| Review the questions and answers in this section to try to sharpen your Premiere text-editing skills. Also, take a few moments to tackle my short quiz and exercises. Q&A | Q1: | When I resize my text "bounding box," the text changes shape and size. How do I change the box without changing the contents? | | A1: | You're using Point Text, Premiere's default text style. Instead, select the "T" in the white box (Area Text), drag and drop a text bounding box, and start typing. If you need to increase the size of the box, the text will remain the same shape and size. | | Q2: | I want to make a circle in a square, but all I get are ovals in rectangles. | | A2: | You need to hold down the Shift key before you define the size of the quadrilateral or round figure. Doing that keeps all sides equal and forces your oval to be a circle. | Quiz | 1: | How do you keep text from running outside the viewable area on a typical NTSC TV set? | | A1: | Use the Title Safe Zone option, accessible in the Title menu or in the Monitor menu for viewing in the Source and Program Monitors. | | 2: | Premiere ships with 90 typefaces ! How can you wade through all that and quickly find one that works for you? | | A2: | Browse. Go to Title, Font, Browse and scroll all the font samples. | | 3: | How do you create a rectangle with a gradient inside it and a two- color border? | | A3: | Open the Title Designer. Create a rectangle by selecting the Rectangle tool and clicking and dragging within the text window to define a rectangle. Select Fill, Fill Type, Linear Gradient and select two colors in turn. Select Strokes, Inner and Outer Stroke, in turn , and give each inner and outer border a color and other characteristics to suit you. | Exercises | 1: | Create rolling credits with different font sizes and text alignments. Main headings could be aligned left and individuals' names centered. | | 2: | Make a rainbow using the Line tool. Click one side of the text window and then click the other, making a straight line. Then drag the center handle to make a curve. Repeat this three or four more times and color each line to create a rainbow feel. Now add text along another arc over the rainbow. Do you feel a song coming on? | | 3: | Create a three-layer collection of rectangles with varying transparencies and drop shadow values. Create the three rectangles by dragging and dropping them in separate locations. Make the large one opaque (100% opacity) with a drop shadow of 50% opacity, the middle one 40% opacity with a drop shadow of 20% opacity, and the small one 25% opacity with a drop shadow of 30% opacity. Then select colors and gradients that give a contrast so you can see one through the other. One other suggestion: Give one or two of the rectangles a Repeat value to create parallel lines to make them stand out even more. Also, pick a drop shadow that is similar in color to the object on which the shadow falls . | | 4: | Create a standard interviewee super with one font, two text sizes (larger for the name , smaller for the title), a colored line running between the two text lines, and three overlapping and transparent boxes on the left, acting as a unique production studio identifier. Make sure you save this. You actually may want to use it. | |
