Create sequences

Learn how to use the Timeline panel in Premiere Pro to create, assemble and rearrange sequences.

What is a sequence?

A sequence is a set of clips - a sequence must contain at least one video track and one audio track. Sequences with audio tracks must also contain a master audio track, where the output of regular audio tracks is directed for mixing. Multiple audio tracks are used to mix audio.

Premiere Pro allows you to specify the settings for each sequence, trim clips, and assemble clips in sequences.

Every Premiere Pro project can contain one or more sequences, and each sequence in a project can have different settings. You can assemble and rearrange sequences in one or more Timeline panels, where their clips, transitions, and effects are represented graphically. A sequence can consist of multiple video and audio tracks running parallel in a Timeline panel. Multiple tracks are used to superimpose or mix clips.

How to create a sequence?

Quickly create a sequence by dragging an asset in the Project panel to the New item icon at the bottom of the panel.

Viewing time: 58 seconds

You can also create a sequence using the File > New > Sequence option and select a sequence preset. The sequence presets with Premiere Pro include the correct settings for common types of assets. For example, if you have footage mostly in DV format, use a DV sequence preset. For more information, see Sequence presets and settings.

Don't change your sequence settings if you plan to specify lower quality settings for output (such as streaming web video). Instead, change your export settings later.

When you launch Premiere Pro, a single Timeline panel appears in a frame in the lower central portion of the screen. You can open any of its default workspaces or create a project. You can remove all sequences from a Timeline panel or add multiple sequences. Each sequence appears as a tab within that Timeline panel. You can also open multiple Timeline panels, each within its own frame, with each containing any number of sequences.

You can show or hide items by selecting or deselecting them in the Timeline panel menu. These items include time ruler numbers and the work area bar.

Open a sequence in the Timeline panel

To open a new sequence in a timeline panel, double click the sequence in the Project Panel. The sequence opens in a new tab in the Timeline panel.

Open extra Timeline panels

You can open more than one Timeline panel if you have more than one sequence in a project. When you open a sequence, it opens in a new tab. Drag the tab into another docking area. The sequence appears in a new timeline.

Navigation controls in the timeline

A Timeline panel contains several controls for moving through the frames of a sequence.

Navigate in a sequence

Work with tracks

You can arrange, edit and, add special effects to clips in the video and audio tracks of the Timeline panel. You can add or remove tracks as needed, rename them, and determine which to affect by a procedure.

Add tracks

New video tracks appear above existing video tracks, and new audio tracks appear below existing audio tracks. Deleting a track removes all clips in the track but does not affect source clips listed in the Project panel.

Delete tracks

You can delete one or more tracks at a time, whether video or audio.

Rename a track

To rename a track, do the following:

Sync Lock to prevent changes

By enabling Sync Lock on tracks, you can determine which tracks are affected when you perform operations like insert, ripple delete, or ripple trim. If a clip is part of an operation, the track shifts regardless of their sync-lock state. The other tracks shift their clip content to the right only if their sync lock is enabled. 

Do one of the following:

• To enable Sync Lock for selected tracks, click the Toggle Syn Lock icon  at the head of each video and audio track you want to lock.

• To enable Sync Lock for all tracks of a particular type (video or audio), Shift-click the Toggle Sync Lock icon  at the head of any track of that type.

The Sync Lock icon  appears in the box, and Sync Lock is enabled for those tracks.

To disable Sync Lock on one or more tracks, click, or Shift-click for all tracks of a type, the Toggle Sync Lock box again so that it contains no Sync Lock icon.

Track Lock to prevent changes

Locking an entire track is useful for preventing changes to any clips on that track while you work on other parts of the sequence. In a Timeline panel, a pattern of slashes appears over a locked track. Although clips in a locked track cannot be modified in any way, they are included when you preview or export the sequence. If you want to lock both a video track and a track with corresponding audio, lock each track separately. When you lock a target track, it is no longer the target. Source clips cannot be added to the track until you unlock it and target it again.

Do one of the following:

• To enable Track Lock for selected tracks, click the Toggle Track Lock icon  at the head of each video and audio track. 

• To enable Track Lock for all tracks of a particular type (video or audio), Shift-click the Toggle Track Lock box at the head of any track of that type.

Exclude tracks in a sequence

You can exclude video or audio clips in any track from previews and export. Clips in excluded video tracks appear as black video in the Program Monitor and in output files. Clips in excluded audio tracks are not output to the Audio Mixer, to the speakers, or to output files.

Adjust the tint values in the shadows and highlights using the Shadow Tint and Highlight Tint wheels. Wheels with empty centers indicate that nothing has been applied. To apply the tint, click in the middle of the wheel and drag the cursor to fill in the wheels.

Click to hide the Eye icon (for video) or the Mute icon  (for audio) at the left edge of the track. (Each icon is a toggle switch. Click its box again to display the icon and include the track.)

Set track display

You can customize the tracks in a Timeline panel in several ways. You can expand or collapse tracks to display or hide track controls. Choosing from several display options, you can control how video and audio clips appear on a track. You can change the size of the header area or move the boundary between the video and audio tracks to display more tracks of either type.

Expand and resize a track

You can expand a track to display track controls. Increase the height of a track to better see icons and keyframes or to display larger views of video track thumbnails and audio track waveforms.

To resize the track, position the pointer in the track header area between two tracks so that the height adjustment icon  appears. Then drag up or down to resize the track below (for video) or the track above (for audio).

Collapsed tracks always appear at the same height and cannot be resized.

Resize the track header section

To resize the track header section, position the pointer over the right edge of the track header so that the resize icon  appears. Then drag the right edge. The icons at the top of the track header limit its minimum width. The maximum width is about twice the minimum width.

Set the display style of a track

For information about viewing and adjusting keyframes in video and audio tracks, see View keyframes and graphs.

Sequence presets and settings

The sequence settings must be correct when you create the sequence. Sequence settings like timebase are locked once the sequence is created. It prevents unwanted inconsistencies that could result from changing sequence settings later.

When creating a sequence, you can select from among the standard sequence presets. Alternatively, you can customize a group of settings, and save the group in a custom sequence setting preset. If you want full control over almost all the sequence parameters, start a new sequence and customize its settings.

Creating a sequence opens the New Sequence dialog box. The New Sequence dialog box contains three tabs, each with various settings: Sequence Presets, General, and Tracks.

Sequence Presets options

Available Presets are groups of sequence settings. Premiere Pro comes with several categories of sequence settings presets installed, like the following:

These sequence settings presets contain the correct settings for the most typical sequence types. For example, use the AVC-Intra, DVCPRO50, and DVCPROHD sequence setting presets to edit AVC-Intra or DVCPRO material shot on Panasonic P2 video cameras. For DV25 material recorded in Panasonic P2 format, use a preset for DV-NTSC or DV-PAL, depending on the television standard of the footage.

Selecting a sequence preset

A sequence can contain different types of assets, in different formats, and with various parameters. However, Premiere Pro performs best when the settings for a sequence match the parameters of most of the assets used in that sequence. To optimize performance and reduce rendering times, find out the asset parameters for the primary assets you want to edit before creating a sequence. After learning the asset parameters, you can create a sequence with settings to match. Before capturing assets from a tape-based device, learn these parameters also, so that you can select the correct capture settings. Asset parameters include the following:

Use the Properties panel to discover many of these parameters for your assets. For more information, see Viewing clip properties.

Alternatively, you can use a third-party application, such as the freeware MediaInfo or GSpot Codec Information Appliance. You can also choose Window > Show Movie Inspector in Apple QuickTime Player to find the codecs used to generate a file.

Assets can use codecs not supported natively by Premiere Pro. Often, you can edit these assets after installing the relevant codecs. However, beware of installing untested codecs that introduce severe problems with your computer system.

Create a custom sequence preset

To customize most sequence settings, you must start a new sequence, select an existing preset, and change its settings.

Create different types of sequences

Using multiple sequences

A single project can contain multiple sequences with different settings. You select settings for each sequence when you create it, but you can change some of these settings after a sequence is created.

• To switch sequences, in the Program Monitor or in the Timeline panel, click the tab of the sequence you want to use. The sequence becomes the frontmost tab in both panels.

• To view a sequence in a separate Timeline panel, drag the Sequence tab away from the panel to an empty area. Ctrl-drag (Windows), or Command-drag (macOS) to prevent the panel from docking.

• To open a sequence in the Source Monitor, press Ctrl/Command and double-click the sequence in the Project panel. In the Timeline panel, press Ctrl/Command and double-click a nested sequence.

Related resources

• Change sequence settings
• Working with aspect ratios
• How to change video width and height in Premiere Pro

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