Adobe Premiere Pro is a video editing platform first launched in 2003. Today, it is one of the widely used video-editing tools and is considered the industry standard, with Premiere Pro used to edit a number of blockbuster Hollywood films.
Throughout its 20-year existence, Premier Pro has seen numerous updates and redesigns. Each new feature aims to make the platform more stable and easier to use and to offer new creative opportunities for editors and filmmakers. Last month, Adobe rolled out a unique new feature that has got everyone incredibly excited: text-based editing. Let’s take a closer look at what text-based editing is and discuss how it has improved the platform. Read on to find out more.
What Is It?
Video editing is a visual practice that involves watching different video clips over and over again, splicing the best together to create a finished product. Modern editing platforms like Premiere Pro use timeline arrangement interfaces where clips can be arranged chronologically and moved around with ease.
At first, it can be difficult to picture where text-based editing fits into this framework. Text controls can seem archaic and rudimentary, a callback to the text-based video games of the 1980s. However, Adobe is hopeful that these text-based editing options will help streamline workflows and make the editing process far more efficient.
This new text-based editing feature utilizes Adobe’s own artificial intelligence software, Adobe Sensei, to automate processes and make every run smoothly. When you upload raw footage, such as an interview for example, the AI will scan the footage and automatically transcribe the audio and will display the text as a transcript to the left of the timeline.
This new feature comes with the standard Premier Pro subscription and supports 18 different languages, including English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.
Let’s take a closer look at how text-based editing can be used in practice and how it’s making the software better for editors and filmmakers.
How Is It Making the Software Better?
Whether you are editing a news piece or a feature film, dialogue is incredibly important. Trying to find the right clip among several different takes can be laborious and time-consuming, it involves rewatching the same clips over and over again in an attempt to find a specific word or phrase.
With the new Premiere Pro text-based editing feature, these headaches will be a thing of the past. After the AI has scanned the footage and generated the transcript, editors can simply read through or search the text to find the words and phrases they are looking for. This will be an excellent way to save time and will be particularly valuable in an industry that is often very focused on meeting tight deadlines.
Text can be highlighted in the transcript and then, after the Insert button, the corresponding video clip will be added to the timeline. This method can be used to quickly build up a rough cut that contains all the desired dialogue. Building cuts using this approach is much faster than watching and rewatching individual clips and having to manually arrange them in the timeline yourself.
Transcripts can also be edited. Sections of texts can be moved around, rearranged, or even deleted, and all changes will be mirrored in timeline video clips, making for a more streamlined editing process.
There is even a system for scanning and detecting pauses in the dialogue. These pauses can then be deleted to make the audio smoother and cleaner.
Restore Projects Through Recovery Mode
Text-based editing isn’t the only recent Premier Pro update. Now, if the platform crashes or unexpectedly quits, users can use Recovery Mode to restore their projects.
Once the application is opened again after a crash, a pop-up window will appear with the option to reopen the most recent project. Clicking the reopen option will recover all projects as they were before the crash happened.
Data loss can be catastrophic for any business, video editors in particular. A significant data loss incident can be incredibly costly and could even spell the end of a project. This new Recovery Mode feature will provide an extra layer of security for editors and will safeguard their footage and data in the event of a system crash.
Color Manager
Finally, Premier Pro has also launched a new Color Manager feature that is designed to streamline the color management workflow. Now, all color settings have been brought under one tab, located in the Lumetri Color section.
The Input Color option can be used to color specific media for logging and recording purposes and the Working Color Space option contains Clip, Sequence, and Project controls.
Previously, these options were accessed through various different drop-down menus and subsections. Bringing all color options together under one tab will significantly improve workflow.
Conclusion
Successful video editing is all about working accurately at speed. These new features from Adobe will certainly allow for that and will further cement Premier Pro’s place as the industry standard video editing platform.