Great alternative to Final Cut (Adobe Premiere Pro CS3)

Member Name: sstephenson

Product:	Adobe Premiere Pro CS3
Date:	07/01/09 (164 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, quick to learn

Disadvantages: Not as professional as Final Cut

It was my first semester at university and I had to make a short film for my assignment. I had never edited before nor had any teaching with editing software and as time was running out I turned to Premiere.

Overview
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Premiere is similiar to Final Cut Pro in that it uses some similar tools, I can't describe exactly what's the same as I've yet to come to grips with Final Cut, but from seeing both programmes I know that they both have the same timeline feature and the two movie windows that lets you view your work.

Editing
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The best option for cutting your footage is with the razor tool that can be located by the timeline section. You can zoom in on the timeliene to get an exact cut and if you make a mistake there's the option to undo so that you don't mess up your sequence.
There's a number of transitions to use in between sequences, such as blend, blur, wipe and so on. There's also effects that let you change the lighting of something you've filmed, you can also make the scene black and white and rotate the frame so it looks like it's coming from a different angle.

Useability
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I found this software a lot easier to use than Final Cut. I had worked it out within an hour or so and was on my way to editing my film. It does take some trial and error in cutting and editing but if you've done it before it should be a doddle.

Problems
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I put my four minute film to a music soundtrack and I found this slowed down some of the footage which caused a problem. It could have been my computer or the software I was playing it on but I'd recommend double checking it on another machine first before declaring the work finished just in case this is a problem.

Other than that, Premiere is a great programme to edit film with. It supports a variety of file types and runs easily on PC computers and is a great alternative for those who don't use Macs.

Summary: Easy and fun programme for video editors

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