Introduction

The world has changed dramatically over the years. Video has become an important part of our lives, whether we realize it or not from having 500 channels on television to watching streaming media clips come through our computers at home and at the office. Even my wedding gift from my wife was a mini-DV camera. She knows how much I love to shoot video (and probably did not want to be embarrassed on our honeymoon in Hawaii with me lugging around my Beta SP camera everywhere). The point is, acquiring, editing, and distributing video has become commonplace for many. It's grown in popularity as a profession. More people today dabble in it as a hobby, shooting and editing their own home movies.

Whichever route you choose to take, programs such as Premiere are easily adaptable for all extremes. Adobe has made the program as simple to use as possible for the amateur while offering all the professional features and tools needed to compete with the Avid systems of the world. The versatility that Premiere offers gives you all the features you find on systems that cost thousands more. I know many people who use Premiere on a daily basis. The quality of their productions are always top-notch. Like any nonlinear editing system, as long as you have good source material, a capture card, and as much RAM as you can afford to shove in your computer, Premiere allows you to completely customize and control your editing session from start to finish.

Premiere's flexibility makes my job of covering the program that much more difficult. With so many directions you can take, from all the different acquisition formats to the endless possibilities of distribution methods, I can cover only so much in the best detail possible. I want to offer everyone a challenge when reading this book. This book is not written to tell you how to edit. Instead, it's written to introduce a number of the tools and techniques available so that you have complete freedom to produce your video any way you envision. If your hands are tied because the program doesn't offer you the means to create, you can blame the program. My job is to introduce all the power that Premiere has to offer and to show you the ways (usually several ways) to accomplish your goals. I have taken numerous experiences from my career as a video editor and have applied them here where relevant. From tips to warnings, this book covers all the basics and branches through the more-complex techniques of video and audio editing using Premiere. Push the envelope. You'll be surprised at what Premiere can do.