How to Make a Movie From One Short Video Clip

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

Select Media

Open Adobe Premier Elements and import all the media you want to use from the appropriate folders or camera sources. Notice, there is only one video, two titles and the music to be used by the soundtrack for this production. When I am working on a longer movie I may have 30 or 40 clips in addition to music and titles as available media.
Step 2

Add Scenes

Once you have all the media open, add the scenes in the proper order in the scene view. Since you are using only one clip, they all look the same. Later in timeline mode you can change the scene to just select a portion of the scene.
Step 3

Time Stretch

After you have added all of the scenes switch to the timeline view. Here you can edit each scene using the cropping handles. In this video, the first scene is unedited and the next two scenes are edited and time stretched. The first time stretched scene is at 60 percent speed and the second one is at 30 percent. Notice in the video how this makes the birds' wings slow down and also makes each clip longer. To access the time stretch control, select the clip in the timeline and right-click on the clip. Select TIME STRETCH from the pop-up menu and adjust the time percentage. A smaller number slows things down and lengthens the video; a larger percentage speeds it up. After applying the time stretch, edit the clip so that each segment is not too long. Longer is not necessarily better for special effects.
Step 4

Special Effects

Try using some of the hundreds of special effects that come with Premier to aid in your artistic impression. For this video I used solarization and posterization along with time stretching and editing to create two of the effects. Experiment with adjusting the levels of the effect, which can cause drastic changes in the image’s appearance.
Step 5

Mix Colors

Use the channel mixer to add or subtract color from the image. You may want use the color mixer along with other special effects as I did here, or use it separately to make dramatic image changes. Try to think of the clip in as many different ways as you can to help you create an artistic statement.
Step 6

Add Titles

Once you are satisfied with the movie, find a piece of music that fits. It should fit emotionally with the video, and that is more important than the length. You can shorten and fade out the music as I did here or loop it to fit the visual. Add your titles and closing credits before fitting the music into the video. Voila...you have turned 11 seconds of video into something that is fun to watch and you are not too embarrassed to show to others.