This tutorial was written by Digital Studio Student Assistant, Remi Joseph. Learn more about Remi and our other student assistants here.

Have you ever wondered how your favorite Youtubers produce the creative and stylish content you watch online? More often than not, the answer is Adobe Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro is an incredibly popular and powerful editing software compatible across multiple platforms and filled with tons of features. This non-linear and file-based program fuels flawless content production for creators across the world, both amateur and pro.

While it may look intimidating, it is quite simple to use. In this tutorial, I will be showing you some basics you need to get started with Premiere Pro: creating a project, importing a clip, and creating a title graphic. Let’s begin!

Creating a New Project & Importing a Clip

Editing on Premiere Pro requires you to have some sort of video file. First, let’s go ahead and open Premiere Pro by double-clicking the program. On the Start Screen you want to click “New Project” to create a new project file. Pick a name for your new project and then click OK.

To import media file, you want to go down to the bottom left corner and click on Media Browser panel. From here, you can search your computer disk and files for clips you can import. To select a video you want to import, select the clips you want to work with and choose Import. Once the media is imported, you can begin editing. For the sake of this tutorial, I have used a stock video found on Youtube.

Once I selected the file I wanted, it should appear on this panel right here. This is an example.

All you need to do now is Drag and Drop the video file you have imported into the bottom right panel. This will basically be a time-line of the video. You now have full liberty to shorten the video, cut the video, and edit it in many different ways!

Adding a Title Graphic

Now that we have the video imported, we can start to edit it. Let’s add a title graphic to introduce the video. Start by selecting WINDOW > WORKSPACES > GRAPHICS at the very top of the screen.

This will show the tools seen in this picture on the very left. These are the essentials you will need to create a title. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT that you start creating the title where you want it displayed in the video. So be sure to use the time-line panel to drag the playhead to where in the video you want the text to appear like so.

The next step is to click the “T” for Type. It is the very last tool on the vertical panel. This will open up a red box into which you can type your text.

The cursor tool allows you to move your typed text to anywhere on the screen. Once you have positioned it where you desire, you can edit the color, fill, size, and font of the text.

And that is it! Congratulations! You have created a title graphic for your video. Stay tuned for special effects in Premiere Pro next.