Editing Workshop

This workshop consisted of editing together the footage of a short simple sequence we shot in our previous camera workshop using Adobe Premiere Pro, which is used from the least experienced smaller video creators all the way to large film companies.

A useful term when editing raw footage (every unedited piece of video you shoot for that project) is 'rushes', also called 'dailies' in the US, this simply refers to all the footage shot in one day, this is typically reviewed at the end of the day whilst cast and crew are still on set to asses whether reshoots are needed or not.

Once you open the software, the screen is split into 4 different sections; the bottom left contains all the files, or 'bins' in editing terms, that you can drag out from a separate folder, the top left plays back whichever piece of raw footage you select, the bottom right is the actual editing timeline where the raw footage is dragged onto, and finally, the top right plays back the edited sequence. Once you click on one of these sections a blue square appears around it, this just means that whatever keyboard shortcut you do or anything like copying and pasting is only affecting that blue section.

When you're ready to start, you should first pick out the footage you will use from the rushes bin and drag it into a new 'log' bin, this way the entire original project is still kept unedited in the rushes bin. You then click on the icon of the desired footage and drag over to the shorter section of it that you want to use (the start mark being the 'In' point, and the end mark the 'Out' point) and press 'I', typically mid action. Then drag that section onto the editing timeline, being careful not to overlap any of that section's audio or video files with other ones as this would cause the new files to just replace the old ones. 

Once the footage is on the timeline, you can now cut it to be shorter by either dragging one end of the file inwards, or by pressing 'C' on the keyboard to pull up the razor tool, which you just have to click on to cut, and then pressing 'V' to switch back to the arrow (these tools are also found on the left of the bottom right square). 

If you find that the scale of the footage on the timeline is too short to make very specific cuts, you can always press '+' or '-' to lengthen or shorten the size of the file, and if you make any mistakes, simply press Command - Z to undo it. A final important tip to keep in mind is to keep saving your progress! The easy shortcut to this is Command - S on the keyboard.