Video Editing Practice Reflection

 Premiere Pro Learning Process 

I thought learning how to use Premiere Pro was a pretty smooth process. We started off with watching some videos that explained everything we needed to know from start to finish. The videos showed me how to create a project in Premiere Pro, how to add in the clips I would be using, how to organize everything, how to edit clips, and even sound. As I was watching the videos I followed along to get a better understanding since I learn better by actively doing things myself.  As I was following along I also just got myself familiar with the software by clicking on icons that I didn't know how to use and seeing what they did, as well as asking a lot of questions. Once I finished the videos I got a chance to put everything I had just watched and learned and put it into practice. I created my own edited video trying out a bunch of the editing techniques I learned.  

Some of the videos I watched:

Experience Creating Clip

I had a lot of fun creating my clip. I thought it was very interesting to see how it all came together. I first looked through all the materials I had to make my clip before deciding what I was going to do with it. I then started pulling certain sections out of the interviews and B-Roll I was provided with and put them on my timeline so I wouldn't lose them. After pulling out all the content I needed I started dragging the videos into the order in which I wanted them. I dragged some of the videos to V1 and some to V2 so I could get the voiceover effect and I also edited the audio so that the audio of the videos on V1 and V2 would blend well together and so you could hear what I wanted to be heard 

Dragging clips:

Challenges I had: 

I struggled with editing the audio the most. Since I had a lot of clips that overlapped each other the audio would sometimes mush together or one of my clips would be too loud and I wouldn't be able to hear the one I needed. My edited video focused a lot on voiceovers, so I didn't want to audio of the clips in V2 to be louder than the audio of clips in V1. At first I tried muting some of the audios in A2 but I realized that whenever I did that it muted all of them instead of only the one. I then figured out how I could lower the audio of each clip separately by dragging the gray box in the audio square. That box also let the audio be louder in certain of the clip which I liked since I wanted some words to stand out and be heard louder than all the extra background noise. 

Close up on audio showing the gray box:     

Successes I had: 

I think I succeeded in keeping my timeline organized and picking apart the portions of clips I wanted to use. To keep my timeline organized I color coordinated some of my clips so it would be easier for me to see everything and for me to be able to distinguish what I was looking at without having to rewatch the whole clip. This definitely made the process easier for me. I also succeeded in picking out the clips I wanted to use. One of my favorite parts of this process was getting to pull apart certain parts of my interviews and B-Roll to use in my clip. I would watch the videos and click the { on Premiere Pro where I wanted the cutout clip to start, then I would click } where I wanted it to start. 

What cutting out the clips looked like:

Some of my color coordination: 

What I learned: 

I learned a lot during this process. I learned how to navigate and properly use Premiere Pro by trying out the different icons and settings, how to organize my content by making bins and color coordinating my timeline, how to insert and remove clips in different ways, how to edit and insert audio, and even how to change Premiere Pros layout to better fit whatever I'm working on. 

Important take aways/How will this help me later on: 

I am going to take everything I learned with me as I continue this class because I think all of it was important. Since I am planning on doing a film opening for my final project, I will end up having to use everything I learned and learning it sooner rather than later will help me become more familiar with the software, so by the time I start editing my project I wont be confused or delayed by Premiere Pro. I will also definitely keep on practicing so I can get better on the thing I struggled with and so I can perfect the things I understood. 

Final Clip: