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Practical #4.

Creating Cuts-only Videos

You will see very few transitions like dissolves or wipes in the video-editing world.
Watch any TV news program and virtually every edit in every story is a cut edit with no
transitions. There is an art to creating cuts-only videos, and Premiere Pro gives you a full
palette of cut edit tools and techniques.

You create a video by first laying down a cuts-only version. Later, you can apply
transitions, effects, titles, motion and work on compositing. Whether or not you use those
extra effects, there is a real art to building a cuts-only video. You want to create a logical
flow to your clips, make matching edits, and avoid jump cuts.

Premiere Pro offers several means to those ends. Depending on your circumstances you
might work in the Trim panel, use the Ripple Edit tool, or move clips on the Timeline
using keyboard modifiers. All those techniques will be shown in this lesson.

Using a storyboard to build a rough cut


You've seen storyboards. Film directors and animators frequently use walls of photos and
sketches to visualize story flow and camera angles.

Storyboards also help after the fact. In the case of Premiere Pro, you can arrange clip
thumbnails in the Project panel to get a basic feel for how your finished video will work.
Then you can move all those clips to the Timeline for more precise editing.

This approach can come in handy by revealing gaps in your story places that need
fleshing out with more video or graphics. It's also a way to note redundancy and a way to
quickly place a whole bunch of ordered clips on a sequence. When confronted with a
Project panel loaded with clips, storyboards can help you see the big picture.

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After creating your storyboard, you can place several clips in a sequence on the Timeline
at one time. This bypasses two other workflows: dragging clips from the Project panel to
the Timeline, and using the Source Monitor's editing tools to drop clips on a sequence.

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TASK 1

1. Open Premiere Pro.

2. Click Open Project, navigate to the Lesson 5 folder and double-click Lesson 5-
1.prproj.

Note

This is a DV-NTSC Standard 48kHz project.

3. Double-click on an empty space in the Project panel (or select File > Import) and
import all the assets (except the project files) from the Lesson 5 folder: Audio 5a.wav,
Lesson 5 Finish.wmv, and 14 video clips Video 5a.avi-Video 5n.avi.

4. Double-click Lesson 5 Finish.wmv in the Project panel to put it in the Source


Monitor. Play it.

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Note

This video shows how your project will look and sound by the end of Lesson 5-2 (if you
do the brief extra credit work). It's a compressed WMVWindows Media Videofile. It's a
bit blurry and intended to run only in Premiere Pro's Program Monitor, or in Windows
Media Player running in less than a full screen mode.

5. Click the Bin button in the Project panel (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+/) and name the
new bin Storyboard.

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6. Use marquee select or Shift+click to select 10 video clipsVideo 5aVideo 5j.

7. Right-click on one of the selected clips (you need to click on the clip name or you
will deselect all the clips) to bring up the context menu, and select Copy.

Note

Selecting Copy when you've highlighted multiple clips will copy the entire collection of
clips.

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8. Right-click on the Storyboard bin and select Paste.

All 10 video files will show up under the Storyboard bin. They will remain in the
main Project panel as well.

Note

I had you Copy/Paste the video files into the separate Storyboard bin because you will
delete some of them. In this way, you delete them from the Storyboard bin but not from
the Project panel.

9. Ctrl+click on the Project panel and drag it out of its frame to create a floating
window.

10. Click the Icon button to switch to Icon view.

Note

Even though the Storyboard video files were highlighted, shifting to Icon view returns
you to the top-level Project panel view.

11. Double-click the Storyboard file folder thumbnail to display its 10 videos.

12. Click the Fly-out Menu and select Thumbnails > Large.

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13. Expand your Project panel view to display all ten clips.

As shown in the next figure, you'll end up with a 3x4 grid (depending on the size of your
workspace and other factors, it could be a different shape, like 2x5).

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Arranging your storyboard

The purpose now is to arrange the thumbnails into a logical order. Before I tell you what I
think that order should be, do the steps below to see what you can come up with. Keep in
mind that you will trim some clips later to make the edits work more smoothly.

View each clip in the Preview monitor by clicking each clip to select it and then clicking
the Preview monitor Play button (highlighted in the previous figure).

Decide which clips do not work in this sequence and settle on an order for the remaining
clips. Take some time working on this before continuing with this lesson. Selecting an
order for clips is something you will do time after time.

Note

Some of the videos are a little dark and can be hard to view critically in the Project panel
Preview Monitor. In those cases, double-click on a clip and view it in the Source
Monitor.

Here's the order that I think works well: Video 5f, 5e, 5c, 5h, 5i, 5b, and 5g. I think the
following clips don't work in this sequence: Video 5a (one-handed break dance move
doesn't match other clips), 5d (doesn't match other spinning moves) and 5j (hand by ear
doesn't match other shots).

Here's how to create my recommended sequence:

1. Select Video 5a, 5d, and 5j (use the Ctrl+click selection method) and press the Delete
key (or right-click and select Cut) to remove them from the Storyboard bin. They remain
in the top-level view of the Project panel.

No word wrap

The Project panel Icon view does not have the equivalent of Word Wrap. Removing clips
leaves gaps in the Icon view. Newly added clips generally run past the right side of the
panel, and when you resize the panel, the clips don't move to accommodate the change.
To remedy these issues, open the Fly-out Menu and select Clean Up.

2. Drag the remaining clips to put them into this order: Video 5f, 5e, 5c, 5h, 5i, 5b, and
5g. To move a clip, simply drag it to a new location. The cursor will change to this ( )
and a black vertical line indicates the new placement location'

Note

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As you drag clips, you will leave gaps. Use Clean Up to remove those gaps.

Your Storyboard should look like the next figure.

Automating your storyboard to a sequence

Now you're going to move your storyboard clips to the Timeline, placing them there
contiguously, in sequential order. Premiere Pro calls this Automate to Sequence. Here's
how you do it:

1. Make sure the CTI is at the beginning of the Timeline. Automate to Sequence places
the clips starting at the CTI location.

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2. Select Edit > Select All to highlight all the clips (you can also marquee select or use
the Shift+click method).

3. Click the Automate to Sequence button in the lower-left corner of the Project panel. I
highlighted it in the next figure.

Note

You can also open the Fly-out Menu and select Automate to Sequence.

In the newly opened Automate to Sequence dialog box you face several options (see
figure on next page):

• Ordering Sort Order puts clips on a sequence in the order you established in the
Storyboard. Selection Order places them in the order you selected them if you
Ctrl+clicked on individual clips.
• Placement Places your clips sequentially on the Timeline as opposed to at
unnumbered markers (something we haven't covered).
• Method The choices are Insert or Overlay. Both concepts are explained later in
this practical. Because here you are placing the clips on an empty sequence, both
methods will do the same thing.
• Clip Overlap Overlap presumes that you'll put a transition such as a cross-dissolve
between all clips. The goal in this lesson is to create a cuts-only video; that is, a
video with no transitions. Set Clip Overlap to zero.
• Apply Default Audio/Video Transition Because you'll opt for no transitions,
uncheck these boxes.
• Ignore Audio/Video These clips have no audio so these options are inactive.

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4. Click OK. This places your clips in order on the sequence in the Timeline.

5. Drag the Project panel out of the way and play the Timeline by clicking inside the
Timeline to activate it and pressing the space bar.

Note

View this sequence critically. Several edits are jump cuts or feel awkward. Some clips are
too long. Your task in the next two lessons is to fix those flaws.

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