Adding Video Clips to the Timeline

Most professional filmmakers create a storyboard long before any video is shot. A storyboard is a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence that helps film directors, cinematographers, and other stakeholders visualize scenes and get an idea of how the finished video will flow. A storyboard can take on different forms depending on the scope of the project and the preferences of its creator, but many times it will resemble a comic strip, with rough sketches depicting what will happen on screen at that point in the video.

Once a storyboard is created, it can be used to help you keep organized while working on a project, and can indicate what order clips should be in when they're completed.  While a full storyboard might not be necessary for short videos, you may want to take the time to at least determine the order of clips in your video before you start working on your project.

To start with, we'll be adding some of the video clips we imported to the Timeline in the following order:

• waltz.mp4
• foxtrot.mp4
• tango.mp4
• swing.mp4

Since waltz.mp4 is already on the Timeline, we will add the others now.

Step 1. To add the video clip called foxtrot.mp4 to the Timeline, in the Project panel,

Press & Drag foxtrot.mp4 from the Project panel to the Timeline, next to waltz.mp4

You may have noticed that waltz.mp4 and foxtrot.mp4 take up two tracks in the timeline — one audio and one video. By default, the video and audio tracks are linked. This means that when you drag the video portion, the linked audio moves with it, and vice versa. For this reason the audio/video pair is called a linked clip.

NOTE: For this project, you'll be leaving the audio and video for each clip linked, but there are many occasions when you may need to unlink the video and audio portion of a clip. For example, you may want to remove the original audio from a video and use new audio in its place. To unlink video and audio for a specific clip, select the clip on the Timeline. On the Menu bar, Click Clip, then Click Unlink. The names will no longer be underlined, and you can manipulate both items separately.  To relink video and audio for a clip, select both the video and audio for a clip on the Timeline, then on the Menu bar, Click Clip, then Click Link.

Step 2. To add the video clip called tango.mp4 to the Timeline, in the Project panel,

Press & Drag tango.mp4 from the Project panel to the timeline, next to foxtrot.mp4

By default, the snap option is turned on. This makes it so that when you add or move a clip near another clip on the Timeline, it snaps into place next to the neighboring clip. While there are times when you may want to turn this feature off, usually the Snap feature is very helpful.

NOTE: To toggle Snap on and off, in the top left corner of the Timeline panel, Click.

Step 3. Add swing.mp4 to the Timeline.

You might notice we've got an extra clip left, chacha.mp4.  We'll be adding that clip to the timeline later, using a different method.

Now we've got some video clips on the Timeline. If you look closely at each clip, you'll see little gray triangles in the upper-right and upper-left corners of the clips:

These small gray triangles indicate that currently the clips are in their original, full length. If you trim a video's length, those triangles will disappear.  We'll be trimming our videos later on.

Previewing the Sequence

Before we do any editing, let's take a look at our movie in its current state. We can use the device control panel at the bottom of the Program Monitor to play, stop, rewind, fast forward, and pause viewing the sequence.  As you may remember from the diagram outlining the different parts of the Premiere Pro interface, the Program Monitor is located at the top right side of the Premiere Pro interface.

Step 1. To start playing the sequence, at the bottom of the Program Monitor,

Click 

When we press the Play button, it starts playing the contents of the sequence from the current location of the playhead on the Timeline. The playhead indicates your position, or which frame you're viewing, in the Timeline, and will move through the Timeline while the sequence plays. As soon as the sequence begins playing, the Play button changes into a Stop button.

Feel free to watch through the sequence before continuing on.

Step 2. To stop playing the movie, at the bottom of the Program Monitor,

Click 

While we are here, let's explore some of the other controls that are located on the Program Monitor device control panel. The following table outlines the functions of these controls, which can be helpful when editing footage. Feel free to experiment with each of these functions before moving on.

Control name (Keyboard shortcut)	Icon	Function
Step forward (Right arrow key)		Moves ahead in the footage one frame at a time.
Step backward (Left arrow key)		Moves backwards in the footage one frame at a time.
Go to In (Shift key+I)		Jumps to the beginning of the sequence.
Go to Out (Shift key+O)		Jumps to the end of the sequence.

Let's move back to the beginning of the sequence before we go further, and save our file.

Step 3. To move back to the beginning of the sequence, in the bottom of the Program Monitor,

Click

Step 4. Save the file.

Next, we'll spend some time exploring the timeline in more detail before we go further with the project.