Industry Experienced Instructor
“The instructor was extremely knowledgeable about Premiere Pro, and the exercises were interesting. I feel like I can use this program now without being too intimidated.”
Jonah Schrogin
About Premiere Pro
What is Premiere Pro?
Premiere Pro is Adobe’s video editing software and one of its post-production apps, along with After Effects. It is an industry-standard tool for professional video editors and one of the most popular tools for non-professional video editing. Premiere Pro is a beginner-friendly, accessible video editing application with deep enough functionality to regularly find use on major Hollywood projects. No matter what level of video editing you hope to accomplish, learning Premiere Pro is an excellent way to meet your goals.
For those unfamiliar with the term, video editing is taking footage and arranging it in a particular order, occasionally in combination with effects. While this might sound pretty cut and dry on paper, video editing is an incredibly in-depth field, with the ability to completely change or bolster the meaning of the video just by altering the sequence of clips. Video editing is the final stage of most video productions, and it is the most important part of turning all of the work done by other creatives into a finished, coherent project.
Premiere Pro offers many tools to allow users to create any video project they can think of. It has built-in footage transition effects with the option to create your own video effects, audio effects, and basic cut-and-edit tools. It also has a wide variety of workflow optimization features to help video editors ensure that they are producing the best project possible. For instance, before the advent of digital video editing technologies like Premiere Pro, the footage had to be manually cut and connected to produce a finished reel. Premiere Pro allows for non-destructive editing, making the process of experimenting with different edits much easier and less time-consuming. Premiere Pro’s dashboard interface also makes working with dozens of different camera angles, takes, and files possible, making the editing process far more efficient and less laborious on the editor’s part.
Why Learn Premiere Pro?
Learn a Creative Skill
Video editing is a complex and technically driven storytelling process. Learning how to edit video content isn’t just about learning the tools of the trade, though learning Premiere Pro is an important part of the process. When you learn Premiere Pro, you’ll be learning theories of video editing, and you’ll be learning how video editing creates meaning in a film through the act of combining and juxtaposing images. Video editing has been an important part of cinema since the development of motion picture technology, and learning how to edit videos can help you become a part of this creative tradition. Simple cuts and transitions can tell stories by themselves, and talented video editors will learn how to shape the meaning of a film project through their vital contributions to the finished product. Enrolling in a video editing class will involve learning the principles and techniques of film editing. This includes basic principles of editing, like when to use certain cuts and how to maintain continuity between shots, and more advanced principles of editing, like how to create meaning using montage or the Kuleshov effect.
Start a New Career
Video editing is an in-demand career skill, particularly as more studios and companies turn to online content production to distribute their work and advertise their products. Video editors can find work in almost all fields that regularly produce video content. While they are most commonly associated with the film and television industries, they also work in advertising, online content production studios, and non-profit advocacy organizations, and they can find work as freelancers or studio editors working on various projects. Video editing can be a rewarding career path to consider, and one of the most important steps in starting this career path is learning Premiere Pro.
Students interested in a career-focused Premiere Pro training class may consider enrolling in Noble Desktop’s video editing certificate program. This class is designed to take students with no prior video editing experience and prepare them for a career in video editing. Students will receive hands-on instruction and edit their own video projects for inclusion in the portfolio (often called a demo reel) that they will take onto the job market. In addition, students enrolled in this, or any, Noble career certificate program can take advantage of one-on-one career mentorship sessions with industry professionals to help guide them through the job search process.
Edit Your Own Video Content
Video editing is also a useful skill to learn for students interested in editing and producing their own video content. The rise of platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch, combined with the significant price drop in camera technology (most of our phones have better cameras than decade-old professional cameras), has led to a massive influx of aspiring content creators being able to produce and distribute video content. At the same time, the market for this content has become increasingly competitive, as more video content is being produced than can be reasonably consumed. One way to help your content stand out from the crowd is to spend the time to learn how to edit that content using Premiere Pro professionally. With just a few short lessons, online content creators can make their productions look far more professional than ever before, and they can signal to their audience that their content is worth paying attention to.
Learn Filmmaking Techniques
Even if you aren’t interested in professional video editing, learning editing techniques can be a powerful tool for aspiring filmmakers to learn. Editing is one of the four foundational elements of film, and is where a great deal of the meaning in a movie comes from. The theory of montage suggests that people gain more meaning from two images edited in sequence than they do from those two images alone, and this is an incredibly important element of the filmmaking process. If you are interested in writing, directing, or shooting film, learning how editing can contribute to your final project is a potent tool in your repertoire. In addition, at more advanced stages of one’s career, filmmakers will need to work alongside editors to prepare a project for completion, so it will be important for the collaborative nature of filmmaking to learn how editors contribute to the finished project.
Engage with the Adobe Creative Cloud
One of the reasons to learn Premiere Pro over other video editing applications is that it is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. This means that users who license access to Premiere Pro can license other Creative Cloud applications like After Effects, Audition, and Stock. Users licensing After Effects will also receive access to Cinema 4D, a 3D animation application. These programs are all integrated with one another, meaning that learning one of them will make it easier to use the others in more optimized and efficient ways. In particular, After Effects and Premiere Pro are very closely connected when working with digital special effects, so learning how to use one program can complement your skills with the other. Beyond this, Audition lets users edit and utilize audio files in a completed video project, and Stock provides users with a massive library of audio and video assets to use in their projects. Learning Creative Cloud skills will also streamline the editing process, as you can easily move important files from one program to another with minimal hassle.
Animation Vs. Video Editing
Video editing is often closely associated with the other major digital aspect of filmmaking, animation. While most people think of cartoons when they think of animation, the term more broadly refers to any process of creating the illusion of weight and motion in a digitally created asset. This includes everything from big-budget Hollywood special effects to minor digital alterations added in post-production to utilizing small animated assets in a TikTok video. Most digital animation is built using programs like Adobe After Effects and edited into a final project using Premiere Pro. As a result, many video editors and motion graphics animators will learn both programs. Noble offers a comprehensive video editing and motion graphics certificate program, which teaches both applications.
The difference between animation software and video editing is that the former is for creating footage from scratch. Motion graphics is the process of building all-new digital assets that will be added to a finished video project, and it is primarily associated with the kinds of digital effects that would be impossible to recreate using film techniques alone. By contrast, video editing involves taking already-made clips and altering them within a sequence to create something new. Editors will make meaning out of existing content by rearranging it, cutting it, and combining different shots into a single new shot. Video editors will often work alongside motion graphics artists to bring a finished project to life.
Simultaneous Editing
Premiere is powerful enough to allow simultaneous editing, which means the user can place several video clips at once into the program and edit all of them within the same project. This will tremendously improve editing workflow efficiency since you won’t have to manually move between files to edit multiple sections of footage. The application also can take all sorts of file types while maintaining high-quality resolutions for real-time playback. This means the user can import audio files, different kinds of video files, and even static images without blurring or pixelating. If the user previews their project, Premiere Pro will replay their clips in real time without stuttering or loss.
Who Uses Premiere Pro?
Ostensibly, the majority of people who use Premiere Pro are video editors. However, the applications they use it for are vast and varied. Video editors will work in a wide range of fields, and the number of studios, firms, companies, and organizations producing video content is growing every day. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, film and video editing positions are expected to grow by about 14% over the next decade, nearly three times the national average. This means that learning to use Premiere Pro is a good way to open the door to a career path growing across various industries.
Premiere Pro is most commonly used in the film and television industry (nearly 40% of video editors work in these industries). With the rise in original content for online streaming platforms, more and more editors are being employed to create enough content to keep audiences engaged, so entry-level editing positions are significantly more common than in the past. In addition, as film projects become more elaborate and expensive, larger teams of editors and effects artists are required to keep up with the industry’s demands. Learning Premiere Pro can be a significant boon for anyone working on major studio productions. Film and television also recognize the importance of film editing, with major industry awards and accolades given to skilled artists for their editing excellence.
Video editors can also find work at online content studios and advertising agencies. These studios are producing video content significantly faster than film and television studios, and they need to hire experienced editors who can quickly turn material around without cutting corners on the important technical aspects of editing. Some editors can find this accelerated process more creatively rewarding, particularly as it allows them to work with a more limited range of content, requiring them to be more creative with the limited tools they have to work with. These also tend to be smaller studios that work on more varied content, meaning editors can form tight-knit communities with their colleagues. Video editors can even find work on very small projects for web platforms like YouTube or TikTok since this video content needs to be professionally edited to help it stand out in the crowd. Many successful content creators hire editors to help streamline the process or assist them in the final stages of video production.
Video editors can also find freelance work, which can be lucrative (according to the BLS, more than 35% of video editors are self-employed). Freelance video editors are often hired by individuals looking to create their own video content, firms that don’t regularly produce video content but need editors (for everything from start-up pitches to training videos), and temporary projects that require video editors for a short-term period of time (such as political campaigns or one-time community events). Freelance video editors can even find work on small projects like wedding or graduation videos. One of the advantages of becoming a freelance video editor is that you’ll have greater control over the kinds of work that you do and the amount of time you dedicate to your work. The drawback is that freelancers will have added responsibilities (such as working with clients and keeping financial records) if they want to make it a stable career.
Terms and Tools
Premiere has a pretty well-stocked toolbar, but don’t feel intimidated by its scope. The program is very beginner-friendly, and students can start editing video projects with only a few hours of training. Adobe even offers its own collection of free resources to help new users navigate the application. In addition, Noble Desktop offers a collection of free Premiere Pro resources and a free Intro to Premiere Pro seminar for prospective students. Here’s a handful of basic tools and terms to get you started with the application.
- Timeline: the timeline panel in Premiere is used to arrange clips in a particular order. This is the most important tool since it is a representation of what the completed video project will look like when ready for publication. It is also the tool for organizing the final edit.
- Playhead: this indicates where the project is paused in time. This is an important tool for making the very fine edits that a professional video project requires. The difference in a fraction of a second between cuts can be felt by audiences, so editors will need to be incredibly precise in determining where to make their cuts.
- Media Browser: this panel is for importing files to use in the project, as well as organizing assets. One of the advantages of using a program like Premiere Pro is that you can more easily organize and manipulate dozens of video files at a time, and the media browser is essential for keeping this work organized.
- Clipping and Transition Tools: Premiere Pro also lets users make significant digital alterations to aspects of the film. They can alter the pace of the footage, speeding it up or slowing it down, and they can add specialized transitions and effects to the video footage. Premiere Pro boasts dozens of specialized tools, including tools for zooming in on footage, sliding footage, and tools for ripple, rolling, and razor edits.
The best part of Premiere Pro, however, is how accessible it is. It’s powerful enough to be used professionally, yet available in the comfort of your home. The program is designed to be as intuitive as possible, and while it still requires an understanding of the process of video editing, new users can start experimenting with the system in only a few hours of training. Courses like Noble Desktop’s Premiere Pro in a Day class are ideal places to start learning the basics of the interface and the tools offered through the application. Given how easy it is to produce raw video footage (thanks to how good phone cameras are), it is easier than ever to start learning the basics of video editing. Then, once you’ve got the basics down, you can consider enrolling in a more advanced training program to take your skills to the next level.
Premiere Pro Careers
Unsurprisingly, video editing software is most commonly used by video editors in a professional context. These professional editors are tasked with cutting and rearranging raw footage to turn the collected work of other creatives into a video project that is ready for production. They will need to make creative decisions about how to cut and arrange shots, and they will be responsible for maintaining technically accurate editing practices such as ensuring audio and visual elements are synced and that continuity is maintained between shots. Video editors may also need to work alongside other creatives, like directors, writers, and storyboard artists, to create a coherent, collaborative video project. In the US, professional video editors earn about $55,000 annually.
Premiere Pro is also used by motion graphics designers to complete the digital effects and animated assets they build for video projects. Motion graphics designers (also called animators and special effects artists, depending on their work) are tasked with building 3D animated assets in programs like After Effects and Cinema 4D and potentially editing those assets into a video file using Premiere Pro. This is a more traditionally creative process since it involves the construction of new assets using digital design software. In the US, motion graphics artists earn an average annual salary of about $70,000.
Many video editors will supplement their work or find gainful employment as freelance artists. These video editors will work on various projects depending on their clientele, and they will be freer to negotiate their rates. Freelance editors will need to do more work building a base of clients, and they will need to handle the management aspects of their profession, but they will also be freer to set their own schedule and take on projects that appeal to their creative interests.
Conclusion
There you have it! Premiere Pro is easy enough for anyone to pick up yet powerful enough to become an industry powerhouse for video editing. The next time you want to try putting together your own film or ad, consider reaching into Premiere Pro. It doesn’t take a lot of training to become accustomed to the software application, and with the right amount of training, you can set yourself up for a career as a professional video editor.
If you learn how to edit video using Premiere Pro, you will be using the same software used by industry giants and have access to an incredible library of effects and tools. All of this is packaged in an intuitive, easy-to-learn setup. So grab some footage, start up Premiere, and take a look through our library of tutorials to get you started on your next project.
