Video Editing with Premiere Pro: Beginner

1. Importing your files:

(a) The first time you open Premiere Pro you should get a dialog box
with different options. Select “create new”. Don’t worry about the
other settings, the preset settings should be fine for getting started.
(b) You will begin by locating your files. My clips were taken with my
phone, which uploaded to my google drive. If your clips are
similarly saved, you will need to download them onto a memory
device or the computer you are working on. If you have your files
on a memory device, you can simply locate the files from that
device via the File Explorer on your computer.
(c) If you haven’t renamed your files yet, now would be a good time to
do so before you import them to the program, otherwise you can
rename the bins once they are imported. The simplest way it to
click and drag the files to the big organizer panel in the bottom left
corner of the screen.

2. Adding clips to timeline:

(a) Once you have all your clips collected, you can trim them in the
preview window before you move the clip to the time line. This will
make editing easier because you can do a preliminary trim to your
clips before you order them in the timeline.
(b) Drag a clip from your bins to the box above it.
(c) To select a specific part of the clip to edit in your timeline, you
can click the “Mark In” to select the starting point and the “Mark
Out” to mark the end of the portion you want to use. These look
like the curly brackets on your keyboard “{ }”.
(d) Once you have made your trim selection, you can drag the clip
over to your timeline. If you just want to select the video, click and
drag the film icon under the video. To select only the audio from
the clip, click and drag the sound wave icon under the video.

3. Editing in your timeline:

(a) Once you have gathered a few clips into your timeline, you can
begin editing them in the timeline.
(b) Adding transitions:
1. To add transitions between your clips, you can right
click between clips and select “add default transition”. If you
don’t want to use the default, you can look for other transitions
by selecting the “effects” tab on the right. If you don’t see
this panel, you can turn it on by going to “window” and then
selecting the “effects” line. This will make the panel appear
in your workspace to the right of the preview panel. Select
the “transitions” tab to view your options.
2. Select the transition you would like to use and drag it to
the location between the clips. You can edit the transition by
double clicking on it. This will bring up a window to modify
it.
(c) Editing audio:
1. You can edit audio clips just as you would with video
clips.
2. Fading in and out, and volume changes are some
common changes to audio.
3. You can also use audio from creative commons or
youtube by downloading the file, importing it to your bins box
and dragging it to your timeline.
4. Adding title and credits:
(a) To add a title or credit scene, you will find the effect in the
effects panel. Simple insert the effect and add your text.
5. Exporting your video:
(a) Once you have reached a stopping point in editing your
video, you can export your video, or save it as a .prproj file to
continue editing.