Using the Source Monitor to Edit a Clip

In this section, you'll gain some experience using the Source Monitor to edit individual video clips.  If you take a look at the bottom of the Source Monitor, you'll see some similar controls to those at the bottom of the Program Monitor.  Despite looking similar to the Program Monitor, the Source monitor is used for different tasks than the Program Monitor:

• The Source Monitor plays back individual clips only, and helps facilitate editing single clips that are part of a sequence.
• The Program Monitor, on the other hand, plays back the entire sequence you're working with in the Timeline panel.

The Source and Program Monitors operate independently of each other, and more often than not, each monitor will display different frames of video. While it is possible to edit clips right in the Timeline panel and then preview them in the Program Monitor, there are times when it is beneficial to open a clip in the Source Monitor first, so you will have greater control over the editing process.

Setting In and Out Points

Almost all video clips will end up being trimmed once they are placed on the Timeline. When recording or creating video content, it's always a good idea to capture a few extra seconds of footage at the beginning and end of every clip (to prevent scenes from being cut off and to provide room for transitions and special edits). Trimming a clip in Premiere Pro doesn't actually change the source file. It simply hides part of the clip, so that it will not be shown in the finished video.

In videography, a placeholder used to mark a specific timecode as the starting point of a segment in a longer sequence is called an In Point, and a placeholder used to mark a specific point as the end of a segment is called an Out Point. You can use In and Out Points to mark a clip to be captured from a source tape, to mark part of a clip to be trimmed, or to mark a portion of the Timeline to be played.

Let's practice using In and Out Points to trim several of the clips in our sequence. There are several different ways to do this in Premiere Pro. We will start by trimming a clip in the Source Monitor. Later, we will trim some clips in the Timeline panel. We'll edit chacha.mp4 first.

Step 1. To open the video clip called chacha.mp4 in the Source Monitor, in the Project: Dances panel,

Double-Click chacha.mp4

The clip chacha.mp4 opens in the Source Monitor:

As mentioned earlier, there are times where the Source Monitor and Program Monitor will display different frames of video — right now, our Source Monitor is displaying the first frame of chacha.mp4, while a frame from a different video is displaying in the Program Monitor.  (The previous screenshot is showing a frame from waltz.mp4 - your Program Monitor will likely show a different frame.) 

Step 3. To preview the beginning of the clip, in the bottom of the Source Monitor,

Click 

We want to trim the clip right before the couple starts dancing. If you watch the timecode display on the left side of the Source Monitor as you preview the clip, you will see that this occurs at approximately 00;00;07;13.

Step 4. To stop the movie after previewing the clip,

Click 

Step 5. To set the position of the playhead, so we can trim the beginning of the clip, on the left side of the Source Monitor,

Click, type: 00;00;07;13 Enter

NOTE: Your Current Time Display may be set at a different point than the one shown in the step above.

The image in the monitor changes, and the Current Time Display in the Source Monitor now reads 00;00;07;13.

Step 6. To set the starting point for the clip, at the bottom of the Source Monitor,

Click 

If you move the playhead in the Source Monitor's time ruler, you'll see that there's now an indicator of where the clip will start playing, and everything before that point is grayed out:

Since we want our video clips to be a little longer than the voice-overs that we will be adding, we won't trim the end of this clip until later. However, we can add this clip to the sequence now — we'll be using one of the additional functions of the Source Monitor to do this, the Insert option.

Using the Insert and Overwrite Buttons

In addition to the functions outlined earlier that both the Program Monitor and Source Monitor share, there are additional functions that will add content we've edited in the Source Panel to the timeline: the Insert and Overwrite functions.

The Insert function works by splitting the video clip on the Timeline at the point where the playhead is currently positioned, and placing the clip that is currently open in the Source Monitor in that position. When using Insert, you aren't replacing any footage — instead, you're adding footage to the Timeline, and increasing the length of the sequence you're working with. Overwrite, on the other hand, will place whatever clip you're editing in the Source Monitor over existing footage in the Timeline.

When we first added clips to the timeline, we didn't place chacha.mp4 along with the other clips. Since it needs to be placed between two clips that are already there, if we simply drag it into place, it will cover the other video clips that are already there. Instead, let's use the Insert function to add chacha.mp4 between tango.mp4 and swing.mp4.

Step 1. To indicate where on the timeline we want to place chacha.mp4, on the Timeline,

position the playhead between tango.mp4 and swing.mp4

Step 2. To insert the clip, on the Source Monitor control device panel,

Click 

NOTE: If we had positioned the cursor in the middle of a video clip, the insert button would have split the clip and placed chacha.mp4 in the gap.

The clip is now in its proper position on the Timeline. Next, we'll trim the other clips in the sequence.