Where To Start
Since you found your way here, you have taken the first step. Congratulations
and welcome. My goal is to get you started as quickly as possible on the road to
great videos. Rather than make you hunt for information, this site is dedicated
to you, the beginner. Let me help you by passing along all of the information I
acquired when I started learning Adobe Premiere and then Adobe Premiere Pro.
First things first, does your hardware meet the minimum specifications to run
Premiere Pro? Look here
for the Adobe page which spells it out. Have you tweaked your WinXP to
accomodate Premiere Pro? Look here for a lot of help.
Is the rest of your hardware compatible with Premiere? Capture cards? 1394 cards? Camera?
I suggest the following plan of action.
1. Watch the basic tutorials. Mine are located on Lynda.com and are for Premiere Pro 1.5
- but if you are on an earlier version of Premiere watch those
available at VTC.. These things will get you started on the right track. There is fantastic
site for tutorials at http://www.wrigleyvideo.com. Check it out. It's free.
2. Look through the tutorials
on the Adobe site. There are lots of cool tips and tricks. Sign up for the
Expert Center. It couldn't hurt to read the DV
Primer.
3. Read the FAQs on the Adobe
Premiere Pro forum pages.
4. Sign up and browse the Adobe forums, the Creative Cow forums, and
the rest of the forums on my forums page. Read a few
posts to get the flavor of how it all works. You will have questions after you
start editing. No doubt. But, if you have done what I suggested, the questions
will be a lot more interesting.
5. Read through my site for more information. Browse, read, view,
absorb.
6. Install Premiere Pro. What? You already did. OK, I figured as much.
So, start editing already. Wait a minute. How do you plan everything. Look here
for the "First Steps" of editing.
I can't imagine working without Photoshop. I recommend saving for Photoshop
CS and getting it as soon as possible. But at least get Photoshop
Elements.
As for what to shoot? Everything. Flowers, birds, interviews, sports. Shoot
lots of tape. It is cheap. At least in the US. Where is it the cheapest in small
quantities? At Sam's Club for under $20 per 4-pack. Or Wal-Mart for under $20
per 3-pack.
Take a look at Making Digital Home Movies Part 1 and Making Digital Home Movies Part 2 - a good read for all
beginners.
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