The keyframe animations every video editor SHOULD-KNOW

Keyframes are integral to every video editor if they are looking to improve and make the best video content imaginable. In today’s article we will look into the keyframe animations every video editor should know.

Table of Contents: show

Keyframes allow you to produce simple but essential digital movement within your video content and allow you to put another spin or dimension to the scene you’re editing, without them some content falls flat.

How to set up your keyframe animations

Firstly a brief overview on how to set up and create a keyframe, for the full article quickly open up this guide in another tab, or simply scroll below!

Find the clip in which you wish to add the keyframe transition, and load it up in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Under the motion tab, click the stopwatch next to the scale and position.
Two keyframes will appear now on your timeline.
Play your clip a little bit forward, and then change the position and scale to your desired parameters.
Now slide your last keyframe to the end of the clip, and your first keyframe to the start of your clip.
Then click play, and you’ll see your clip change position and scale to the dimensions you’ve just set.

You are now ready to start creating some awesome keyframe animations, now on to the good stuff!

The keyframe animations every video editor SHOULD-KNOW

Right, let’s have a look at the must-have keyframe animations for all you filmmakers, YouTubers and content creators out there:

Tracking the motion of an actor (Slider)

The goal of this keyframe animation is to create a panning effect as if the cameraman is moving with the actor. You mainly do this using 4k footage due to the specs but this is possible in 1080 as well, but it will lower the quality a little in 1080.

To create this keyframe animation, simply locate the effect panel and scale your image to around 150 – but don’t click the stopwatch, then drag the position either left or right, depending on your actor’s movement.

Once you have it in it’s desired position you can then press the stopwatch to set your keyframe at the end of the clip and drag it back to the position you started in. You’re now set for the slider effect.

The quick zoom animation

One of our favourites, a quintessential tool for a travel or lifestyle Vlogger, introducing the quick zoom keyframe animation.

To create the quick zoom effect you’ll be adding two keyframes, one at the start and one at the end and allow the clip to zoom quickly from the first to the end, this creates the quick zoom effect.

This effect is great to make static video a little more interesting, and a great method to transition from one image to another.

To create the quick zoom effect place one keyframe marker at the beginning of the clip and then go to the end of the clip and add another keyframe marker. Now set the scale to 190-200 this will then quickly zoom from the first keyframe to the last creating the quick zoom animation – this can also be used as a transition through to the next clip.

The slow zoom

Yep just like the quick zoom, the slow zoom keyframe animation has a similar setup, just it’s much much slower. To replicate this in Adobe Premiere Pro simply follow the steps above for the quick zoom, but adjust the scale to 110.

Remember to set the keyframe markers to the start and the end of the clip then set the scale to increase by 10, so, 110 instead of 100.

This will provide you with a much slower zoom, that you’ll see being used in a lot of YouTubers videos as well as in the film itself. A great keyframe animation that works well as a transition as well as providing perspective for something important in the film.

How do I apply keyframe animations to all clips?

To apply the keyframe animation to all of your clips simply, you can copy all the current keyframe settings from your animated clips and paste the attributes over by using the “Paste Attributes” functionality.

So, right-click on your clip then select copy, now right-click on the clip you wish to copy the attributes over to and select “Paste Attributes” – this will now copy over the keyframe animations attributes.

We hope this article has gone above and beyond and if you wish to learn more on Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects, please subscribe to our YouTube channel or feel free to check out more of our resources below: