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We’ve rounded up some bits of advice from some of the top filmmakers who chose to edit their films using Adobe Premiere Pro.
For many, the single greatest challenge when editing a movie is simply getting started. If you think about it for too long, the idea of editing hours of footage into a single, artistic vision can be overwhelming. There are so many hard decisions to make. And, once you start adding in some complicated editing tasks — like sound, color, and VFX — it starts to make sense that you’re looking at several months of work.
Luckily, you’re not alone. There have been countless editors who have gone before you and succeeded. So, whether it’s a feature film, a short, or even just a regular video project, here are some great examples of talented filmmakers and editors who have edited using Adobe Premiere Pro.
To preview a movie, Adobe Premiere Elements must first prepare the clips on all the tracks for viewing, applying effects, motion, opacity, and volume settings. Video quality and frame rate are dynamically adjusted to let you preview the movie in real time. Movies that use only cuts between clips generally preview at normal quality and frame rate. Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline -based video editing software application developed by Adobe Systems and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. First launched in 2003, Adobe Premiere Pro is a successor of Adobe Premiere (first launched in 1991). Perhaps the most notable film edited using Premiere Pro is the brash superhero movie Deadpool.And because, of course, the character Deadpool would want you to know all about the editing process, the project often gets featured in Adobe’s promotions.
1. A Ghost Story
Originally an editor by trade, it should come as no surprise that filmmaker David Lowery writes, directs, and edits many of his feature films. One standout is the A24 hit A Ghost Story, which is notable for its heartfelt storytelling and sparse style. As you can see in the featurette above, Lowery talks about his Premiere Pro process — from the rough compositing stage to the final edits in After Effects. (You can read more about David Lowery’s editing and creative process here.)
2. Deadpool
Perhaps the most notable film edited using Premiere Pro is the brash superhero movie Deadpool. And because, of course, the character Deadpool would want you to know all about the editing process, the project often gets featured in Adobe’s promotions. However, the coolest thing to come out of Deadpool’s edit was when one of the editorial assistants actually made several of their Premiere Pro templates available online, which you can check out here.
3. Rock Rubber 45s
![Movies made with adobe premiere Movies made with adobe premiere](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/P2ZyPOE0_e8/maxresdefault.jpg)
It’s important that we highlight more than just narrative features. Many documentarians have used Premiere Pro to great success. PremiumBeat actually did an interview with documentary filmmaker Bobbito Garcia and his lead editor Raafi Rivero on their film Rock Rubber 45s, concerning Garcia’s unique place in streetball and Hip Hop culture. Their project is good inspiration for anyone diving into archival footage, with great tips on how to digitize, organize, and work with tons of antiquated footage for a modern story. (Read the full interview here.)
4. The Florida Project
One of the unique benefits of working with an NLE like Premiere Pro — rather than a more sophisticated system like Avid — is that you can edit in a rush. This is exactly the case outlined by The Florida Project’s editor Mike Hugo in this interview with Variety. Hugo details how he edited the fast, loosely shot project on a laptop, in an odd sort of exchanging workflow between himself and Director Sean Baker.
5. Gone Girl
Perhaps one of the best filmmakers of our modern time, David Fincher has a notorious reputation for adding a great deal of compositional elements to his films in post production. From creating new backgrounds to even adding things like cars and furniture, Fincher embraced Premiere Pro for his films — like Gone Girl (which you can read more about here) — as well as his more recent Netflix series Mindhunter (which you can read about here).
6. Hail, Caesar!
Acclaimed filmmakers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen made their own switch to Premiere Pro two years before their hit Hail, Caesar! came out in 2016. Additional Editor Katharine McQuerrey and Post-Production Supervisor Catherine Farrell, in an interview on Adobe’s blog, talked about the collaborative workflow they established with the Coen Brothers using the Media Browser and Dynamic Link.
7. Terminator: Dark Fate
The latest installment of one of the biggest action franchises of all time, Terminator: Dark Fate saw a very open editing process. From a round table discussion at Adobe Max, Director Tim Miller, Editor Julian Clarke, ACE Associate Editor Matt Carson, and Visual Effects Editor Jon Carr all opened up about their post-production process and their unique VFX-heavy workload. You can read more about the entire process here.
Cover image via Adobe.
For more Premiere Pro tips, tricks, and inspiration, check these out.
Cover image via Microsoft office amazon.
Need to create an image mask for color grades, special effects, or other applications? You can do so directly in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Top image via Shutterstock.
Adobe Movie Premiere
Adobe Premiere Pro allows you to create image masks directly within the program, which can save you time when editing video projects. The following step-by-step tutorial will show you how it’s done.
1. Set your workspace to the “Editing” layout.
![Free Free](https://images.template.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Retro-Film-Poster-Template.jpg)
Once your timeline with the shots that need masking is open, go to “Window” and select “Workspaces,” and then choose “Editing.” Once you’ve done that, you should be able to select the “Effect Controls” tab in the upper left-hand window if it isn’t already open.
2. Move the clip up one track and make sure any video tracks beneath it are empty.
Creating a mask on a clip is similar to cutting a hole in it, which makes anything beneath it visible. If you make sure nothing is visible beneath your clip, there will be less room for error as you begin to learn the various functions of an image mask.
3. Position the playhead over the clip that needs masking and then click to highlight it.
You should now be able to see the shot you are working with in the Program Monitor. By highlighting the clip, you ensure that the work you are doing affects only this clip and not anything else.
4. Open the “Opacity” controls in the “Effect Controls” tab in the window on the upper left and create an opacity mask.
Once you open the Opacity twirl-down controls, you will see three icons directly beneath the Opacity heading: an ellipse, a four-point polygon mask, and a pen tool. These are the three options for creating a custom mask. For now, click the pen tool. In this example, I am masking out the reflection in the mirror, so I put apoint at each corner of the mirror. Once you click the first point you created to close the shape, you will see the mask surrounded by empty space.
5. Invert the mask using the newly activated mask controls under the Opacity twirl down menu.
Click the check box a few rows down labeled “Inverted,” which makes the interior of the mask black, allowing you to see the original footage surrounding it. You can manipulate aspects such as the amount of the feathered edge, the mask size, and the initial placement of the mask in this step to customize how your mask blends in to the shot. You can highlight “Mask (1)” to show you the mask you created in case you are not currently seeing the blue outline of your mask.
6. Choose the footage you want to appear within your mask, and place it beneath the clip you just adjusted.
Place the clip with the footage that you want to appear inside of your mask on Video Track 1 directly beneath your masked clip. You should now be able to see the footage in the area that you cut out in the previous steps. You can adjust the alignment of the footage on Video Track 1 by highlighting the clip and manipulating its position with the x and y coordinates in the “Motion” tab in “Effects Controls.”
Potential masks to experiment with.
Adobe Movie Premiere
In Premiere Pro, you do not have to create masks only within the Opacity effect controls. Although that is a powerful and widespread use of masking, more practical uses of a mask involve effect controls such as Lumetri Color to apply color to a specific region of the image. Masks can also help control a color qualifier in a secondary color-grading process to more accurately isolate your sampling. You can also use masks to create video in which the same actor appears twice (or more) within the same frame. The next step is to apply animation to the image masks you create by tracking objects within the image. After this, the magic of special effects really takes shape — all inside Premiere Pro.
Free Adobe Movie Maker Software
Do you know other masking tips or tricks? Let us know in the comments.