It's easy to change the rate at which clips play as long as you do so in the
source view BEFORE you add the clip to the movie. Just make sure the source view
is active then right-click it, select Speed>New Rate and then enter a
new value such as 50% if you want slow motion or 200% if you want fast motion.
It's also possible to change the speed of clips that have already been added to
the timeline, but this is problematic because increasing the speed will shorten
the clip and leave a gap in the movie, while decreasing the speed will often
cause part of the clip to be lost since it cannot overlap another clip in the
same track. To change the speed of a clip that is already in the timeline,
right-click the clip, choose speed then set a new rate such as 50% for slow
motion or 200% for fast motion.
You can freeze one frame of a clip, so that only that frame displays for the
duration of the clip, as if you imported the frame as a still image. You can
freeze on the clip’s In point, Out point, or at marker 0 (zero) if present.
For both audio and video filters, you can have different settings for each
filter at different keyframes. For example, you could set the brightness
filter to be normal at the first and last keyframes and add another keyframe at
the center of the clip with high brightness. Then, when the clip plays, the
brightness would gradually increase from normal to bright and then back to
normal.
This very advanced technique (previously called 'blue screen') is what allows, for
example, the image of a newsreader to be superimposed on news footage. The trick is to film the person in front of a uniform background that
the computer can easily detect, such as a well-lit blue or green sheet. If this
sounds too inconvenient, you could try filming someone backed by the bright sky
or a brightly lit white wall. But the best option is a green screen, provided
the person you are filming is not wearing green and does not have jaundice.
Once you have your special video clip, add it to the Video 2 track which is
used for video that is to be transparent, and make sure you have another video
clip in either video 1 track. Then simply select the clip in video 2 and choose Clip>Video>Transparency.
You will be given a choice between 14 different 'keys' (types d'incrustations)
so that you can specify which parts of the video will become transparent e.g.
will it be the green areas, the blue
areas, the bright areas, or what? Assuming you have filmed your subject
against a bright green background, choose the 'green screen' option. If you
filmed against a brightly colored background that was neither blue nor green
then choose the 'chrominance' option and click the color that you want to make
transparent in the central image. Then adjust
the 'threshold' setting by dragging it to the left until the green screen is
made transparent. Then drag the cutoff slider to the right until the opaque area
reaches a satisfactory level. You will probably find that the transparent areas
are most easy to detect if you choose to have them represented by a checkerboard
pattern, like this : 
. You can choose the
rightmost option to make the clip in video track 1 visible through the
transparent area in video track 2, but this preview may be a little slow. Use
the slider underneath the preview window to scrub through the clip.
Once you have closed the Transparency window, you can preview the clip in the
timeline by holding down the Alt key while you scrub the playhead across the
clip. When you are ready to export the finished video, pressing the Enter key
will cause the clip (and all other clips in the work area) to be rendered into a
final version - this rendering process may take many minutes if many seconds of
video need to be rendered...
Let's say you are doing a news item on Cannes, and you have filmed your
newsreader against a green background, ready to superimpose him or her against a
picture of Cannes. Perhaps you have found a nice picture of Cannes on the
Internet - here's how you can import that still image into Premiere...
The Windows version of Premiere can import most common image file formats
including Photoshop (psd), gif, jpg, tiff, bmp, pict etc. Note that it is
impossible to import a single layer of a Photoshop image, and that areas that
were transparent in Photoshop remain transparent in Premiere.
Before you import the picture file into your Premiere project it may be a
good idea to lock the 'aspect ratio' (the shape) of the picture by choosing File>Preferences>General/Still
Image then selecting Lock Aspect. If you do NOT do this then the
picture may be distorted when Premiere changes its shape to fit the frame (sometimes this does not
matter). If you DO lock the aspect ratio then the
imported picture will have black bands on two sides.
Now import your picture into your Premiere project with File>Import>File.
Drag the image from the project window into the timeline - the image clip will
have the duration specified in File>Preferences>General/Still Image.
You can adjust the duration of the still image clip in the usual way: make sure
the selection tool is selected and then drag the in-pint or the out-point of the
clip to change its duration.
An animation (such as 'claymation') is different from a video in that it is
generated synthetically, not by shooting live action. 'Claymation' is the
technique used in some famous movies such as Wallace and Grommit, Chicken Run
etc. Clay figures are photographed, moved very slightly, photographed again and
this is repeated hundreds or thousands of times until there are enough images to
create a movie. You can try this yourself but don't plan on making your movie
last more than a few seconds or you will get bored out of your mind... Use a
digital still camera to take the pictures and then transfer them to the
computer.
Premiere can import a sequence of numbered still-image files (PSD,
JPG, GIF, PICT, TGA, BMP, TIFF etc.) and automatically combine them into a single clip; each numbered file represents one
frame.
Images in a still-image sequence cannot include layers, so flatten images that will be part of a
sequence.
To import numbered still-image files and compile them into a single clip:
The 'lock aspect' setting for still images does not work for sequences, so
the images will be distorted unless they have the same aspect ratio (usually
4:3) as the movie.
Often the new clip will need to be slowed down since it is not feasible to
create 25 or more claymation images for each second of video. See the section on
slow above for more...
Note that Premiere can also import an animation contained in a single
file, such as an animated GIF.
It's certainly possible to prepare videos for the web using Premiere,
especially with versions 6 and above. To see a couple of videos made using not
Premiere but a competing program, Pinnacle Studio 8, please click HERE.
Yet More?
To learn more about Adobe Premiere, and if you have your own copy of the
program, work through the official Premiere tour that is supplied in the form of
a book and associated files. Still not satisfied? Buy a book such as Adobe
Premiere Classroom in a Book, published by Adobe.
