The process of learning Premiere Pro was relatively easy due to my past experiences with creation software such as VEGAS Pro, and FL Studio. These software have similar keyboard shortcuts which helped and sped up the learning process although finding and organizing files was a bit confusing at times but once I learned that it was mostly simple for me to learn the rest as I just had to find the VEGAS Pro equivalent features on Premiere Pro. Additionally, we were given video tutorials to follow to learn the basic features of Premiere Pro.
Creating The Clip:
In class we were tasked with creating a 45 second or more video clip using the footage from the tutorials. The footage was centered around Pineapple Whip, a pineapple ice cream stand at a carnival. I began by Trimming 2 interviews one of a girl and one of a man being asked about pineapple whip. I made sure to trim to only the important words that got the message of the interview across to not leave any filler in while also adding a small b-roll clip of the ice cream being poured to hide the harsh cut in between interviews. Next I added 2 clips of b-roll of the owner along along with some background music and synced them to cut to black on the last note of the audio track. Then I added the manager's interview which I trimmed to summarize the main points as the interview was very lengthy, I added a fade-in at the beginning of the interview and at the end. Finally I added more b-roll of the carnival to let the audience know the location of the ice cream shop and faded to black.
Challenges and Successes:
I had a smooth process with only a couple moments of confusion or frustration while creating the clip I had a difficult time with adding text as it required opening multiple windows and changing tools in the toolbar which created moments of confusion, also I was used to the keyboard inputs for FL Studio which I frequently use. I kept pressing the "P" key out of habit since that is the corresponding key for the edit tool in FL Studio but is something completely different causing me to mess up at times, some successes were the fact that I was able to efficiently navigate through the software and was able to recreate what I thought of in my head onto the software.
What I learned From Making The Clip:
Making the clip taught me how to mute clips, chroma key, and how to better navigate Premiere Pro. This is all from the trial and error of using a new software and it taught me things that were not in the video tutorials or better or faster ways to do what the tutorials taught.
Important Takeaways:
Some important takeaways from this experience are that you make sure you save your projects often and before walking away or closing the software because it may cause loss of progress and I will be extremely aware of that on future projects. Also Premiere Pro's interface may look complicated but once you learn how to navigate it, it is a very powerful editing program.
How This May Help My Portfolio Project:
Learning to use Premiere Pro to edit will streamline the process of making the film opening by giving me peace of mind that I can confidently use the software to create what I invisioned; furthermore, the editing practice will help me know techniques and effects that I would otherwise not think of making my product more detailed and higher quality.
