(For more resources related to this topic, see here.)
This is basic housekeeping and ignoring it is like making your own editing life much more frustrating. So take a deep breath, think of calm blue oceans, and begin by getting this project organized. First you need to set the Timeline correctly and then you will create a short storyboard of the interview; again you will do this by focusing on the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Always start this way as a good story needs these elements to make sense.
For frame-accurate editing it’s advisable to use the keyboard as much as possible, although some actions will need to be performed with the mouse. Towards the end of this task you will cover some new ground as you add and expand Timeline tracks in preparation for the tasks ahead.
Once you have completed all the preparations detailed in the Mission Checklist section, you are ready to go. Launch Premiere Pro CS6 in the usual way and then proceed to the first task.
First you will open the project template, save it as a new file, and then create a three-clip sequence; the rough assembly of your story. Once done, perform the following steps:
If you would like Premiere Pro to always open a bin without creating a separate window, select Edit | Preferences | General from the menu. When the General Options window displays, locate the Bins option area and change the Double-Click option to Open in Place.
The Master audio track is used to control the output of all the audio tracks present on the Timeline; this is especially useful when you come to prepare your timeline for exporting to DVD. The Master audio track also allows you to view the left and right audio channels of your project. More details on the use of the Master audio track can be found in the Premiere Pro reference guide, which can be downloaded from http://helpx.adobe.com/pdf/premiere_pro_reference.pdf.
How did you do? Review the shortcuts listed next. Did you remember them all?
In this task you should have automatically matched up the Timeline to the clips with one drag-and-drop, plus a delete. You should have then sent three clips from the Project panel to the Timeline using the Automate to Sequence function. Finally you should have added two new video tracks and expanded the Audio 1 track.
Keyboard shortcuts covered in this task are as follows:
In this project, the Automate to Timeline function is being used to create a rough assembly of three clips. These are placed on the Timeline in the order that you clicked on them in the project bin. This is known as the selection order and allows the Automate to Timeline function to ignore the clips-relative location in the project bin. This is not a practical work flow if you have too many clips in your Project panel (how would you remember the selection order of twenty clips?). However, for a small number of clips, this is a practical workflow to quickly and easily send a rough draft of your story to the Timeline in just a few clicks. If you remember nothing else from this book, always remember how to correctly use Automate To Timeline!
Raw material from every interview ever filmed will have lulls and pauses, and some stuttering. People aren’t perfect and time spent trying to get lines and timing just right can lead to an unfortunate waste of filming time. As this performance is not live, you, the all-seeing editor, have the power to cut those distracting lulls and pauses, keeping the pace on beat and audience’s attention on track. In this task you will move through the Timeline, cutting out some of the audio fat using Premiere Pro’s Extract function, and to get this frame accurate, you will use as many keyboard shortcuts as possible.
You will now use the Extract function to remove “dead” audio areas from the Timeline. Perform the following steps:
To zoom in and out of the Timeline use the + (plus) and – (minus) keys in the main keyboard area, not the ones in the number pad area. Pressing the plus or minus key in the number area allows you to enter an exact number of frames into whichever tool is currently active.
Important information on Sync Locking tracks
The above step will only work if you have the Sync Lock icons toggled on for both the Video 1 and Audio 1 tracks. The Sync Lock icon controls which Timeline tracks will be altered when using a function such as Extract. For example; if the Sync Lock icon was toggled off for the Audio 1 track, then only the video would be extracted, which is counterproductive to what you are trying to achieve in this task!
By default each new project should open with the Sync Lock icon toggled on for all video and audio tracks that already exist on the Timeline, and those added at a later point in the project. More information on Sync Lock can be found in the Premiere Pro reference guide (tinyurl.com/cz5fvh9).
i. Set In point at 07;11 and Out point at 08;10.
ii.Press # (hash).
iii.Set In point at 11;05 and Out point at 12;13.
iv.Press # (hash).
You may have spotted other silences on the Timeline; for the moment leave them alone. You will deal with these using other methods later in this project.
At the end of this section you should have successfully removed three areas of silence from the Intro_Shot.avi clip. You did this using the Extract function, an elegant way of removing unwanted areas from your clips. You may also have refreshed your working knowledge of the Trim tool. If this still feels a lit le alien to you, don’t worry, you will have a chance to practice trimming skills later in this project.
Extract is another cunningly simple function that does exactly what it says; it extracts a section of footage from the Timeline, and then closes the gap created by this ac i on. In one step it replicates the razor cut and ripple delete.
One of the most common video techniques used in interviews and documentaries (not to mention a number of films) is called a J-cut. This describes cutting away some of the video, while leaving the audio beneath intact. The deleted video area is then replaced with alternative footage. This creates a voice-over effect that allows for a seamless transfer between the alternative viewpoints and the original speaker.
In this task you will create a J-cut by replacing the video at the start of Intro_Shot.avi, leaving the voice of the newsperson and replacing his image with cutaway shots of what he is describing. You will make full use of four-point edits.
Create J-cuts and cutaway shots using work flows you should now be familiar with. Perform the following steps to do so:
The last cutaway shot here is part of the reconstruction reel and has been used because your camera person was unable (or forgot) to film a cutaway shot of the pub. This does sometimes happen and then it’s down to you, the editor in charge, to get the piece on air with as few errors as possible. To do this you may find yourself scavenging footage from any of the other clips. In this case you have used just seven frames of Reconstruction_1.avi, but using the Premiere Pro feature, Fit to Fill , you are able to match the clip to the duration of the dialogue, saving your camera person from a production meeting dressing down!
In this task you have learned how to piece together cutaway shots to match the voice-over, creating an effective J-cut, as seen in the way the dialog seamlessly blends between the pub cutaway shot and the news reporter finishing his last sentence. You also learned how to scavenge source material from other reels in order to find the necessary shot to match the dialog.
The last set of time suggestions given in this task allow the pub cutaway shot to run over the top of the newsperson saying “And now, much to the surprise…”. This is an editorial decision that you can make on whether or not this cutaway should run over the dialog. It is simply a matter of taste, but you are the editor and the final decision is yours!
In this article, we learned how to extract audio fat and create a J-cut.
Further resources on this subject:
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