To start off, obviously you need your video clips, after you have saved them to your computer you need to get them on to premiere pro, to do this you need to get premiere up and click on File and click on import, or you can press Ctrl and I together as a short cut. After this a small window will pop up and you need to find your clips and import them. Once you have, they will apear in what I call "the project area" from here you can drag and drop the clips into the timeline, from here you can cut them, move them about, speed them up, slow them down, edit the lighting sound and alsorts. In this "project area" you can create files called "bins", in which you can sort and file each clip, for instance I had a scene set in a church, to keep order amongst the rabble of clips, I put all the shots from the church into a bin, all the shots from the street into a bin and so on.
From left to right - Sequence 01 is everything on the timeline, picture of the tree is a clip, picture of the file is a bin.
Between the project area and the timeline is a small box with different symbols in a row, each symbol gives you a different tool to use to edit your clips with. Some clips you may not want to use in your video, for example when we filmed our childrens drama "super" we filmed lots of different shots of the same thing so when it came to editing we had lots to play around with, when we decided on what ones we wanted to use and put them together we had a few shots left over that werent used, if this happens to you, simply click on the clips you dont want to use and press delete. Simple.
From top to bottom - Selection, track select, ripple edit, rolling edit, rate stretch, razor, slip, slide, pen, hand, zoom.
When you have the clips in order on the timeline make sure they are tightly put together with no spaces between the clips other wise when you play it a black frame will flash up on screen. If you right click the space and click on ripple delete it will delete the black space and bring all the other clips closer, you'll need to do this to all the spaces. To import music you'll have to do the same as when you import a video file, but when you drag it into the timeline you'll have to drop it into any of the audio slots on the timeline, if your film has dialogue, the first audio slot will be taken so music will have to be in one of the other two. If you want to add titles or credits to your film, you have to click on title and then on new title, depending on whether you want them still (immobile) rolling (going down to up/ up to down screen) or crawling (going left to right/ right to left screen), what ever you want just click on the option and write what you want.
You can see the audio and visual slots here with a clip imported
In films when the screen fades to black thats called a transition, you can have all kinds of transitions to go at the end of a clip or the begining, all you need to do is go to the bottom right hand corner of the screen where it says info, effects and history, click on effects, click on video transitions, this should open up a file with other files in and find the one you want. After you found one drag it over to where you want it and drop it there, you can then grab it and make it smaller for it to be quick or bigger for it to be longer.
I think for my first project 'Super' came out very well. It was well paced, and tightly edited. Not all the music went with it, but if it was an actual show it might have a composer to help with music. If I knew any thing about after effects there would have been powers involved. unfortunately there were no visual effects for them. Apart from the music choice and a few sound problems, I'm very proud of it. Well thats all I can say about it, good luck with editing, its up to you now.
