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Three-point Editing

We are now ready to begin Three-point Editing, a fundamental technique for efficiently selecting and placing Shots into a Sequence. By mastering Three-point Editing, editors can work with precision, streamline their workflow and improve the coherence of their storytelling.

Video Transcript:

Let’s make our first Three-point Edit.

In the Editing Exercises Premiere project I return to the original footage in the Editing Demo Craft Making Media Bin to identify the next Shot that I can use to move the story forward. 

  1. I double-click on Clip 5375 to open it in the Source monitor. 
  2. I familiarize myself with its content by using the Timebar to scroll through it. 

This Clip is an Over the Shoulder (OTS) view of Mr. Poole, featuring three distinct Shot Types. It begins with a Close Shot (CS) of him turning and folding the pages of the phone book. The cameraperson holds the Shot until Mr. Poole completes an action, then adjusts the framing to a Medium Close Shot (MCS) and holds again until the action is complete. The cameraperson reframes once more, refocusing on a Close Up (CU) of the folding action. There is a repetition and rhythm to Mr. Poole’s action that will be helpful for my editing. 

Currently, the only Shot in our Sequence is a Medium Full Shot (MFS) of Mr. Poole seated at the table. 

  1. I click-and-drag in the Timebar to position the blue Playhead line at the beginning of the Sequence. 
  2. I press Play, the L key, and watch the Shot. I notice that it ends after Mr. Poole folds a page and then moves his hand to the right.
  3. I return to the Source monitor and Clip 5375 looking for opportunities to match the movement of Mr. Poole’s right hand and continue with the next action of turning the page. I scroll through the Shot and see many opportunities to match this action. I decide to try and draw the viewer in by using the Close Up (CU) Shot at about 31 seconds.
  4. Using the JKL keys, I’m looking to cut on the action of him beginning to turn the page. For me, this is at Timecode 00:00:31:22, as indicated by the blue Timecode numbers in the lower left of the Source monitor. You’ll recall that these numbers represent the hours, minutes, seconds and frames associated with each frame.
  5. I press the I key to mark an In-point, which is highlighted on the Timebar in the Source monitor. 
  6. Next, I use the JKL keys to figure out when the Shot should end. I decide to cut after Mr. Poole finishes folding the page and is about to turn the page again, at 00:00:39:02. 
  7. I mark an Out-point with the O key.
  8. If I want to preview the selection before editing it into the Sequence, I use the Play-from-In-to-Out command by holding down Control and Shift while pressing the Spacebar. On a Mac hold down Option and press K.  

This is a good time to learn a few additional keyboard commands that will enhance your editing efficiency. For instance, ‘Shift-I’ is ‘Go-to-In’, and ‘Shift-O’ is ‘Go-to-Out’. For commands like this, use your thumb to press the Shift key on the right side of the keyboard. This allows your first three fingers to stay in the JKL position.

The keyboard shortcuts we identify are specific to the Windows operating system. For a cheat sheet of shortcuts, download this Premiere Default Keyboard graphic. For Mac users, search online for a “Premiere Mac keyboard cheat-sheet.” 

  1. You can also check the software’s ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ by clicking on the ‘Edit’ pulldown menu and
  2. Selecting ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’.

This shows all the shortcuts for both Windows and Mac computers. Most editing systems have a similar feature.

So far in my Three-point Edit, I’ve marked two points on the Clip in the Source monitor, an In and an Out. The third point determines where the Shot is going to be placed in the Sequence. In this case, I already know that it is going at the end of the first Shot.  

To mark an In-point in the Sequence at the end of the first Shot, I use the ‘Snap-to’ command:

  1. I hold down the Shift key while using the mouse to click-and-drag in the Timebar near the end of the first Shot. The blue Playhead line ‘snaps’ to the end of the Shot as indicated by the white mark.
  2. I first release the mouse button and then the Shift key.
  3. Next, I press the I key to mark this position as the third point.
  4. To execute the edit, I click the ‘Overwrite’ edit button at the bottom right of the Source monitor. 

The Overwrite tool places the Shot marked in the Source Clip into the Sequence, right after the first Shot. The keyboard shortcut for Overwrite is the Period key, located just below my first finger in the JKL setup.

Each Shot in the Sequence is separated by a transition line and bears the name of the Clip it came from. You can make the video tracks larger or smaller by clicking the circles in the bar on the right of the Timeline and dragging them upward or downward. When the tracks are large enough, you’ll see the first frame of each Shot.

Let’s take a look at our first Three-point Edit. 

  1. In the Timeline I click-and-drag left on the Timebar until I am at the beginning of the Sequence. 
  2. I press the L key or Spacebar to play.

Not bad for our first edit. Right now, we won’t worry about fine-tuning Mr. Poole’s hand movement between the two Shots. We don’t need to obsess over these kinds of details during our Assemble edit. Our goal is to make the story coherent, but we don’t want to waste time perfecting things that we may not use or may change later. 

By the way, if you make a mistake or aren’t satisfied with an edit, you can simply ‘Undo’ your recent activity. Undo is a fantastically helpful tool and allows you to experiment freely without fear of errors. Undo is ‘Ctrl-Z’ and ‘Redo’ is ‘Ctrl-Shift-Z’. I can go back and undo a number of steps, hitting Ctrl-Z several times, and then Redo, Ctrl-Shift-Z, forward to this point.

If you haven’t already done so, go ahead and make your first Three-point Edit using Clip 5375 marked with an In-point at 00:00:31:22 and an Out-point at 00:00:39:02.

Before wrapping up this module, let’s cover how to back up and, when necessary, recover your work.

Video Transcript:

Premiere automatically saves and backs up your work periodically, but it’s important to manually save a permanent copy every day. Losing creative work is very painful, so to ensure that there’s a permanent backup available, I do the following:

  1. To shut down the editing software, click on the ‘X’ in the upper right corner.
  2. If prompted, click ‘Save’. 
  3. I connect my external Backup Drive to the computer. 
  4. I double-click on the Backup Drive to open it.
  5. I create a folder called “LLL Project Files Backup” where I’ll store backups of my editing project files.
  6. Next, I open another file browser window, go to my computer’s internal drive and find my LLL Project Files folder where I saved the Editing Exercises Premiere project file.
  7. I copy the Premiere Project file from my computer to the LLL Project Files Backup folder on my Backup Drive.
  8. I alter the name of the project file on my Backup Drive by adding ‘YR-MO-DY’ before ‘Editing Exercises’.
  9. Finally, I disconnect my Backup Drive.

In the event that your computer or software crashes, you can recover the most recent version of your Premiere Project file from the Premiere Media folder.

  1. To access the Premiere Media folder I connect my external Editing Drive and double-click to open it.
  2. In the LLL Media folder I open the Premiere Media folder and then the “Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save” folder.
  3. I sort the files by ‘Date Modified’ so that the most recent file is at the top.
  4. From the Editing Drive, I copy the most recent Auto-Save file to the LLL Project Files folder on my computer’s internal drive.
  5. Then I double-click on this Auto-Save file to open it in Premiere.
  6. I review the Project to confirm that my most recent work is included.
  7. If so, I close Premiere.
  8. I return to the LLL Project Files folder and delete the existing Editing Exercises Premiere project file.
  9. I then rename the recovered project file “Editing Exercises.”

Go ahead and back up your work, take a break and then join me for the next module where we will learn more about Overwrite editing and introduce Insert editing.

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