Adobe unpacks power of Premiere Pro: “Video editors are now dangerous.”

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Adobe is at IBC promoting Premiere Pro 25.5, which now comes with over 90 real-time GDP accelerated “modern, gorgeous transitions affects and animations,” the company’s Jason Druss, Sr Product Marketing Manager told RSN.

There’s even a ‘Surprise Me’ button, which completely randomises the selection and throws up completely new ideas for your video package.

“Press one button and it randomises everything so you completely change the look of a transition and, if you want, it will never use the same transition or effect twice. You can get lost in exploring and experimenting all the many ways you can boost your video.”

These transitions and effects are courtesy of technology from Film Impact which was recently acquired by Adobe.

“Users have been using their Film Impact tools for almost 15 years now. The first thing we did when they joined us was to made their effects and transitions available for all users in Premiere Pro.  The great thing is that it's included at no additional cost so everyone can work with it from within their plan.”

In fact, the 90 baseline transitions and effects are completely customisable so the number of possible variations runs into the hundreds of thousands.

“They elevate your edit. They make your story stand out from transition essentials to fun options like earthquake and camera shakes to beautiful glows and blurs that really augment and elevate your cinematography and your colour grading.

“And when you do find a customisation that you love, you can save it as a preset and, share it with your buddies or with your colleagues.”

Mapping Same Techniques to New Skills

Druss is an editor himself with 20 years’ experience. He says with the new power of Premiere Pro,  “Video editors are dangerous. Now an interdisciplinary video editor can cut and do motion graphics, grade colour and do audio. By staying in a paradigm that you're used to — dragging and dropping transitions and effects — you are able to get high quality, innovative motion design and animation outputs. It’s quite astonishing.”

Adobe has also added more functionality to the search panel for media intelligence, so it's easier to find audio clips with assistive AI. More dynamic waveforms give you the ability to edit and tweak multiple audio transitions and fades at the same time.

“So many little quality of life improvements just make an editor's day that much brighter,” he said.

Premiere Pro on iPhone

Druss says he’s been editing on his iPhone for a couple years now but now Premiere has an app for iPhone, “It is best-in-class craft precision video.

“It is multi-track. There's real audio waveforms. In a field like social media, where every millisecond counts for your audience to stop them from scrolling, you can edit with precision. You can take b-roll and literally put it over a track.

“Plus, since we have full access to Adobe Stock, you can import Adobe fonts, you can access music, images and video through Adobe Stock right on the phone. There's amazing generative AI with Adobe Firefly, which is commercially safe. That’s important to know for anyone wanting to do GenAI on the go.

“The coolest thing is to generate sound effects powered by AI. You can generate a sound effect of the text prompt, but you can also record your own voice effect into the phone. That audio clip goes up to the cloud and comes back a couple of seconds later, transformed into bespoke sound effect for you to add instantly to your production.”

How finicky is it to edit on timelines and finesse tracks on a small screen, we wonder?

“If you're of the younger generation it’s just quite natural,” he says. “For those of a certain generation, myself included, you'd think it takes a little getting used to, but when you see the multi-tracks and the waveforms on Premiere for iPhone it just makes sense. It really is the timeline experience of Premiere on your phone.

“When you're finished, you can share it to your files, app, or photos or whatever. You can also send it to desktop. I can choose to share it with my project or desktop and send everything up to the cloud. When you open up Premiere Pro on your desktop the project will be right there for you to check or polish or publish, as you wish.”

The AI Question

To what extent should professional film editors in Hollywood be concerned about AI taking chunks of their job in the future?

“GenAI is an additive tool and an enhancement. I don't think we're running into a world where AI is replacing human creativity. Art and commerce and creative output is made by humans. AI helps us work faster and more efficiently, and sometimes, you know, saves our butts.”

An example: what if you needed a few frames to complete the story but you didn’t manage to shoot the video you need? AI can generate the b-roll you need and, with Adobe, you can do so safe in the knowledge that it was trained on footage that it had explicit permission to use.