Publishers of technology books, eBooks, and videos for creative people

Home > Articles > Digital Audio, Video > Adobe Premiere Pro

From the book

Using a storyboard to build a rough cut

Film directors and animators frequently use walls of photos and sketches to visualize story flow and camera angles. These are known as storyboards, and they can be very useful in planning a project and making sure you get the shots or material you need.

Storyboards also help after the shoot ends. In the case of Adobe Premiere Pro, you can arrange clip thumbnails in the Project panel to get a basic feel for how your finished video will work. Then you can move all those clips to the Timeline for more precise editing.

This approach is useful in revealing gaps in your story. It’s also a way to note redundancy and to quickly place a whole bunch of ordered clips on a sequence. When you’re confronted with a Project panel loaded with clips, storyboards can help you see the big picture.

After creating your storyboard, you can place several clips in a sequence on the Timeline at one time. To begin, do the following:

  1. Open Adobe Premiere Pro.
  2. Choose File > Open Project, navigate to the Lesson 05 folder, and double-click Lesson 05-01.prproj.
  3. Notice that Lesson 05-01 has the clips you will be working with already imported into the Project panel.
  4. Click the New Bin button in the Project panel, and name your new bin Storyboard.
  5. Double-click the new Storyboard bin icon to open it in its own window. This makes it easy to move assets into this bin.
  6. In the main bin, select the seven assets (do not select Sequence 01).
  7. Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) one of the selected clips to open the context menu, and choose Copy. Note that you need to click the clip name, or you will deselect all the clips.
  8. Select the Storyboard bin to make it the active window, and choose Edit > Paste.

    All seven files now appear in the Storyboard bin. They remain in the main Project panel as well, because you copied them rather than dragged them.

  9. Click the Icon View button in the Storyboard bin to switch to Icon view.
  10. Click the panel menu icon, and then choose Thumbnails > Large.
  11. Resize the Storyboard bin so you can see all the thumbnails.

Arranging your storyboard

In this section, you’ll learn how to arrange thumbnails into a logical order. Keep in mind that you will trim the clips later to make the edits work more smoothly.

In turn, view each clip in the Preview Monitor by clicking the clip to select it and then clicking the Play button in the preview area.

After viewing the clips, decide in what order you want them to run in your project.

Here’s how to create the sequence after you’ve decided the order in which the clips should run:

  1. Continue where you left off in the previous section, or load Lesson 05-02.prproj from the Lesson 05 folder.
  2. Drag the thumbnails within the Storyboard bin to position them in the order you want them to play.

To move a clip, simply drag it to a new location. The pointer changes, and a black vertical line indicates the new location for placement.

Automating your storyboard to a sequence

Now you’re going to move your storyboard clips to the Timeline, placing them there contiguously, in sequential order. Adobe Premiere Pro calls this process Automate to Sequence. Here’s how you do it:

  1. Make sure the current-time indicator is at the beginning of the Timeline. Automate to Sequence places the clips starting at the current-time indicator location.
  2. With the Storyboard bin window active, choose Edit > Select All to highlight all the clips. You can also marquee-select or use the Shift-click, Ctrl-click (Windows), or Command-click (Mac OS) method.
  3. Click the Automate to Sequence button in the lower-left corner of the Project panel.
  4. The newly opened Automate To Sequence dialog has several options. Choose the settings shown in the following image. The options include:
    • Ordering: Sort Order puts clips on a sequence in the order you established in the storyboard. Selection Order places them in the order you selected them if you Ctrl-clicked (Windows) or Command-clicked (Mac OS) individual clips.

    • Placement: This places clips sequentially on the Timeline.

    • Method: The choices here are Insert Edit and Overlay Edit, both of which will be discussed later in this lesson. Because in this instance you are placing the clips on an empty sequence, both methods will do the same thing.

    • Clip Overlap: Overlap presumes you’ll put a transition such as a cross-dissolve between all clips. The goal in this lesson is to create a cuts-only video—that is, a video with no transitions—so set Clip Overlap to 0.

    • Transitions: Because you’ll opt for no transitions, make sure these two options (Apply Default Audio Transition and Apply Default Video Transition) are deselected.

    • Ignore Options: Select the Ignore Audio check box to exclude the audio portion of the selected clips.

  5. Click OK. This places your clips in the order you selected in Sequence 01.
  6. Drag the Project panel out of the way. Click inside the Timeline to activate it, and press the spacebar to play your sequence.

View this sequence critically. Several edits are jump cuts or feel awkward. Some clips are too long. The next task is to fix those flaws.

Peachpit Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from Peachpit and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about Peachpit products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites; develop new products and services; conduct educational research; and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email ask@peachpit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by Adobe Press. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.peachpit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020