Timeline Basics

[00:00:00] Let's go back to our main project folder

[00:00:03] here and go to the sequences subfolder

[00:00:06] that we created. Right now, there's

[00:00:08] nothing in it. Let's create a sequence.

[00:00:10] We'll go down here to the new item

[00:00:13] indicator, which is this page turn icon.

[00:00:16] Click it and click sequence. Us creating

[00:00:19] a new sequence. You can also go to file,

[00:00:22] new sequence. And you can see the

[00:00:24] shortcut for new sequence is ctrlN.

[00:00:28] But I like just clicking on the actual

[00:00:32] bin because then the new sequence will

[00:00:35] go directly in that bin. Going to the

[00:00:37] page turn and clicking sequence. You're

[00:00:40] going to get this window. There's a lot

[00:00:42] of stuff in this window that you don't

[00:00:44] have to worry about because we know that

[00:00:46] we're creating a YouTube video. And this

[00:00:49] is the preset that is the best for

[00:00:52] YouTube videos. It's here in the drop-

[00:00:54] down menu under available presets. It's

[00:00:57] HD 1080p 23.976.

[00:01:00] How do we double check that that is the

[00:01:02] case? We can go to the settings tab and

[00:01:05] it shows us that our time base is

[00:01:08] 23.976.

[00:01:09] Our frame size is horizontally 1920

[00:01:12] vertically 1080. That also happens to be

[00:01:16] the frame size and frame rate of our

[00:01:20] clips. So we know that our sequence is

[00:01:24] going to match our clips. Don't worry

[00:01:26] about any of this stuff. Just go down to

[00:01:28] the bottom and give it a sequence name.

[00:01:31] And I like doing things alphabetically

[00:01:33] and numbered. So, I'm going to say 01

[00:01:36] string out. A string out is just all of

[00:01:40] your clips put together in a row. And

[00:01:43] we're going to say okay. It's created a

[00:01:46] sequence here for us. There's nothing in

[00:01:48] the sequence. Therefore, our program

[00:01:50] monitor is black. But you can see

[00:01:53] there's a tab that's open. When we have

[00:01:56] multiple sequences, we will have

[00:01:57] multiple tabs and be able to switch

[00:02:00] between them. You can also see Premiere

[00:02:02] has added that sequence to our sequences

[00:02:06] bin and it has a special little graphic

[00:02:09] next to it. That is what a sequence

[00:02:12] looks like in Premiere. The frame rate

[00:02:14] value literally tells us how many photos

[00:02:17] per second is this video recorded in or

[00:02:20] displaying. Meaning here it is 24. Let's

[00:02:24] just say 24, even though it says 23.976

[00:02:27] photos per second. If this were a flip

[00:02:31] book and you were flipping through the

[00:02:33] flip book, it would be 24 pages of the

[00:02:36] flip book that you get through in 1

[00:02:38] second. And there's an easy way to test

[00:02:40] this. I'll double click on the very

[00:02:42] first clip. And here, the time

[00:02:45] indicator, I can move it back and forth.

[00:02:48] as I move it. The number on the left

[00:02:51] indicates what point in the clip I'm at.

[00:02:54] Like for example, right now I'm at 15

[00:02:57] seconds into the clip and 10 frames. And

[00:03:00] then the number on the right indicates

[00:03:03] how long the entire clip is. So the

[00:03:05] entire clip is 1 minute and 39 seconds

[00:03:08] and 8 frames. If I take this time

[00:03:11] indicator all the way to the left, I can

[00:03:14] scoot it frame by frame. And if I scoot

[00:03:18] it 24 frames, you'll see that this

[00:03:21] number changes to 1. Let's do it. I'm

[00:03:25] going to press the right arrow on my

[00:03:28] keyboard 24 times. Count it with me. 1 2

[00:03:31] 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

[00:03:35] 19 20 1 2 3 4.

[00:03:39] We're at 1 second of footage. Later in

[00:03:43] the project, you'll see some clips that

[00:03:45] are 60 frames per second. Well,

[00:03:47] technically 59.94.

[00:03:50] But if I open that up and I do the same

[00:03:54] exact experiment where I click right 24

[00:03:57] times, it will not get to 1 second.

[00:03:59] Check it out. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

[00:04:03] 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1 2 3 4 Oh, look

[00:04:08] at that. I have to go all the way to 60

[00:04:12] frames in order to get 1 second of

[00:04:15] footage. The frame rate of your sequence

[00:04:18] doesn't necessarily have to match the

[00:04:20] frame rate of your footage, but for best

[00:04:22] practices, make sure that the frame rate

[00:04:25] of your sequence is matching to the

[00:04:29] lowest frame rate of your footage. And

[00:04:32] if you want to just make sure that your

[00:04:34] sequence is correct, you can go up here

[00:04:36] to sequence sequence settings and see

[00:04:38] those settings again. Here, time base

[00:04:41] 23.976.

[00:04:43] That is the lowest frame rate of any of

[00:04:45] the clips we have. So that's perfect.

[00:04:47] And our frame size is the smallest frame

[00:04:49] size of any of the clips we have, which

[00:04:51] is also what you want. Frame size refers

[00:04:54] to how many pixels are in the image. Any

[00:04:58] image that you look at, even a photo, is

[00:05:00] made of dots of color called pixels. And

[00:05:03] these numbers 1920 and 1080 literally

[00:05:07] indicate how many dots of color are

[00:05:10] across the top of the image and the side

[00:05:12] of the image. 1920 dots of color versus

[00:05:15] 1080 dots of color. So it's like 1920 x

[00:05:20] 1080 makes the surface area of the image

[00:05:22] that you're looking at. That number 1920

[00:05:26] x 1080 is a very standard size of video.

[00:05:30] It's what you mostly see on YouTube and

[00:05:34] it's what we call HD. When we talk about

[00:05:37] 4K, we're talking about a size like

[00:05:39] this, 3840x 2160. Because each side is

[00:05:44] double the size of an HD image, so

[00:05:46] across the top is 3840 and down the side

[00:05:49] is 2160. It's technically four times the

[00:05:54] size of an HD image. We'll dip into

[00:05:57] working with 4K footage a little bit

[00:05:59] later, but for this first project, all

[00:06:01] of our clips are 1080 and our sequence

[00:06:04] is also 1080. All of our clips are

[00:06:07] 23.976

[00:06:08] frames per second and our sequence is

[00:06:11] also that same time base. Right now, all

[00:06:14] of our clips are this cyan color. And I

[00:06:18] want to differentiate them a little bit.

[00:06:19] So, I'm going to select the first lights

[00:06:22] clip. Go down to the last one while

[00:06:25] pressing down shift. Select it. And now

[00:06:28] I've selected all of them. Rightclick.

[00:06:31] Go to label. And I'm going to choose a

[00:06:34] different color. So, let's say for

[00:06:35] example, violet. And now you can see all

[00:06:38] of the clips from the first project are

[00:06:41] labeled violet. Now, I'm going to go

[00:06:43] down to the molding project, and I'm

[00:06:47] going to make sure that all of the A cam

[00:06:50] clips are, let's leave them in the blue

[00:06:52] family, but the Bcam clips here at the

[00:06:56] bottom, let's rightclick, label, and

[00:06:59] make them magenta.

[00:07:01] Now, the A cam clips, let's also

[00:07:04] organize them a little bit by frame

[00:07:07] rate. So, I'm going to select the word

[00:07:10] frame rate. It's going to organize

[00:07:14] everything by what the frame rate is,

[00:07:17] and it's going to put all of the clips

[00:07:19] that are 23.976 at the top and all of

[00:07:22] the clips that are 60 frames per second

[00:07:24] at the bottom. So, I can go ahead and

[00:07:25] select the first 60 frames per second

[00:07:28] clip. Scroll down, holding down shift,

[00:07:31] select the last one that selects

[00:07:33] everything in between. And because this

[00:07:35] is still the molding project and a cam

[00:07:37] and everything, I'll keep it in the blue

[00:07:39] family, but I will instead of the iris

[00:07:42] color, I'll just make them blue.

[00:07:45] Of course, now everything's out of

[00:07:46] order. So, we click the word name to

[00:07:49] organize it back to the way it was.

[00:07:52] Learning to color code before you put

[00:07:54] your clips into your sequence. huge tip

[00:07:56] because it saves you a lot of time

[00:07:58] later. In order to put clips into the

[00:08:00] timeline, you can just drag them in just

[00:08:04] like that. And now my sequence has a

[00:08:07] clip and I can preview it here. There's

[00:08:10] also a time indicator here, just as

[00:08:13] there is one here, except this one shows

[00:08:16] you the clip and this one shows you your

[00:08:19] project. Right now, my project is 1

[00:08:23] minute and 39 seconds because I only

[00:08:26] have one clip in there. If I were to

[00:08:27] bring a second one in there,

[00:08:32] my project length has expanded because

[00:08:34] now it's counting up these two clips

[00:08:37] together. You can also see now that I've

[00:08:41] put clips into my project, the

[00:08:43] properties panel really came to life

[00:08:46] because it's showing me all the

[00:08:48] different properties that I can change.

[00:08:50] quickly within each clip. If you're not

[00:08:54] sure which sequence settings are going

[00:08:55] to be best for your video and you don't

[00:08:57] want to mess down here with the new item

[00:09:00] sequence and choosing all this, even

[00:09:02] easier. Just take your first clip, one

[00:09:05] of your clips, and drag it onto the new

[00:09:08] item page turn icon. It will create a

[00:09:12] sequence that has the exact same

[00:09:14] settings as your clip and it will put

[00:09:16] your clip into the sequence, but it puts

[00:09:19] that sequence into that same bin where

[00:09:22] your footage was. So, I like moving it

[00:09:25] to the sequence bin just to keep it

[00:09:27] organized. So, I'm going to name it uh

[00:09:31] ZZ

[00:09:32] cuz then alphabetically it puts it at

[00:09:36] the very bottom of the footage bin. And

[00:09:39] then I could just drag that sequence

[00:09:41] into the sequence bin and rename it from

[00:09:44] there. 01

[00:09:48] string out. Meaning all of the clips in

[00:09:52] the entire project go into this one

[00:09:55] sequence.

[00:09:57] Bringing clips one by one into the

[00:09:58] project takes a little bit of time. So

[00:10:01] instead of doing that, let's bring the

[00:10:02] rest of them in all together. I'm going

[00:10:05] to select lights three. Hold down shift,

[00:10:09] scroll down, select the very last lights

[00:10:13] clip, and then drag them all in here. If

[00:10:16] you've just opened Premiere Pro, you may

[00:10:18] not actually be seeing the thumbnails on

[00:10:20] your sequence. Your tracks might be

[00:10:24] condensed like this to where you don't

[00:10:26] see the thumbnails, even if you zoom in

[00:10:29] all the way. So, the way to see the

[00:10:32] thumbnails is hover your mouse between

[00:10:34] the tracks and

[00:10:39] expand them. If you still don't see the

[00:10:42] thumbnails, then it's probably in the

[00:10:44] settings menu over here in the wrench

[00:10:45] menu. Click that and make sure show

[00:10:49] video thumbnails is enabled because if

[00:10:51] it's disabled, you don't see them. Just

[00:10:54] a few simple tips for navigating the

[00:10:56] timeline. You can zoom in and out at

[00:10:58] your play head here by moving these two

[00:11:01] dots here and here on the bottom bar

[00:11:04] closer to each other like so.

[00:11:07] You can move the playhead left to right.

[00:11:10] And you can see that the timeline moves

[00:11:12] with the playhead or you can just move

[00:11:14] the bottom bar left to right. If you

[00:11:16] want to zoom into or out of the

[00:11:18] timeline, you can press the plus or

[00:11:20] minus buttons. You can also just scroll

[00:11:23] on your mouse while holding down alt or

[00:11:25] option.

[00:11:28] If you're zoomed in and you want to see

[00:11:29] the whole timeline without having to go

[00:11:32] down here and zoom out, you can just

[00:11:34] press the backslash key. That'll pop you

[00:11:37] out to the entire timeline. Instead of

[00:11:40] using this play button to play and

[00:11:42] pause, you can just use the space bar.

[00:11:44] Laid out the light strip here. You may

[00:11:49] see me going left to right on the

[00:11:51] timeline without pressing anything. And

[00:11:53] that's because I have a special mouse

[00:11:56] with a horizontal scroll wheel. But if

[00:12:00] you don't have that, just grab this

[00:12:01] bottom bar and go left to right. As far

[00:12:03] as the timeline goes, it's split up into

[00:12:07] the top and the bottom half. The top

[00:12:10] half here, this is all video tracks. So

[00:12:14] right now, for the first video, we only

[00:12:16] have one video track that we're working

[00:12:17] with. But you can stack them on top of

[00:12:20] each other. I've had projects with a

[00:12:21] hundred video tracks. On the bottom

[00:12:24] here, those are the audio tracks. Pretty

[00:12:27] easy to tell which is which. V stands

[00:12:30] for video and A stands for audio. And

[00:12:33] you can also have many, many audio

[00:12:35] tracks. For this video, we're just

[00:12:37] working with one video track and one

[00:12:39] audio track. All right, so we have all

[00:12:42] of our clips in this one sequence. We

[00:12:45] don't really need the source window too

[00:12:47] much anymore because we're mainly just

[00:12:50] working with this sequence and the

[00:12:52] program window. So, I can sort of

[00:12:55] rearrange some of these sizes to make it

[00:12:58] work for us. You can also see that I am

[00:13:00] playing all the videos back at full

[00:13:02] resolution. If your computer is having

[00:13:05] trouble playing them back, this is where

[00:13:07] you can go and drop down in resolution.

[00:13:10] It doesn't mean that your final video is

[00:13:12] going to be at one quarter quality, but

[00:13:15] it means that it'll make it easier for

[00:13:17] the computer to show you your own

[00:13:19] footage. As I'm moving my playhead, the

[00:13:22] clip that's underneath my playhead is

[00:13:24] getting selected, both the video and the

[00:13:28] audio portion because they are linked.

[00:13:32] Also, as I click on the clips

[00:13:33] themselves, even when the play head over

[00:13:36] here is not directly above the clip,

[00:13:38] it's also selecting the audio and video

[00:13:41] together. If I wanted to select only one

[00:13:45] at a time, I can go ahead and deselect

[00:13:48] linked selection over here, and that way

[00:13:51] it would only select one at a time. I'm

[00:13:54] currently using the selection tool,

[00:13:56] which again, the shortcut is V, to

[00:13:58] select the clips. I can then move them

[00:14:02] around. For example, I can move this one

[00:14:04] here and it stays there. I can move the

[00:14:07] other two. Select both of them by

[00:14:09] dragging a box around them and move it

[00:14:12] behind this one. You'll see that they

[00:14:16] sort of snap to the natural end points

[00:14:19] of each clip. It's almost like the clips

[00:14:22] are magnetized to each other. If I want

[00:14:26] a little bit more precision and I don't

[00:14:27] want that magnetic snap, I can deselect

[00:14:32] this snap in timeline button or I could

[00:14:34] press the S key. And now they're not

[00:14:38] going to just automatically jump to that

[00:14:42] point.

[00:14:43] Let's keep snapping selected, though.

[00:14:46] I'm going to put these back. Snap.

[00:14:50] Snap.