Mission Briefing
The primary objective of this project is for you to learn the various workflows Premiere Pro CS6 offers for editing a short film. The aim is to take the clips supplied with this book and create a scene that tells a story lasting around 60 seconds. Once again, as in Project 1, Creating a Movie Montage – the Easy Way, you will be encouraged to use as many keyboard shortcuts as possible in order to create a frame-accurate Timeline similar to the following screenshot:
Why Is It Awesome?
Project 2 will build on skills learned in Project 1, allowing you to practice those keyboard shortcut workflows, and of course, teach you some new workflows along the way. To do this you'll edit footage specifically produced for this project, creating the opening scene of a short animated film. You'll learn how to cut, trim, edit, and reuse clips in a variety of different ways. You'll also look deeper into controlling the duration of those clips, how to add some basic sound effects, and a color gradient 'movie look' using Premiere Pro's new adjustment layer feature. Don't worry if this means nothing to you yet; all will be explained.
Yes, there will be a certain amount of repetition in this project, but that's deliberate and a clear attempt to hammer home skills and workflows in order for that knowledge to stay with you. Remember: learning a new technique is easy, but remembering a technique is another matter. Project 2 will enhance your learning by repeating workflows from Project 1 but in a totally different arena; that of making a short film.
Note
The sample footage for this project was produced using a 3D animation program called iClone5 (www.reallusion.com). One of the great things about iClone5 is the ability to add a large number of 'camera' views to any scene, and then render out each camera as a separate viewpoint. The next screenshot shows two of the cameras you will be working with in this project (BB_Rear and Snake_front).
Your Hotshot Objectives
- Creating a story
- Three-point edits
- Combining three- and four-point edits
- Refining with the Trim tool
- Correcting various problems
- Making pictures sing
- Adding a movie look
Mission Checklist
Before you start this project, there are a number of preparations you need to make. Firstly, open your designated video drive and access the Hotshots folder you created in Project 1. Here you should find a folder called Project 1. Create a new folder next to it called Project 2 and inside that new folder, create three folders called Video, Images, and Audio.
With the new folder areas created, visit the Packt Publishing website (www.packtpub.com ) and access the companion page for this book (search for Hotshots and then select this Premiere Pro book). Once you are on the correct page, click on the Support tab and follow the on-screen instructions for downloading code. The file you will receive is a little on the large size (well it is a video!) but the resulting ZIP file will contain not only the material needed for this project, but also other projects in this book.
Once you have downloaded the ZIP file, extract the contents to a local hard drive. Access the folder containing the extracted content and you should find inside a folder called Project 2. Copy the contents of this folder to the Video folder you created according to what we mentioned in the first paragraph of this section. There are eight video files in total.
For this project you will also need a few sound effects. Sound effects are freely available from the Internet and of course from the world around you. Most smartphones have the ability to record sounds, so make use of this wherever possible to build up your own audio library, not only for this project, but any future ones you might not have considered doing yet. Something to think about—the next time you are standing on a railway station and see a train about to pass at speed, get out that smartphone, stand a safe distance away, and record the audio. Bird song, distant sirens, the polite applause of a crowd; are all there for you to record.
The following sounds are recommended for this project – countryside ambience (birds, wind through trees, that sort of thing, but a gentle summer's day version); an insect buzzing along in flight; a snake hissing (not recommended for self-recording!); pigeon wings flapping; a frog croaking; and a horse walking slowly past (hooves on mud). Once you have gathered these sounds from the Internet or from real-life (apart from the snake!) copy and paste them all into the Audio folder you created inside the Project 2 folder inside Hotshots on your designated video drive.
Tip
Many great sound effects can be accessed from SoundDogs.com. Here you can search for the sound you need and then download a 'preview' copy to try inside Premiere Pro CS6 (right-click on the MP3 link, and choose Save or Save Link As…). These previews are presented at a low (gritty) resolution rate; however, you can buy the full-sound resolution by following the on-screen links. For the sake of learning the core skills in this project, the preview quality should work just fine.