10 Storyboarding in Premiere Pro

#10 Storyboarding in Premiere Pro

Unlike many editing tools, Premiere Pro doesn't have a formal storyboard feature. But you can still gain the benefits of storyboard editing for getting an overview of your project by using the Project panel as a storyboard and then automatically inserting your clips into the timeline. It's perfect for producing the credits video I started in the last technique (#9) and still-image slide shows, which we'll talk about later in the book. Here's how it works:

1.	Start by dragging the bottom-right corner of the Project panel to the right to create more working room.
2.	Click the Icon view icon in the lower-left corner of the Project panel, which displays the first frame of your Subclips in individual frames in the Project panel (Figure 10a). Figure 10a. In Icon view, you see the first frame of each clip or Subclip and can move them around like pieces on a chessboard. In this view, you can click and drag your clips to place them in any desired order. Note that you can also set In and Out points in the Source Monitor for these clips or Subclips in the Project panel to create a "rough cut" of the sequence.
3.	Select the clips you wish to add to the sequence. Cleaning Up the Project Panel Icon view and the ability to drag the Project panel out to see more of your images and videos are great features. However, when you resize the Project panel back to its original viewing area, the images don't automatically snap back so you can see them. Some stay hidden behind the Source Monitor, which can be a pain if you're trying to hunt one down. A quick solution is in the fly-out menu that you access by clicking the small triangle in the top-right corner of the Project panel (see Figure 10a). Choose Clean Up in the fly-out menu, and Premiere Pro will snap all content back to where you can see it and eliminate any space-consuming blank boxes. Another useful option in the fly-out menu is the ability to set thumbnail sizes (small, medium, and large), which can be very helpful if you're working at 1600x1200 resolution or so, even on a large monitor.
4.	Click the Automate to Sequence button in the lower-left corner of the Project panel (see Figure 10a). Premiere Pro opens the Automate to Sequence dialog enabling several options, including Clip Overlap (which determines the length of transitions in frames or seconds) and insertion of the default audio and video transitions (Figure 10b). Figure 10b. Now you can send the clips to the timeline in the desired sequence, even adding transitions as you go.
5.	Make your choices, click OK, and the sequence will appear in the timeline, ready for fine-tuning.

Note that I describe how to set the default audio and video transitions in #56.