As AI-generated content improves, those of us in video production grow understandably wary. I mean, it's natural to worry about being replaced by a robot. Luckily for us at XVP, our editing go-to Adobe Premiere Pro has been rolling out AI features that help us out (and some that can still use a bit of help).
Let's look at a few of Premiere's latest AI features and assess how they perform. This won't be a tutorial, just one seasoned editor's opinions on what the shiny new AI can do for the age-old craft of editing.
The Best:
1. Auto Reframe
It's hard to believe that just a few years ago resizing videos for different platforms was a huge pain. Similar to the old "pan & scan" process of putting movies on square TVs, someone had to decide how to reframe every shot of a horizontal video for a vertical social media clip. Now, Premiere's Auto Reframe makes this a non issue. This AI-powered feature automatically adjusts your footage to fit various aspect ratios, whether you're posting on Instagram, YouTube, or any other platform. We'll never look back.
2. Scene Edit Detection
To be honest, I don't have a need for this very often as I edit from raw footage. But I occasionally need to clip out certain scenes from a finished product, or add different color looks to different scenes that have been string together. In these situations, Scene Edit detection saves time scrubbing and has been accurate any time I've tried it.
Getting Better & Better:
3. Speech to Text: Text-Based Editing & Fast Subtitles
Premiere's built-in transcription panel, which automatically converts dialogue into text, has been nothing short of a game changer. For one thing, the transcript it generates can be turned into subtitles with a few clicks (and you can now bulk edit the style of those subtitles in the Essential Graphics panel). But beyond captioning assistance, Speech to Text really shines as a workflow assistant, allowing the editor to select/cut/copy/paste text in the Text Panel while Premiere simultaneously selects/cuts/copies/pastes the corresponding footage in the Timeline. You can basically make a paper cut and real time at the same time, and I use this feature so much now I'm not sure how I got by without it.Â
Some other Text Panel tips & tricks:
Need to find an instance of a small word to frankencut a sentence? Search & select every instance of the word in your footage, copy them all and lay them out on a timeline to compare.Â
Did the AI get a certain word consistently wrong? "Find & Replace" it in the transcript, just like you would in a Word doc.
4. Color Match
Color match has been around for a while in Premiere, but if you've ever tried it on two cameras with different looks you know it was hit or miss. In the latest version of Premiere, I'm convinced the color matching has improved. This is your sign to go into the Lumetri panel and give it another try.
Not There Yet:
5. Auto-Ducking
This feature in the Essential Sound Panel offers to balance background music with dialogue. It doesn't really do a good job yet. It's OK for a start, and generates key frames for you at the very least, but if you want a music dip under dialogue to sound seamless, human precision remains the best bet.Â
6. Enhance Speech
Premiere continues to refine its offerings in the Essential Sound panel, but they remain clunky. The Enhance Speech function might be the worst new Premiere feature I've used in a while. It promises to "make voice recordings sound like they were created in a professional studio" but don't sell your audio booth just yet. Running this feature takes time, dumbs down the process of noise removal and even creates glitches. Once it added phantom sounds to my track from elsewhere in the clip, kind of like when AI-generated photos give people an extra finger. For serious noise reduction, a round-trip to Adobe Audition or third-party party software remains the best option.
An AI feature I would love to see in Premiere? Facial recognition. Currently this is only available in DaVinci Resolve and one wonders what Adobe has in store.
So that's a look at some of the ways AI has been helping us out in Premiere, allowing us to save time with new tech and focus on the old school craft of telling stories. What are your favorite AI features?
Ali Klingler is a Producer/Editor at XVP Studios. She has over 15 years of experience
and has created videos for clients including Medline, DePaul University, Ace Hardware, The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, SEIU, the Wit Hotel, the IL Environmental Council, and numerous event clients. In 2020 she edited two independent lms, Static Space and Dream Chaser, which have both been on the festival circuit.
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