audio settings. I’m going to bump up my noise reduction all the way to 100. And you can really hear the difference. So this is the before [play] and the after [play]. Now this effect has only applied to the selection I have made in your clip. To apply this to the rest of the clip, I will press SELECT ENTIRE FILE. This applies it to the rest of your audio. So now let's compare the before and after again. And now I have removed all the white noise from my voiceover. So this whole process is pretty simple and a great way to clean your audio. Keep in mind that all these changes are permanent to your RAW audio clip once you have closed Audition after editing.
Now, moving on to Premiere Pro, you have the ability to layer your audio alongside your video. Much like in Audition, you can zoom in to get a better look at the sound waves, when deciding where to make a cut, for example if you want to sync the beats of your musical soundtrack to your video clips, you can zoom in to make sure the rhythm of the song matches the cuts or music. As I’ve talked about in previous episodes, you can use the razor tool to make cuts for both video and audio. Premiere gives you the ability to layer your audio and this is great for when you need to layer a song over a voiceover, for example, I placed music over some dialogue in my opening sequence for my television series ‘Marked’ (I will leave a link to that video in the description below so that you can go check that out). I adjusted the volume of the music by right-clicking the audio clip and pressing AUDIO GAIN. You can also use a shortcut to this by pressing G – G for Gain. If you want to fade music in or out during your video, all you have to do is use the razor tool to cut the audio short where needed and delete it by pressing the backspace or delete key on your keyboard. I used this technique in my video here, as I fade the music out and then another song in. I like to change the label of my audio clips so that I can differentiate between them. This is an organizational technique that it very quick, easy and useful. So all you have to do is right click you clip, go to LABELS and choose your colour, and this will just keep you timeline colour coordinated, however this is entirely optional. The more you edit, the more you will be able to customize your workspace and how you organise your work. So going back to layering audio: in order to sync up the music with your video, you must place the dialogue above the musical score and zoom in closely to make sure that the beats matches the placement of your dialogue, voiceover or video clip. Finally, I’ll leave you with an example of effective sound design and editing: the following extract is the opening sequence from my television series ‘Marked’.
Thank you for watching, and I’ll see you in the next and final episode where I will introduce you to green screening and background, text and effects manipulation. If you liked the video please leave and like and subscribe to the channel. Thanks for watching.
Welcome back to my editing guide for beginner series. Today’s episode will cover audio manipulation, soundtracks, voiceovers and sound bites in Adobe Audition and Premiere. First I’m going to start with an introduction to removing unwanted background static and noise from voice overs using Adobe Audition.
When you first open audition, you will see this workspace on your screen. Adobe Audition will allow you to edit music and voice overs seamlessly. Now I will import my RAW audio clip that I want to edit. In order to import your files you can either drag and drop them, or go to FILE>IMPORT>FILE, or you can just use CMD+I on a Mac or CTRL+I on a PC. Once you have you have imported your clips, drag them into the timeline. There are two ways you can edit your audio clip: you can either edit in the Multitrack view, or in the Waveform view. These two are different editing workspaces. The Multitrack is the workspace of choice for video post-production, podcast and radio show creation and musical compositions as it allows you to layer your audio as you edit and it is also a non-destructive workspace, which means that whatever editing you do in the Multitrack workspace, is not going to affect your original RAW audio clips. The Waveform view on the other hand is a destructive waveform editing workspace capable of in-depth analysis and sample accurate selections and processing. Since the Waveform is a destructive workspace, any changes - like effects, cuts of other changes you make to the clip during editing will also be applied to the original audio file. Although you can go undo any changes by pressing CMD+Z on a Mac or CTRL+Z on your PC. For this tutorial I will edit my clip in the Waveform workspace. So after importing my clip into Audition I am going to get rid of this white noise in the background. In order to do this I will make a selection from my clip of the just the white noise. Next I’ll go up here to EFFECTS>NOISE REDUCTION / RESTORATION> CAPTURE NOISE PRINT. Now what I just did is I’ve captured the noise print of the white noise and Audition will recognise the frequency of this sound. Now I’ll go back to EFFECTS>NOISE REDUCTION / RESTORATION> and this time I’ll select NOISE REDUCTION (PROCESS). And here you will be faced with this window here. Below the graph here, you will be able to see this NOISE REDUCTION slider that you can use to adjust your audio settings. I’m going to bump up my noise reduction all the way to 100. And you can really hear the difference. So this is the before [play] and the after [play]. Now this effect has only applied to the selection I have made in your clip. To apply this to the rest of the clip, I will press SELECT ENTIRE FILE. This applies it to the rest of your audio. So now let's compare the before and after again. And now I have removed all the white noise from my voiceover. So this whole process is pretty simple and a great way to clean your audio. Keep in mind that all these changes are permanent to your RAW audio clip once you have closed Audition after editing.
Now, moving on to Premiere Pro, you have the ability to layer your audio alongside your video. Much like in Audition, you can zoom in to get a better look at the sound waves, when deciding where to make a cut, for example if you want to sync the beats of your musical soundtrack to your video clips, you can zoom in to make sure the rhythm of the song matches the cuts or music. As I’ve talked about in previous episodes, you can use the razor tool to make cuts for both video and audio. Premiere gives you the ability to layer your audio and this is great for when you need to layer a song over a voiceover, for example, I placed music over some dialogue in my opening sequence for my television series ‘Marked’ (I will leave a link to that video in the description below so that you can go check that out). I adjusted the volume of the music by right-clicking the audio clip and pressing AUDIO GAIN. You can also use a shortcut to this by pressing G – G for Gain. If you want to fade music in or out during your video, all you have to do is use the razor tool to cut the audio short where needed and delete it by pressing the backspace or delete key on your keyboard. I used this technique in my video here, as I fade the music out and then another song in. I like to change the label of my audio clips so that I can differentiate between them. This is an organizational technique that it very quick, easy and useful. So all you have to do is right click you clip, go to LABELS and choose your colour, and this will just keep you timeline colour coordinated, however this is entirely optional. The more you edit, the more you will be able to customize your workspace and how you organise your work. So going back to layering audio: in order to sync up the music with your video, you must place the dialogue above the musical score and zoom in closely to make sure that the beats matches the placement of your dialogue, voiceover or video clip. Finally, I’ll leave you with an example of effective sound design and editing: the following extract is the opening sequence from my television series ‘Marked’.
Thank you for watching, and I’ll see you in the next and final episode where I will introduce you to green screening and background, text and effects manipulation. If you liked the video please leave and like and subscribe to the channel. Thanks for watching.
Episode 5
Episode 5:
Hello and welcome to the 5th and final episode of my editing guide for beginners. In this episode I will cover green screens, and background, text and effects manipulation. Let’s get started.
First up: green screening. So I’m going to assume that most of you watching will know what a green or blue green is. There is virtually no difference between a blue or green screen. These specific colours are used as people stand out more prominently against them. If the person in front the screen is wearing something blue, then you would use a bright green screen, so as to create a contrast.
So in order to apply a green screen effect, you will need to import your clip onto your timeline that you’ve filmed in front of a green screen. Next, go to this side panel under the EFFECTS workspace, and then go to VIDEO EFFECTS>KEYING>ULTRA KEY. Drag and drop ULTRA KEY onto your chosen video clip. This will apply the effect. Then go to the EFFECTS CONTROLS panel on the top right hand side and scroll down till you find the ULTRA KEY effect. Here you should see an eyedropper icon. Click on it and pick the green colour of the green screen. Having done so, you background should disappear. Now as you can see, this whole setup looks a little bit untidy, so I’m going to clean this up by mainly using the MATTE GENERATION & MATTE CLEANUP settings, adjusting the transparency, pedestal, shadows and highlights, tolerance, and the contrast, softness of the edges of your subject and so on. I won’t go into too much detail with these customisations in this episode, however you can experiment with them to further develop your understanding on the effect. You can make your image sharper, lighter or darker or more transparent to clean up your video, this will help make your video look more professional and realistic.
Now onto the more exciting part: changing the background. You can put up virtually anything behind your subject; this is where you get to be creative, you could uses videos or images; you can also download visual effects from YouTube. Just make sure that your background is placed below the green screen video clip. A useful tip is to adjust your green screen settings after inserting your chosen background, as it allows you to see any inconsistencies more clearly, and it helps you produce a cleaner green screen effect.
When it comes to effects regarding text and other graphics, there is a very wide range of things you can do ranging from typography to font colour and animation. So I will simply introduce you to the essential and basics of text and effects manipulation. You can adjust the settings of your text by changing your workspace to TITLES and go to EFFECTS, and here you can customise your text in TITLE STYLES, TITLE PROPERTIES, TITLE TOOLS & TITLE ACTIONS. In order to create a text box or write text all you have to do is press CMD+T on a Mac or CTRL+T on a PC. And simply start typing your text.
So that is it for this episode and this editing guide series. I hope that you gained something useful from this series. If you like the video please leave a like and don’t forget to subscribe down below. Thank you for watching.
Hello and welcome to the 5th and final episode of my editing guide for beginners. In this episode I will cover green screens, and background, text and effects manipulation. Let’s get started.
First up: green screening. So I’m going to assume that most of you watching will know what a green or blue green is. There is virtually no difference between a blue or green screen. These specific colours are used as people stand out more prominently against them. If the person in front the screen is wearing something blue, then you would use a bright green screen, so as to create a contrast.
So in order to apply a green screen effect, you will need to import your clip onto your timeline that you’ve filmed in front of a green screen. Next, go to this side panel under the EFFECTS workspace, and then go to VIDEO EFFECTS>KEYING>ULTRA KEY. Drag and drop ULTRA KEY onto your chosen video clip. This will apply the effect. Then go to the EFFECTS CONTROLS panel on the top right hand side and scroll down till you find the ULTRA KEY effect. Here you should see an eyedropper icon. Click on it and pick the green colour of the green screen. Having done so, you background should disappear. Now as you can see, this whole setup looks a little bit untidy, so I’m going to clean this up by mainly using the MATTE GENERATION & MATTE CLEANUP settings, adjusting the transparency, pedestal, shadows and highlights, tolerance, and the contrast, softness of the edges of your subject and so on. I won’t go into too much detail with these customisations in this episode, however you can experiment with them to further develop your understanding on the effect. You can make your image sharper, lighter or darker or more transparent to clean up your video, this will help make your video look more professional and realistic.
Now onto the more exciting part: changing the background. You can put up virtually anything behind your subject; this is where you get to be creative, you could uses videos or images; you can also download visual effects from YouTube. Just make sure that your background is placed below the green screen video clip. A useful tip is to adjust your green screen settings after inserting your chosen background, as it allows you to see any inconsistencies more clearly, and it helps you produce a cleaner green screen effect.
When it comes to effects regarding text and other graphics, there is a very wide range of things you can do ranging from typography to font colour and animation. So I will simply introduce you to the essential and basics of text and effects manipulation. You can adjust the settings of your text by changing your workspace to TITLES and go to EFFECTS, and here you can customise your text in TITLE STYLES, TITLE PROPERTIES, TITLE TOOLS & TITLE ACTIONS. In order to create a text box or write text all you have to do is press CMD+T on a Mac or CTRL+T on a PC. And simply start typing your text.
So that is it for this episode and this editing guide series. I hope that you gained something useful from this series. If you like the video please leave a like and don’t forget to subscribe down below. Thank you for watching.