Now for the big one. Premiere is probably the most difficult to use of the Creative Cloud suite. Second maybe to After Effects, but as someone who has used it for years, I would recommend to steer clear unless you REALLY want to make some motion graphics.
Premiere is a non-linear video editing software. That’s fancy speak for it being an application you can load multiple video and audio clips in, and edit them in any order you want, going back and forth as needed. That exists in contrast to linear editing that was the requirement when working with film. But anyway, that’s enough history.
You’ll notice that there’s some common language between this, and the previous two applications. The audio levels are very similar, with an audio mixer and effects just like Audition has. You can even record your VoiceOver directly into Premiere, though it’s a less reliable method that I don’t recommend unless you’re just trying to get it done quick. There are also adjustment layers and masks, just like you have in Photoshop, though the effects available might be a little bit different.
However, working with Premiere requires a little more prep than the other two. For this project, we’ll be starting with that VoiceOver that we recorded as our base, then we’ll be going through storyboarding, and doing a rough cut. Then we’ll add in our footage and effects for the Final Cut!
NOTE: While we’re going to be discussing Premiere in this workshop, a lot of the techniques we’re talking about apply to any kind of editor. Final Cut from Apple, and Resolve from DaVinci are also extraordinary applications that might be more to your preference as you get into editing.
But before that, let’s go over some video basics, might as well get the “boring” stuff out of the way first. And I apologize in advance for how confusing video formats are!
Understanding Digital Video
So, video and image are very similar in the digital world. A video file is a stack of images that run at a set rate, and produce the fluid image you’re used to seeing. Video, however, has some terms that as based on time, measured in the amount of that thing per second. We’ll start with the frame rate.
Frame rate is how many images are displayed in a second. Most video footage you record is either 24fps, or 30 fps. For high speed footage that comes from your phone, it might record at something like 120 or 240fps.
NOTE: You may also see 29.97fps, avoid this if you can. It won’t make much of a difference to the work you’ll be doing, but there’s nothing worse than when you’re trying to sync video footage over a couple hours, and it’s somehow a few frames off because you didn’t check first. Anyway.
The next is bitrate. This is how much digital information is contained per second of video footage. While your resolution and frame rate will impact the size of your footage, this is the one that will have the largest impact on the size and quality. Unfortunately, there is no recommended range for all video, working with 1080p video will have a lower minimum bitrate than 4K video does. And different platforms will have different maximum bitrates.
If you’ve ever heard people on Youtube complaining about compression, this is where that’s happening. Youtube restricts the bitrate of the videos pretty drastically. What this means for you is that you want to be sure you are keeping your exports roughly at the bitrate of the platform that you’re making them for. Thankfully, Premiere has these details baked in!
Formats and Codecs
This is where things get…complicated. Digital video formats have a huge amount of variance and features. Some allow you to have transparency, or wider colour ranges, or 360 video compatibility. I’ll try to keep it to just a few for you all.
Before we start though, formats and codecs are not the same thing. The format is like the envelope, while the codec is the process that was used to write the letter. So while your file might say “.mp4”, but it could have a wide range of codecs applied to it. There are some generalizations that we can make though.
Usually, .mp4 files are made using the H.264 codec. This is an extremely compatible format that has been around for a very long time. If you just need to make sure the video file is going to work with anything, you can’t really go wrong with H.264.
In recent years, H.265 has come around (also known as HEVC, which you might have seen as an option on your iPhone). It is made to replace H.264, with smaller file sizes at the same level of quality. These files can also export faster on modern computers, especially on the newer Apple Silicon Macs.
The last I’ll talk about is one that you may not have run into, called ProRes. This is one that was developed by Apple in combination with camera makers, and it has typically higher file sizes, but it is much easier to edit with! The previous two can bog down Premiere and make it difficult to edit, but ProRes solves this and makes things all a breeze. It is a pro level format though, and may not always be compatible with every device, so use it with care. I wouldn’t recommend exporting your final product with this.
NOTE: ProRes is amazing to use for proxy footage. This will be discussed more in a more in depth article, but essentially proxies allow you to take the footage used in your timeline, and convert them to a common format to improve editing performance.