Hey guys, this is James, and welcome to another episode of the Adobe Premiere Pro free class! Today, I’m going to show you different methods to put your clips onto your workspace. So, here is a blank project, and from here, we are going to start working. If you haven’t watched my previous videos, I highly suggest you watch those videos first so that you can get a better idea of what I’m doing in this video.
First, we need to import some clips and audio, right? Here are some clips and audio files inside of this specific folder, which is labeled as the audio and clips folder. I’m just selecting this folder, then clicking and dragging it directly into my project panel. Doing this will import all of the necessary files here into Premiere Pro. I will put a link in the description below so you can just click and download the files to follow along with me. Inside, you will see there is an audio file and a video folder. If I just click here to open up the folder, I’ll see there are several video clips, and we are going to work with these clips today.
Now, I want to make a new sequence. There are a lot of methods to make a new sequence, and I have discussed those extensively in my previous video, which you can watch. Today, I’m just clicking and dragging this initial clip right here onto my project area to automatically generate a brand new sequence. So, this is our new sequence, right? I want to insert those other clips onto my workspace too, so how can I do that?
If I just click and drag these files directly, it will import the entire video straight into the project. I don’t want that. Instead, I want to peek at the video before inserting it. If I just double-click here on a clip, it will open up the clip in the Source Monitor. This is a larger preview monitor where you can look at your clip before importing it. You can chop and trim the video directly from here. You can also choose to import just the video files or just the audio files using this Source Monitor.
If I press the spacebar, it will play back the video file. If I go to the beginning portion of this video and press the spacebar, I can find the exact place where I want it to start. I don’t want to include the very beginning part; I want the video to start from this specific portion. To make an In Point on this portion, you can just click here on the “Mark In” button. Clicking it will set your starting point.
Again, I’m pressing the spacebar to play back the video. I want to set the ending point of this clip at this new portion. To set an Out Point, you can just click here on the “Mark Out” button, and it will make an Out Point. Similarly, if you are comfortable working with a keyboard—which I highly suggest to speed up your workflow—you should remember the keyboard shortcuts. If you press I on your keyboard, it will instantly make an In Point for this clip. If you press O on your keyboard, it will quickly make an Out Point.
Now, if I want to insert this tailored clip onto my main project, what can I do? I can just click and drag the video preview here into the active sequence, and it will import the video. It will not import the entire video; it is just importing that exact portion that I have selected with my In and Out points. Let’s look at the process again: if I just click and drag this video here, it inserts both the video clip and the attached audio clip. If I press the spacebar, it will play back the file perfectly.
But suppose you don’t want to insert the audio; you just want to insert the video track onto your workspace. What can you do? Right here on the Source Monitor, you will see an icon button called “Drag Video Only”. If you click and drag from this specific button, then it will insert the video file only, leaving the audio file behind. As you can see, the audio file is not visible. On the other hand, if you just want to insert the audio file and not the video file, you can click and drag from the button next to it, which is called “Drag Audio Only”. If you click there, you can drag just the audio file down. Now we have the audio track alone, without the video present.
Another great feature here: when you are selecting your In Point or Out Point in the Source Monitor, you are usually watching the video to choose your cuts. Suppose you want to decide the In Point and Out Point by listening to the clip or just analyzing the audio waveform. What can you do? You can click on the audio waveform button in the Source Monitor, and it will display the full audio waveform of that video. For certain clips, looking at the audio waveform gives you an immediate idea of where the speaker stopped talking or where a sound began. This is especially helpful for vloggers who might have a lot of pauses in their videos. By watching the waveform, you save time because you don’t need to play back the entire video to find the gaps. If you want to see the video preview again, you can just click back on the video section button, and it will show the regular video screen.
So, we have learned several ways to insert files into our sequence. There is another incredibly quick way to insert files using your keyboard shortcuts. Suppose I want to insert a clip right where my playhead is positioned. If I just make an In Point and an Out Point in my Source Monitor and then press the comma (,) key on my keyboard, it will instantly insert the file onto that exact spot. If I press the comma key again, it will insert the video file over and over again. You can use this method to dramatically speed up your video editing workflow. If you want to insert a video file further down, you can drag the playhead to that new position and press the comma (,) key. It will insert the file at the playhead and automatically push all other clips on the right side further down. This is a very clean and fast way to insert media without messing up your layout.
Let’s go back to our project folder again. Now, suppose you want to drag a clip directly from the project panel into the middle of your active work area. If you just release it normally over an existing track, it will overwrite the clip underneath it, which you probably don’t want. If you want to insert a clip at a specific position without overwriting anything, select the file and drag it in. But right before you release the mouse click, hold down the Ctrl key (or Cmd on Mac) on your keyboard. When you release it while holding Ctrl, it inserts the clip cleanly and shifts all subsequent clips to the right side so nothing gets overridden.
Finally, imagine you have already inserted a whole bunch of clips, but suddenly you realize that you placed a certain clip by mistake and want to replace it with a completely different one. Do you need to delete the old clip, leave a gap, and drag a new one in? No, you don’t! You can simply click and drag the new clip from your project panel, hold it directly over the old clip, press and hold the Alt key (or Option on Mac), and then release the mouse. This shortcut instantly replaces the old clip with the new one while maintaining the exact position and cuts. It is an incredibly fast way to swap out assets.
That is how you can insert and manage different clips in your Premiere Pro project. I hope you learned something valuable from this lesson! If you enjoyed this video, please give me a thumbs up. If you are new to the channel and want to continue learning Adobe Premiere Pro video editing from scratch, make sure to subscribe to get more videos just like this one. I’ll catch you guys in the next episode. Until then, goodbye!
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