We recommend you leave those few images alone for a while and build the framework of your movie around your voiceover, the most inflexible part of your project. While it is easy to extend or decrease the amount of time an image is on the screen, there's not so much you can do about your voiceover. A sentence that takes 10 seconds to speak is 10 seconds long, no more no less. By placing your voiceover first, you can get a good idea quickly of how long your story is likely to be in its planned form.

For example, you may find the story a minute longer than you expected. If your system can handle a movie of that size, you may not need to cut the script, but you may want to change your plans for the images. As we mentioned already, a static image on the screen for much more than three seconds can make your movie seem to drag. You may want to gather more images or plan for some more special effects to maintain the audience's interest in your images. You may decide that you have more script than you really need. Premiere has some ways to trim your voiceover without you having to record again.

Lay down your voiceover clips as you learned to do for image clips. There's no need to alternate them between A and B tracks, however; you won't be making transitions between audio clips. In fact, it's better if you keep your voiceover all in one audio track, either A or B. Later you'll place your soundtrack in the other track.

Double click on the the first audio clip in the Construction Window. Up pops the Clip Window for your audio clip. Still images, audio, and video all open in Clip windows, but audio and video clips have a window that allows you to perform a number of procedures.

There are a number of things to note in the Audio Clip Window.

When you import your audio files into Premiere, the in and out points are set automatically at the beginning and end of the file, respectively. But perhaps you find there is too much silence at the one or the other end of the clip, or that you fumbled a word as you began. You can edit those unwanted segments out easily by changing the in and out points.

The in and out points for one audio clip are shown here. To change the in point, click your mouse in the Clip Window where you want the new in point. A solid black line bisects the waveform. Now click on the In button on the right-hand bottom control area, and the in point indicator will automatically move. You'll also notice up in the Construction Window and in the Clip Odometer that your clip is now just a little bit shorter. Follow the same procedure to change your out point.

Now find a point in the Audio Clip where you are aware of an edit taking place, where what you are saying refers to a new image or video clip. Stop your hairline indicator at that point. (You can use your mouse to click on the waveform and choose a specific point.) Now go to the left side of the bottom of the clip window to the button MARK, click down and over to 0, and release your mouse.

To implement a fade like this, move your mouse over the Audio Fade control until you see the little finger cursor appear. Click down on the line to make a point appear. Everywhere you put a point, you can raise and lower the audio. Raise the level by dragging a point up, and lower it by dragging down.

Gain and fade in audio editing are terms that refer to overall loudness and changes in loudness. Both gain and fade are controlled in the Construction Window using the Audio Fade control.

Let's illustrate gain this way. Close your audio clip window and drag a soundtrack audio clip into your Construction Window in Audio Track B. Build a preview of the first 10 seconds of your project. (Align the Work Area Bar to the first 10 seconds and press return.) Now notice that your voiceover and soundtrack are both playing at the same volume. This won't work, so we need to change the gain of each track, their overall loudness levels.

To adjust overall audio levels, pass your mouse over one of the Audio Fade controls and watch as the cursor turns into a pointing hand. Hold down the SHIFT key as you click on the Fader line and the cursor will turn into a double-pointed arrow. Hold down your mouse button and raise or lower the overall audio level. (You can also raise or lower audio levels using menu commands. Select a clip in your Construction Window. Ants will start marching around the edges. Choose Clip -> Gain, and a dialog box will pop up that will allow you to adjust the clip's gain value from 1% to 200%, that is, from almost inaudible to twice as loud.) You can now practice raising and lowering the levels of the voiceover and soundtrack clips until you get them to sound right to your ear.

Let's look at the Construction Window at the beginning of the project for "A Recipe" for a good illustration of the use of fades.

To implement a fade like this, move your mouse over the Audio Fade control until you see the little finger cursor appear. Click down on the line to make a point appear. Everywhere you put a point, you can raise and lower the audio. Raise the level by dragging a point up, and lower it by dragging down.

To make space within your existing voiceover clip, you simply mark the point, razor cut at the point, and then drag the second section over as far as you need.