Using the Project panel
Everything you import into your Adobe Premiere Pro CC project will appear in the Project panel. As well as giving you excellent tools for browsing your clips and working with their metadata, the Project panel has folder-like “bins” that you can use to stay organized.
Anything that appears in a sequence must also be in the Project panel. If you delete a clip in the Project panel that is already used in a sequence, the clip will automatically be removed from the sequence. Premiere Pro will warn you if deleting a clip will affect an existing sequence.
As well as acting as the repository for all your clips, the Project panel gives you important options for interpreting media. All your footage will have a frame rate (frames per second, or fps) and a pixel aspect ratio (pixel shape), for example. You may want to change these settings for creative reasons.
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The Project panel in List View. To switch to this view, click the List View button at the bottom left of the panel.
You could, for example, interpret video recorded at 60fps video as 30fps to achieve a 50 percent slow-motion effect. You might occasionally receive a video file that has the wrong pixel aspect ratio setting and want to correct it.
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Premiere Pro uses metadata associated with footage to know how to play it back. If you want to change the clip metadata, you can do so in the Project panel.
Customizing the Project panel
It’s likely that you’ll want to resize the Project panel from time to time. You’ll alternate between looking at your clips as a list or as thumbnail icons. Sometimes it’s quicker to resize the panel than to scroll to see more information.
The default Editing workspace is designed to keep the interface as clean as possible so you can focus on your creative work. Part of the Project panel that’s hidden from view by default, called the Preview Area, gives additional information about your clips.
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You can access lots of clip information by scrolling the List view or by hovering the mouse cursor over a clip name in Icon view.
Let’s take a look:
Click the panel menu for the Project panel (on the panel tab).
Choose Preview Area.
Click the panel menu for the Project panel (on the Panel tab).
Choose Preview Area to hide it.
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There’s a quick way to toggle between seeing the Project panel in a frame and seeing it full-screen: Hover your mouse cursor over the panel and press the ` (accent grave) key. You can do this with any panel. If your keyboard does not have a ` (accent grave) key, you can click the panel menu and choose Panel Group Settings > Maximize Panel Group.
The Preview Area shows you several kinds of useful information about a selected clip in the Project panel, including the frame size, pixel aspect ratio, and duration.
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If it’s not already selected, click the List View button (
) at the bottom left of the Project panel. In this view, you’ll find a lot of information about each clip in the Project panel, but you need to scroll horizontally to see it.
Finding assets in the Project panel
Working with clips is a little like working with pieces of paper at your desk. If you have just one or two clips, it’s easy. But when you have 100 to 200, you need a system.
One way you can help make things smoother during the edit is to invest a little time in organizing your clips at the beginning. If you rename your clips after importing them, it will make it easier for you to locate content later (see “Changing names” in this chapter).
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You can scroll the Project panel view up and down using the scroll wheel on your mouse.
Click the Name heading at the top of the Project panel. The items in the Project panel are displayed in alphabetical order or reverse alphabetical order each time you click the Name heading again.
Scroll to the right until you can see the Media Duration heading in the Project panel. This shows the total duration of each clip’s media file.
Click the Media Duration heading. Premiere Pro now displays the clips in order of media duration. Notice the direction arrow on the Media Duration heading. Each time you click the heading, the direction arrow toggles between showing clips in duration order and in reverse duration order.
Drag the Media Duration heading to the left until you see a blue divider between the Frame Rate heading and the Name heading. When you release the mouse button, the Media Duration heading will be repositioned right next to the Name heading.
If you’re searching for several clips with particular features—such as a duration or a frame size—it can be helpful to change the order in which the headings are displayed.
NOTE
When you scroll to the right in the Project panel, Premiere Pro always maintains the clip names on the left so you know which clips you’re seeing information about.
NOTE
You may need to drag a divider to expand the width of a column before you can see its sorting order arrow.
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Filtering bin content
Premiere Pro has built-in search tools to help you find your media. Even if you’re using nondescriptive original clip names assigned in-camera, you can search for clips based on a number of factors, such as frame size or file type.
NOTE
Graphic and photo files such as Photoshop PSD, JPEG, and Illustrator AI files import with a default frame duration you set after choosing Preferences > General > Still Image Default Duration.
At the top of the Project panel, you can type in the Filter Bin Content box to display only clips with names or metadata matching the text you enter. This is a quick way to locate a clip if you remember its name (or even part of its name). Clips that don’t match the text you enter are hidden, and clips that do match are revealed, even if they are inside a closed bin.
Try this now:
Click in the Filter Bin Content box, and type jo.
Click the X on the right of the Find box to clear your search.
Type psd in the box.
Premiere Pro displays only the clips with the letters jo in the name or in the metadata. Notice that the name of the project is displayed above the text entry box, along with “(filtered).”
NOTE
The name bin comes from film editing. The Project panel is also effectively a bin; it can contain clips and functions like any other bin.
Premiere Pro displays only clips that have the letters psd in their name or metadata. In this case, it’s the Theft_Unexpected title you imported earlier as a layered image—this is a Photoshop PSD file. Using the Filter Bin Content box in this way, you can search for particular types of files.
Be sure to click the X on the right of the Filter Bin Content box to clear your filter when you have found the clips you want.
Using advanced Find
Premiere Pro also has an advanced Find option. To learn about it, you can import a couple more clips.
Using any of the methods described in Lesson 3, import these items:
Seattle_Skyline.mov from the Assets/Video and Audio Files/General Views folder
Under Basket.MOV from the Assets/Video and Audio Files/Basketball folder
At the bottom of the Project panel, click the Find button (
). Premiere Pro displays the Find panel, which has more advanced options for locating your clip.
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You can perform two searches at once with the advanced Find panel. You can choose to display clips that match all search criteria or any search criteria. For example, depending on the setting you choose in the Match menu, you could do either of the following:
Search for a clip with the words dog AND boat in its name.
Search for a clip with the word dog OR boat in its name.
To do this, make selections from the following menus:
Column: This option lets you select from the available headings in the Project panel. When you click Find, Premiere Pro will search using only the heading you select.
Operator: This option gives you a set of standard search options. Use this menu to choose whether you want to find a clip that contains, matches exactly, begins with, or ends with whatever you search for.
Match: Choose All to find a clip with both your first and your second search text. Choose Any to find a clip with either your first or your second search text.
Case Sensitive: Selecting this option tells Premiere Pro whether you want your search to exactly match the uppercase and lowercase letters you enter.
Find What: Type your search text here. You can add up to two sets of search text.
When you click Find, Premiere Pro highlights a clip that matches your search criteria. Click Find again, and Premiere Pro highlights the next clip that matches your search criteria. Click Done to exit the Find dialog box.