How to Begin a Movie Project in Premiere

An Adobe Premiere project is a collection of clips organized along a timeline, kind of like a roadmap of your movie. When you begin working on your movie, your first step is to create a project that contains all of your clips, sequences, files, style information, editing decisions and other related materials. These instructions apply to Adobe Premiere 4 for Windows.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Adobe Premiere

1. Open Premiere.

2. From the File menu, select New, then Project. A dialog box appears.

3. Select your presets. If you are not sure which to choose, select Presentation 160' by 120'.

4. Click OK. Six windows will appear on your screen. If any are missing, open them from the Windows menu.

5. From the File menu, click Import to import the clips that you want to use. You can import a single clip, multiple clips or an entire folder of clips. (To import an entire folder, open the File menu and select Import, then Directory.)

6. Assemble your clips in the Construction window. Drag the thumbnail of the clip you want to use into the Construction window. Drag video clips to the video track and drag audio clips to the audio track.

7. Save and name your project by choosing Save from the File menu.

8. Continue adding additional clips, transitions, text or special effects to the Construction window.

9. Save your project every time you have made progress. Like any other computer document, unsaved work is lost if the computer crashes or the power goes out. When you reopen your project, it will include all clips and editing decisions that you have saved.

Tips & Warnings

• Before starting your new project, first assemble source clips on your computer and develop a storyboard (that is, a plan that outlines how your movie is going to be).
• Presets serve the same function as a style sheet in a word processor.