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Editing Interface

In this module, we’ll familiarize ourselves with the Premiere editing interface and, in the process, make our first edit. The interface and tools are quite similar to those found in many editing software programs, so the skills you learn here can be applied across different platforms.

Video Transcript:

  1. Before reopening my existing Premiere project, I first make sure that my external Editing Drive is connected because that’s where I’ve stored the media for this project.
  2. Now to reopen my Premiere project, I navigate to the LLL Project Files folder on my computer’s internal drive. This folder contains the Editing Exercises file that I created in the previous editing module.
  3. I double-click on the file to open it.

Premiere opens to the Editing Workspace and I’m ready to get back to editing.

As we learned previously:

  1. If I double-click on the Clip 5373 in the Project panel, it opens in the top left Source monitor. 
  2. At the bottom of the Source monitor is the Play-Stop toggle. And in the Timebar above the Play-Stop button, I click-hold-and-drag to scroll through the content of the Clip. 

While the mouse is useful for activating different tools and scrolling through material, the editing software is designed to be controlled by the keyboard. The first set of keys that we’ll cover are called the ‘JKL’ setup and are universal with most editing software. 

  1. While editing, my left hand sits on the right side of the keyboard with my first three fingers resting on J, K and L. 
  2. Meanwhile, my right hand is on the mouse. I use the mouse to click on the Source monitor, which activates it, as indicated by the blue outline. 
  3. Using my left first finger, I press the L key and the Clip begins to play. 
  4. I press the K key, with my middle finger, to stop the Clip. 
  5. When I press the J key, the footage plays backward – all in real time. 
  6. I press the K key again to stop it.  

Let’s say that I want the first Shot to start when Mr. Poole pulls out the chair to sit down. 

  1. I click-and-drag on the Timebar in the Source monitor until the Timecode, which I see in the blue numbers at the bottom left of the monitor, is close to 00:00:30:00.
  2. Now I use the JKL keys to navigate forward and backward until I reach the specific moment when Mr. Poole begins to pull out the chair to sit down. 

Using the JKL keys gives me precise control over the footage. Using a mouse doesn’t allow me to control the material with such efficiency and specificity. Nor does it allow me to see how the footage feels when it is played in real time. Let’s learn how we can be even more precise with the JKL keys.

  1. When I simultaneously hold down K and L, the Clip plays in slow motion. 
  2. By releasing L but not K and pressing J, the material plays backward in slow motion. 
  3. With my middle finger holding down K, I can seamlessly switch between slow motion Play forward and backward, by alternately pressing L and J. This allows me to see with detail when Mr. Poole’s movement of the chair begins.

The reason I want such precise control is because editing is about choosing the exact start and end frame for every Shot. You may be surprised by the difference one frame can make.

To achieve even greater precision:

  1. I can move forward or backward in a clip one frame at a time by holding down K while punching either L or J. I’m looking for the frame where Mr. Poole just begins to move the chair. I locate the frame at Timecode 00:00:31:14. 
  2. Then, I press the I key, conveniently located right above the K key, to mark an In-point, the starting frame of the Shot. The Timebar is highlighted, indicating the current selection of the Clip. 
  3. Now I play the Clip again to find the Out-point.

My aim with this Shot is to have Mr. Poole start his craft making activity and make the viewer want to see more clearly what he’s doing. 

  1. I use the JKL keys to find the point where he’s finished the first folding action and just begins the next, at Timecode 00:00:39:29.
  2. I press the O key, located above the L key, to mark this as the Out-point, the last frame of the Shot. 

Now I can see that only a small section of the Timebar in the Source monitor is highlighted, indicating the selection of the Shot from In-point to Out-point.

Take some time to familiarize yourself with the JKL setup and navigate to precise frames in the footage. Before continuing with the next video, mark an In-point at 00:00:31:14 and an Out-point at 00:00:39:27 in Clip 5373. This process will soon become second nature for you.

Video Transcript:

We’re now ready to make our first edit. To do so, we’ll use a process that automatically creates and formats a ‘Sequence’, which is a visual representation of our edit.

  1. With In and Out-points marked on Clip 5373 in the Source monitor, and the Selection tool active, I click and hold onto the image and drag and drop it into the ‘Timeline’ panel in the lower right. 

When I drop the Shot onto the Timeline, the section of the Clip marked In to Out appears in a newly created Sequence. At the top of the Timeline is a Timebar in which, when I click-hold-and-drag, I scroll through the Sequence. The Shot in the Timeline is displayed in the ‘Program’ monitor in the upper right. Notice that the blue Playhead line in the Timeline moves at the same time as the blue Playhead line in the Program monitor. Similarly, if I click-hold-and-drag in the Timebar of the Program monitor, I can also scroll through the material, with the blue Playhead line moving through the Timeline in sync. 

I can control the playback of the Sequence, just like I did the Clip in the Source monitor, with the JKL keys: play forward, play backward, stop, slow motion forward, slow motion backward, and one frame at a time.

On the left side of the Timeline is the ‘Patch’ panel. Throughout this and upcoming modules, it should appear as it does now, with these tracks lined up and blue. In future modules, we’ll fully cover the controls in the Patch panel. For now, leave it as it is. 

Before moving on, let’s take care of some housekeeping to keep our project organized. 

When I made the first edit, the Sequence that Premiere automatically created was not labeled or stored properly. We need to find and relabel the Sequence.

  1. Click on the Project panel to activate it. 
  2. Press the Tilde (~) key on the keyboard to make the Project panel full screen.

Your Project panel should be set to List View. We’re currently looking at the content of the Bin: Editing Demo Craft Making Media.

  1. To locate the Sequence, I navigate up two levels in the Bin hierarchy by clicking twice on the folder with an arrow icon in the top left corner of the Project panel.

We can now see that the Project contains the Media and Editing Demo Craft Making Bins as well as a new item labeled “138_5373_01.” Notice the difference between the icon for this new element, which represents a Sequence and the icon for Clips.

When Premiere created the Sequence, it assigned it the same name as the Clip we added. It’s important to properly label each Sequence based on where we are in the editing process.

  1. Since we’re currently in the assembly phase, I’ll click on this text to activate type mode and rename the Sequence “Assemble 1 – Craft Making.” 
  2. To stay organized, I need to store the Sequences in a Bin. I go to the lower right hand corner of the Project panel and click on the folder icon to create a new Bin. 

The software automatically prompts me to label the Bin, encouraging an organized approach. 

  1. I label the Bin “Sequences.” 
  2. I go back to the New Bin folder icon in the lower right and click on it to create another Bin which I label “Editing Demo Craft Making Sequences” 
  3. Next, I click on the Assemble 1 – Craft Making Sequence and drag-and-drop it into the Editing Demo Craft Making Sequences Bin. 
  4. Press the Tilde key on the keyboard to return to the default layout.

Follow the steps above to make your first edit and then properly label and store your new Sequence in the Editing Demo Craft Making Sequences Bin. Then, take a break before starting the next module, where we will begin editing in earnest!

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