Need some handholding regarding Premiere 2.0 (comments thread contains questions)

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

preferably in IM chat, because I just don't understand the program well enough to ask useful questions here. Ideally, I'd need someone in RL who could sit beside me so I could point at stuff on the screen and go 'ugh!' (I'm lacking practically the entire vocabulary here) but since it's unlikely that there's a vidder who could give me private lessons where I live, IM will have to do.

I don't really want to do anything *particularly* fancy - mostly just very basic transitions; possibly a white flash, and some slowing down of certain parts. I've played around with the program, on and off, for months, but most of its functions are just utterly mystifying to me.

Comments

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Adobe Pro has some preprogrammed transitions, like dissolves or dip to black (the help function will explain them) but it doesn't do white flash - you have to program that manually. I asked a similar question a while back and got these responses (http://community.livejournal.com/vidding_tech/9334.html).

To slow a clip, right click on the clip in the timeline. You'll get a menu with different options including one for speed.

Only scratching the surface...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I'm actually too stupid ;-) for this program by far. These weren't the only questions I had, but most of the other ones I can't articulate without pointing at the screen and saying things like "what happens if I click this thing like this and that thing like that? Why is there this odd green line suddenly? Why doesn't anything discernible happen when I try to move it?" etc.

I actually know that Premiere has transitions. I just don't know how to use them. I've tried dragging them into my project, but nothing seems to happen. I'm probably doing something wrong.

I've also found the slowing-up option on my own, but don't really know how to use it.

I'm sorry, this probably makes me catastrophically stupid or something. I found my way around Windows Movie Maker without help pretty well, but Premiere is just... I dunno.

And there don't seem to be any particularly useful tutorials anywhere, either. Or rather, there are dozens of them, but I can't find the stuff I need to know.

Re: Only scratching the surface...

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

You have to drag a transition and place it on two adjoining clips in the timeline - if you don't place it on two adjoining clips, it doesn't work.

Only advice I can give is - you gotta read the manual, play around, and be prepared to throw things and scream loudly. And in a year, you still won't understand a tenth of what Premiere can do.

Well, I've already been at it for about five months...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

(though admittedly with large pauses) so I can well imagine that. But the 'play with it and see where it gets you' approach that I usually use for new software doesn't seem to be working here at all. What's more, whenever I try to read up on the subject, it's like everybody speaks another language - I just don't understand most of the explanations.

I probably need to find a series of tutorials that explains me *everything*, from the bottom up. If there is such a thing.

The frustrating thing is that I really just want to edit this one little video, and that's it. I would have been perfectly happy to do it in dirt-simple WMM if that hadn't kept crashing plus inserting ghost frames and odd little 'hiccups' everywhere. It seems... excessive to invest months and months of reading and watching tutorials (really annoying: why are so many tutorials in the form of videos? This is such an impractical form for a tutorial!) to produce a 4-minute clip.

*sigh* (Sorry. Hitting frustration limit here.)

Actually, Premiere puts ghost frames into my vid, too.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

So, I guess that's another question I have: how do I prevent that, or remove them?

Re: Actually, Premiere puts ghost frames into my vid, too.

[some-stars.livejournal.com]

You probably don't want to hear this after buying Premiere Pro, but honestly it sounds like your best option is Premiere Elements, or the other apps directed at non-pro-level users--I know Sony Vegas also makes a basic version. The higher-level software isn't worth it unless you plan to grow into it eventually, and it has a really steep learning curve.

I think the Adobe site lets you download fully-functional programs that expire after 2 weeks or 30 days or something, but if you just want to do the one project that might be enough time for you?

I'm actually using a friend's copy.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

So I didn't exactly buy this. I don't have the kind of money to buy this kind of program for a one-off project. My choice of software was simply based on what happened to be available among my friends.

Unfortunately he's in New Zealand now, so I can't ask him for help.

Hmm...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>I think the Adobe site lets you download fully-functional programs that expire after 2 weeks or 30 days or something, but if you just want to do the one project that might be enough time for you?

Hmm... that may be an option. It will have to wait a year, though, because I won't have that kind of time in the next twelve or so months. I can tinker a bit now and then, but two to four weeks of straight editing would kill my M.A. thesis, I'm afraid.

After some more playing, and actually managing to improve my vid a bit...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I just tried 'render work area' and got the error message 'disk full'. Now, the partition I installed Premiere on is far from full - there's about 80 GB free. Is it possible that Premiere uses parts of another partition for rendering (my C:\ partition is pretty small), and if it does, can I tell it to use the one it's installed on?)

Yet another question:

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

When I export what I have so far as a .wmv file, the resulting video is horribly 'stuttery'. (Sorry, I don't know how to express this better. It's the image, and not the sound that's the issue, but it looks like, well, visual stuttering.)

Plus, I get ghost frames in the .wmv that aren't visible in the .pproj file when I play it in Premiere.

Any ideas what to do about that?

(I get the feeling it may be bad form to ask so many questions... but I've *tried* finding answers here in the memories and elsewhere, and nothing really helped.)

Re: Yet another question:

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

I had that problem in Vegas - all my transitions would go blurry. To alleviate that issue, I render to a full-res .avi file first (NTSC DV or NTSC DV Widescreen). It gives me a finished video of between 700MB and 1GB. Then I open that file as a new project and export it to .wmv. It works much more smoothly because the transitions and such are already sorted out.

It's actually not the transitions -

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

can't be, because there aren't any. Just straight cuts. The 'visual stuttering' happens everywhere - at the beginning, at the end, or right in the middle of clips.

I've played around some more, and discovered that it plays fine in some players at least. The stuttering is only an issue in VLC player at the moment - which reminds me that I've actually seen this in finished vids by certain vidders, too. A codec issue, maybe?

I'm not sure I can save to avi - last time I tried that, I just got a blank screen instead of my clips (the sound was fine, though). But I'll try if multiple saving/re-opening/exporting helps. Maybe there's some magic combination of steps... *g*

Re: It's actually not the transitions -

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Even if you don't have transitions, when you're rendering a project file, the software has to render to a new format and go off and locate all the different clip sources at the same time. If you render to avi first, it just has to concentrate on the one, complete file. I've found that gives much better results than trying to compress from the original project file, but I am using a different programme entirely. I hope you find a solution!

[yunafire.livejournal.com]

I'm currently re-aquanting myself with PremPro2.0 as well, after being away from vidding for about a year or so. Starting basic - fades, cuts, speed up/down, etc - since its been a while (plus, helps that my song is a slow one..but thats getting a bit rambly).

Point is, I could possibly help you. I'm rusty, but know my way around the program. 'Course, there's likely some things I'd just go 'uh...durr?' and have no clue about. So if you'd be alright with that... then I could play the PremPro guru for a bit. ^.^ Do you have YM or AIM?

I worship at your feet, my guru! *g*

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I seem to have an old AIM account, yes, but it seems to be severely broken. Can't get my profile to display, can't find out my username or whatever is used there for logging on - although I do seem to be logged on. Weird. I'm using Miranda, a multi-messenger, and it's apparently not playing well with AIM. *sigh*

I'll see about getting a Yahoo account, I think. Will give you the contact info here when I've got it.

Addendum to the previous:

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

actually... if you could give me your AIM details I could try if I can find you via Miranda. It may work.

Found my AIM details...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

deep in the entrails of Miranda ;-) - I'm hmpf1998 on AIM. Can't guarantee Miranda really works well with AIM, as I haven't used it in years, but it's worth a try. If it doesn't, I'll have to see about getting Yahoo. (Haven't been able to find out yet how to set up a Yahoo messenger account in Miranda.)

Re: Found my AIM details...

[yunafire.livejournal.com]

Just realized I didn't have aim installed on this lappy. Silly me. Reinstalled it -- my s/n on there is YunaFirerose. =)