Hi guys this is Jordan with Motion Array.
Today we're going to be looking at how to add subtitles in premiere pro.
Because at some point in time, whether you're working on a small project, feature length
film, or a YouTube video, you're undoubtedly at some point in time going to need to write
out exactly what the characters are saying or give secondary information, etc.
Thankfully Premiere has a built in function to help make subtitles quickly and easily.
But let's first distinguish that if you're looking for a tutorial on simple text, that's
not what this is.
In fact, we already did a video on that, and it's this one here, and the link for that
is in the description below.
Instead what we're focusing on is specifically subtitles, which premiere pro refers to as
'captions'.
So let's jump into premiere pro and learn about how to make captions!
So we have our clip here already on the timeline, and we want to add some subtitles to go along
with what the person is saying.
Let's take a quick listen first.
"But as an editor, one of your biggest limitations is the footage you have to work with."
While you may know how to add simple text, Premiere pro actually has a method that is
specific for creating captions.
Go to file > New > Captions, or right click in your project window and select New Item
> Captions.
From here you’ll see the new captions window.
Under the standard section, you can choose the format of captions you want.
Three options are different types of closed captions, and there’s one option for open
captions.
Here’s all you need to know about closed vs open captions.
Closed captions can be turned on and off even after your video has been exported, kind of
like subtitles on a DVD, or like the subtitles you can turn on and off on YouTube.
While open captions are permanently on top of your video and cannot be removed after
you export.
It’s your choice between what you need but if you go with closed captions to be turned
on and off, you'll want to go with CEA-708 while if you want your subtitles to be baked
into your video, go with “open captions” . We’re going to explore both, but to start,
let's go with open captions.
Let's start by dragging our open captions box onto our timeline overtop of our footage.
To edit what displays as your text, go to your captions editor.
To get there, either double click on your captions box, or enable it by going to window,
captions.
Next, here in your caption editor, type in the phrase that you need your captions to
say.
Now let's go over to our video track here and extend the width of it so that we can
see more of our captions box.
Do this by using your scroll wheel while hovering over this part of the track.
From here you can see that you have a little tab that you can extend for the length of
your caption.
So lets see how long our subject is actually speaking their first line for.
"But as an editor, one of your biggest limitations"
Great, now let's drag the captions tab to match.
It's important to remember that the captions box holds multiple captions tabs.
Now that we've changed our captions length, we need to orient it to the place where we
want it to show.
We want our text to be centered at the bottom, which is what it is by default.
But over here on this grid, you can choose a different area for your captions to be located.
Centered at the top, on the corners, etc.
Right now let's just keep it centered at the bottom.
Now that we made 1 caption, If we need to add more captions, simply go to the plus icon
here, and click it to add a new caption line.
If you want to delete a caption, simply highlight it and hit the minus button instead.
Repeat the process for as many subtitles as you need to create.
Some people prefer a little space between the lines of text so that it's a subtle nudge
for anyone reading it that the captions have changed.
Once you’ve finished creating your captions, you can change the style here.
At the top of your captions tab, you can change the font, color, size, whether it has a stroke,
the color of the stroke.
There's a lot of different options
And if you want to make changes across all of your captions, right click and hit select
all and then make your changes accordingly.
For us we want our captions to be traditionally yellow with a bit more of a modern font.
Fun fact is that if you've ever seen those little musical notes that subtitles have whenever
there's music playing, well you can add them by simply clicking this button right here.
Play around with it and see what you like for your captions.
And that's how you create open captions, let's take a look at our final product.
"But as an editor, one of your biggest limitations is the footage you have to work with."
But how do you make Closed captions?
Well, let’s do that together.
Go to new captions, and under standard, choose: CEA-708.
It's just the most up to date standard.
Unless you want to support more than one language, you don’t need to worry about the stream.
This is why you can have subtitles available in one video file for multiple languages.
So it doesn't matter if your audience speaks English, Spanish, French, Arabic, you can
have languages available for your audience to choose from.
Now that you set up your captions to be closed captions, if you try to add your text you’ll
see that it doesn't really do anything.
For closed captions we actually need to enable them manually.
Go to your button editor here and look for the icon which looks like a speech bubble.
That speech bubble is the closed caption display icon.
Drag it onto your button bar and click it to highlight it blue so your captions will
now be enabled and visible.
Once you start to type in your text, you’ll notice it looks different than the open captions.
Its white text on a black solid.
And after a minute or two you’ll probably also notice that these captions don’t really
have an option to change their style.
This is because closed captions are put into a basic form where they can be read and styled
to the medium that they’re being played on.
So if your video ends up being played on YouTube, through VLC player, or on a DVD, each of those
different mediums will be able to style the text differently.
Once you’re finished, simply go to File > Export > Media, and then down to your captions
option tab here.
In order to have our subtitles able to be turned on and off at different points of our
choosing, we need to have a file separate file that tells the video player how to treat
the video.
This is called a "sidecar file" and if you select that option, you can choose what format
you'd like to use.
Depending on your needs, you can choose what works for your situation, but a good safe
option is the “SubRip” “.srt” format.
Once you’ve exported it, you’re done and ready to go.
Congratulations, you’ve made your subtitles!
I hope you guys found this video helpful.
If you did, we've got tonnes of other tutorials over at motionarray.com
Thank you so much for watching, and I hope to see you in the next video!