Month: April 2020

How To Make A Zoom In Effect In Premiere

In this post I’m going to show you four different mini tutorials on Premiere Pro. First, let’s start with how you can make a zoom in and out effect.

Hey guys, my name is Scott and I make full and mini tutorials like this one on Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Freelancing tips. So please do consider hitting the follow button at the top right of this page, so you don’t miss any other posts! Ok let’s get into how we can make a zoom in effect in Premiere.

So I have my stock footage of a dog getting blow dried, and it’s a static shot meaning the camera isn’t moving. So to make this more dynamic I want to add a slow zoom in effect. I’m going to go up to effect controls and go to scale. From there you’ll see there’s a timeline next to the effect controls panel. This illustrates the beginning and end of our clip, so I want my zoom to start at the beginning of the clip. I’ll go ahead and move the playhead to the start, and now we want to add in a keyframe. 

Let’s go over to scale and you can see the size of our video is at 100 percent. Let’s click on the stopwatch icon next to scale to add our first keyframe. What this does is the keyframe locks in the size of our video at 100 percent at this point in the video. Now let’s go over to the end of our keyframe timeline, and add a second keyframe. Look for the keyframe icon to the right of the scale size, to add in a new keyframe. We want our effect to slowly zoom in, so I’m going to go back over to scale and type in 150 percent. This will slowly increase the size of our video from the beginning to the end of the clip.

Now when we play it back there’s a nice slow zoom in effect. You can do the exact opposite if you want the clip to slowly zoom out. I would just need to start at 150 percent at the beginning, and then change the end to 100 percent.

And if you want this to be a super fast zoom in, you can move the last keyframe closer to the first keyframe to increase the zoom speed. From there you can play around with the scale size, and how far apart the keyframes are to get the perfect zoom in effect.

So that’s how you can create a zoom effect in premiere pro, what kind of projects will you guys use this effect for? Let me know in the comments below!

How To Make A Freeze Frame [In Premiere]

In this posts I’m going to show you how you can make a hold frame in Premiere Pro! Just so you know I’m a little bit old school, so I call a hold frame a freeze frame, but they’re basically the same thing. I just wanted to mention that, so you’re not confused. 

So I’ve got this clip of a skateboarder, and he grabs his board as he jumps from one part of the skate park to the other. What I want is to freeze the frame right when he’s in mid air, grabbing his board. 

So I’m going to find the exact spot I want the clip to freeze at. If I just wanted the entire clip to be a freeze frame, I can right click on the clip on my timeline and go to frame hold options. A dialog box should pop, with the exact timecode and frame that I want to freeze at. If I click ok, what it does is convert the entire clip to that frame. Which is fine, if I just wanted the still shot of him in the air or something like that without the rest of the clip.

But let’s say I wanted the clip to play just before he jumps into the air, and then freeze the frame for a few seconds, and then have the rest of the clip playout. In that case, what I would do is go back to the exact spot that I want on my clip, and make a cut right at the frame. Using command C I’ll go cut the frame right as he’s jumping and holding the board.

Next what I’ll do is zoom in on my timeline and move my playhead over to the left one frame, and make another cut. What we’re doing here is isolating this one frame, where he’s in mid air. After that I’m going to zoom out on my timeline, and pull the rest of the clip away from the beginning part.

Then I’m going to right click on the single frame that we isolated, and go back to frame hold options. The dialog box pops up once again, and I’ll click ok because it’s on the correct frame that I want. Now I’ll set my freeze frame out to three seconds, and you can do that by looking at the grey timecode that appears when you extend the clip. After that I’ll merge all my clips back together and play from the beginning.

Now, the clip plays just before he jumps, and then freezes for three seconds while he’s in air, at this point I could put maybe some text or something while it’s frozen there, and then the rest of the clips plays out to finish it.

So that’s how you can create a freeze frame in Premiere Pro. Let me know in the comments below, what kind of projects will you use this effect for?

How To Speed Up Or Slow Down Videos

First we’re going to start off with how to speed up a clip. So I have a video here of a bike rider in San Francisco, near the golden gate bridge. And he rides by the camera, but the clip appears to be playing back slower than I want. So I’m going right click on the clip, and then I’ll go to speed slash duration. When I click on that a dialog box should pop up with a percentage of how fast the clip is playing, and right now it’s playing at 100 percent of its original speed. So if I want to speed up the clip, I’ll need to increase the percentage. Since the bike rider was moving pretty slow, I’m going to increase the speed from 100 to 400 percent.

Now, if we play back the clip it looks like it’s playing back at what it’s normal speed was in real life when it was originally filmed. But if we want to make the bike rider go even faster, we can just go back to speed duration and increase the percentage once more. This time I’ll change it to 800 percent. Now when we play it back once again, the bike rider is moving super fast.

Next, let’s take a look at how we can slow down some footage, and it’s pretty similar to how we sped up the other clip. You could just go and right click on the frame, go to speed duration, and then decrease the percentage to lower than 100 percent to slow down the speed. However, there is a problem that you can run into with slowing down clips, and it has to do with frame rate. 

Frame rate is important because depending on how many frames your clip has, will determine how smooth the slow motion play back will appear. If your clip only has say, 23 or 30 frames per second, when you slow it down it’s going to look really choppy. You can check your clips frame rate by going to your project window, and looking for the frame rate info box. You can also right click on your source clip, go to properties, and an information box should pop with all of the clips info.

On the other hand, if your clip has close to 60 frames per second like this clip with some birds, it’s going to play back much smoother at 50 percent. And that’s because there’s more than twice as many frames in this bird clip (which as 59.94 frames per second) than the bike rider clip (which only has 25 frames per second). In other words, the bird clip has way more frames to work with in slow motion, which creates a much smoother play back. 

So my advice to you guys is, if you’re working with a video clip that’s around 23 to 30 frames per second, try to stay above 75 percent when slowing down the footage. That way you’ll still be able to get a slowed down look without it appearing too choppy. 

And if you’re really going for that super nice smooth slow motion look, make sure you shoot your video in 60 frames per second. That way you don’t run into this issue when you’re editing everything together.

How To Replace Old Files [In Premiere Pro]

So I have my sequence here set to 1920 by 1080, and you’ll notice there’s an image of a baseball player taking a swing with his bat. Even though I want to use this image, it’s obviously way too small for this sequence. So let’s say I was either able to resize the image myself outside of Premiere or maybe this is a client’s project and they gave me an updated file with a higher resolution and now I want to update this small file with a newer, much larger one.

Well all I would need to do is go over to my project window, and find the original image file. Right click on it, go down to replace footage, and find the newer file that I want to use. Once I select that, Premiere should update it with the newer, larger file. And that’s it, it’s that easy, now the image I want to use is the perfect size for this sequence.

Another example where the replace file feature can come in handy is, let’s say that we have this slideshow here. I’ve got a few images of some London landmarks, and I’ve already taken the time to have the images zoom in and out, and crossfade exactly how I want it, but I found a mistake on one of the slides that I need to correct. This bridge here is not the London Bridge, it’s actually the Tower Bridge. I can’t fix the text in Pre  miere because it’s part of the original image, so I’ll have to go into Photoshop to correct it. But after that, at least I don’t have to worry about having to redo this entire slide show, which would be a huge pain, because all I would need to do is use the replace file feature. 

So now I’ve gone into Photoshop, I’ve updated the file and now I’m ready to bring it back into Premiere. First I’ll go and find the original file, I’ll right click on it, and go down to replace footage. Now I’ll click on the newer file, and once again Premiere should update it automatically. The great thing about this is, even the zoom animations and crossfades stay exactly how they were with the older file. So I don’t need to go back and try and redo this entire slide show again, which is a huge time saver. 

So that’s how you can replace old files in Premiere Pro! There’s lots of ways this feature can be used from replacing old music and audio files to updating newer footage, how will you guys plan to use the replace file feature? Let me know in the comments below!

If you’ve enjoyed this video, please hit the like button and don’t forget to share with anyone else who might also enjoy it. For more information on Premiere Pro, Photoshop and Freelancing tips head on over to my website at scottedwardfowler.com. Also, check out my other tutorial videos which I’ve posted on the right side of the screen here. Alright, that’s it for me guys see you in the next video!