Zoo Promo: Adding Subtitles & Exporting in Premiere Pro

Topics covered in this Premiere Pro tutorial:

Adding Subtitles with the Type Tool, Finding Missing Files, Collecting Files with the Project Manager

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

In this exercise, we’ll finish off the zoo promo by adding subtitles, and take care of some client revisions.

Previewing the Final Video

1. Open the revised final movie, Zoo-Promo-Revised.mov, from the Desktop > Class Files > Premiere Pro Class > Zoo Promo > Finished Movie folder.

2. Play the video, taking special notice of the things we haven’t done yet:

   • The beginning of the voice-over is slightly shorter (it no longer mentions Essex County New Jersey).
   • Throughout the video there are subtitles matching the narration.

3. Feel free to refer back to the video as needed.

4. You should still have yourname-ZooProject open in Premiere Pro. If you closed it, re-open it now. We recommend you finish the previous exercises (2A–2B) before starting this one. If you haven’t finished them, do the following:

   • Open ZooProject-Ready for Subtitles.prproj from Desktop > Class Files > Premiere Pro Class > Zoo Promo > Finished Projects.
   • Save the file as yourname-ZooProject.prproj into Desktop > Class Files > Premiere Pro Class > Zoo Promo.

Adding Subtitles

1. With the Timeline panel selected, hit the Home key (or Fn–Left Arrow) to move the playhead to the beginning.

2. In the Tools panel, choose the Type tool .

3. In the Program Monitor, draw a text box in the bottom of the text safe margin:

   

4. In the Effect Controls panel, expand the Text section if it isn’t already.

5. Under Source Text, click into the font menu and choose Arial Regular.

6. Below that, change the font size to 68.

7. Click the Center text icon .

8. As shown below, click the Bottom align center icon:

   

9. Under Appearance, set the Fill color to white (#FFFFFF).

10. To save us from having to type all the subtitles, we’ve been provided with a text file we can copy/paste from. On the Desktop, navigate to Class Files > Premiere Pro Class > Zoo Promo and open Zoo-script.rtf.

11. Select and copy the first two lines:

    Head on over to Essex County NJ’s
    Turtle Back Zoo.

12. Leave the text file open and switch back to Premiere.

13. With the Type tool , click into the text box and paste the text.

14. Move the playhead forward so you can see the text over the intro image.

15. The legibility of the text would be improved with a drop shadow. In Effect Controls, under Appearance, check on Shadow and set the following:
    • Opacity : 50%
    • Angle : 135°
    • Distance : 5
    • Blur : 59
16. In the Effect Controls, expand the Vector Motion section if needed.

17. Under Vector Motion, change the vertical positioning (2nd number to the right of Position), to adjust the text placement vertically. Otherwise it might intersect with the Turtle Back Zoo sign. We found that 960  607 works well.

    Vector Motion vs. Motion

    New in the recent versions of Premiere Pro, Vector Motion maintains the infinite scale-ability of vector text and graphics, and removes the cropping and pixelation issues that arise when using the regular Motion transform options with vector files.

    Whenever possible in this book, we’ll be using Vector Motion. If you’re using an older version of Premiere Pro, you can input the same values into Motion and obtain a similar result.

Adding the Rest of the Subtitles

1. In the Tools panel, choose the Selection tool .

2. We want to cut the subtitle text so that we have one subtitle clip for every phrase of voiceover. Fortunately, each phrase corresponds to a video or photo clip.

   In the Timeline, zoom out using the zoom slider (drag the right circle rightwards) so you can see the entire Timeline.

3. Hover over the end of the text clip to get the red bracket and drag out the right end of the subtitle clip to the end of the Timeline. It should cover the entire length of the Timeline (the area that has content).

4. Using the Down Arrow key on your keyboard (to move between clips) and the Razor (Cut) tool , cut the subtitles track along the same cut lines as the video and photo clips. (3;10, 5;21, 6;21, etc.)

5. Hit V to switch to the Selection tool after you’re done.

6. Time to add the next subtitle line. Move the playhead to the beginning of the second clip at 3;10.

7. Double–click the second subtitle clip.

8. Go to the subtitle text file.

9. Copy the next line: We have a wide variety of animals, including

10. Switch back to Premiere.

11. Choose the Type tool .

12. Click into the text box, select all, and paste the subtitle.

13. Click into the Timeline and hit the Down Arrow to move to the next clip.

14. Here we can just type the one-word subtitle. Replace all the text in the text box with giraffes.

15. Repeat the previous steps to edit the subtitle over the following bears clip.

    NOTE: You’ll need to select the Timeline panel each time to use the Down Arrow shortcut.

16. When you get to the peacock video, switch to the text file and copy the line and seriously exotic birds.

17. Back in Premiere, paste it in the subtitles text box.

18. Move the playhead to 9;22. We want the next line to start about halfway through the push transition.

19. Double–click the last subtitle clip, and change the text to Come visit us today.

20. Switch to the Selection tool .

21. Finally, make the subtitle fade out along with the images. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on the right end of the last subtitle clip (Come visit us today) and choose Apply Default Transitions.

22. We should do this for the beginning of the subtitle as well. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on the left side of the beginning subtitle clip and choose Apply Default Transitions.

    Keep in mind that if you want to edit a subtitle again, double–click the clip in the Timeline, then go to Effect Controls.

23. If you like, you can do a preview to admire your work!

Finding Missing Files

1. We’re done with our zoo promo. Let’s close the project and tidy up. Go to File menu and choose Close All Projects.

2. Go to your Desktop and go into Class Files > Premiere Pro Class > Zoo Promo > Capture > videos.

3. Oops, the peacock filename is inconsistent with the rest! Let’s rename it to peacock.mp4, with no dash or spaces.

4. To be safe, let’s make sure our Project file still works with the renamed video file. Go back to Premiere Pro and go to File Menu > Open Recent > yourname-ZooProject.prproj.

5. When the project file opens, a Link Media window will say it’s Missing Media for these clips! What just happened?

   • Premiere Pro references (talks about) rather than embedding (eating) the files you import. This is much like an HTML webpage referencing a folder of images, or an InDesign document referencing images and installed fonts.
   • Moving the files or worse, changing the filename of something that’s been imported, causes the files to un-link or go “Media Offline”.

6. How do we fix it? In this Link Media window, hit the Locate button.

7. This opens up a new window to locate your file. Toward the bottom of the window, make sure the checkbox next to Display Only Exact Name Matches is unchecked.
8. In this new window, on the right it shows the contents of each folder chosen to the left. In the folder list on the left, navigate to Desktop > Class Files > Premiere Pro Class > Zoo Promo > Capture > videos.
9. With the videos folder selected on the left, click on the file peacock.mp4 on the right.

10. Click OK and the file should automatically re-link.

    Organizing Your Files

    Premiere Pro project files remain small, but they rely on footage to create their sequences. They reference (talk about) the files you import into them, which means you need to keep any files you plan to import, alongside your Premiere Pro project file. This is very similar to HTML files with images or InDesign layouts with Illustrator graphics or photos.

    We recommend a folder structure similar to the one used in this course: your Premiere Pro project file next to a Capture folder containing all the material you plan to import, with sub-folders organized by file subject or type: music, photos, graphics, videos, sound effects, voiceover, etc. Another useful way to organize files is by date: 01-01 would contain all the footage imported on Jan 1, 01-02 would be for footage imported on Jan 2, etc.

    For best results, don’t move or rename footage after you’ve imported it, or you may end up having to re-link your clips, and also make sure that each piece of footage has a unique name prior to importing it.

Collecting files with Project Manager

What if you’re not great at organizing, or want to collect only the footage that was used in a particular Sequence? Enter the Project Manager, where you can do exactly that. Let’s try it.

1. Go into the File and choose Project Manager.

2. At the top of this window, select the Sequence you want to collect footage for.

3. Under Resulting Project, choose Collect Files and Copy to New Location

4. Under Destination Path, click Browse. For this project, go to Desktop > Class Files > Premiere Pro Class and click Choose (Mac) or Select Folder (Windows).

5. Click OK to copy and collect.

6. On your Desktop, go to Class Files > Premiere Pro, and you’ll find a folder called Copied_yourname-ZooProject, containing a copy of your Project file and all the footage used in the sequence(s) selected in step 2.

7. Even better, when you open the project inside this folder, it links to the copied sources within the same folder. Wow, thanks Premiere Pro!

Exporting

1. We need to set In and Out points around whatever section of video we want to export. Move the playhead to the beginning of the Timeline and hit i to set the in point.

2. Move the playhead to the end of the Timeline, snapping to the end of your last clip (11;20).

3. It’s a good idea to leave some space at the end of the content so that there’s some extra black screen at the end of your video. Move the playhead to 12;20.

4. Hit o to set the out point.

5. At the bottom of the Project panel, click the New Item button and choose Black Video.

   NOTE: If you don’t see the Project window, click the double arrows at the top right of the panel and choose Project: yourname-Travel.

6. Click OK to accept the default settings.

   This is an easy way to create empty black space within or at the ends of your edit.

7. From the Project panel, drag Black Video to V1, dropping it at the end of your sequence.

8. Use the red bracket to shorten it to last as long as your sequence out point (12;20).

9. File > Save the project.

10. Go to File > Export > Media.

11. In the Export Settings window, towards the top right, expand the Export Settings section if it isn’t already.

12. Click the menu next to Format and set it to H.264.

13. Click the menu next to Preset and set it to Match Source - High bitrate.

14. Next to Output Name, click on the blue name.

15. Navigate to ZooProject > Exports.

16. Name it Zoo.mp4 and click Save.

17. Further down in the Export Settings window, click the Video tab.

18. Click the Match Source button.

19. Below that, find the Bitrate Settings.

20. Set Bitrate Encoding to VBR, 2 pass.

21. At the bottom of the window, check on Use Maximum Render Quality.

22. Click the Export button.

23. After the export finishes, feel free to go into Desktop > Class Files > Premiere Pro Class > Zoo Promo > Exports and check out the finished video.