Web Development: How to Make an Opener for YouTube Videos Using a Template for Premiere Pro

Monday, December 2, 2019

How to Make an Opener for YouTube Videos Using a Template for Premiere Pro

It's never been easier to launch a YouTube channel! Just press record and upload your video, and you might create the next viral video.

But the ease-of-uploading also means that with everyone making video it's hard to stand out. A great YouTube opener is a must to grab your audience's attention.

If you're growing your YouTube channel in 2020, follow this tutorial. You'll learn how to create a YouTube opener in Adobe Premiere, even if you've never built a project like this before.

How to Make an Opener For YouTube Videos in Premiere Pro from a Template

As a video editor, it helps to know that you don't have to create everything from scratch. Instead, use a template and add your specifics to save time and your creative energy.

In this section, we're going to use a pre-built template from Envato Elements. It's a part of the all-you-can-download subscription (which includes YouTube opener templates and so much more—over a million creative items).

In our example, I'm going to work with the Modern Opener template. This template has several different interesting opening animations inside of one project file. Here's the preview:

Let's walk through customizing this template. You'll see that you don't give up the freedom to customize when you start with a template.

1. Open the Template

After you download your template, it's time to open it up in Adobe Premiere. Double-click the Premiere project to open it up in the app.

It always helps to check the documentation for each project; each project is structured and set up differently. Most projects on Elements include well-written documentation that enables you to use the project effectively.

In Modern Opener, there are multiple "scenes," each of which would work well as a quick intro. They're labeled in the timeline, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Scenes in timeline — Modern Opener includes multiple scenes that each work well as an intro.

2. Choose a Scene

I'm going to delete everything, but the section labeled "Outro" on the far right of the timeline. It's about 5 seconds long, which is the sweet spot for short intros.

Hold Shift on your keyboard and select every scene except the one you want to remove. Then, press Delete on your keyboard. This removes all of the extra scenes and leaves us with just a few seconds to customize.

Delete unused clips — Delete your unused clips, then pull the remaining scene to the left.

Then, pull the remaining clip to the far left on the timeline. This removes all the unused time at the beginning of the video.

3. Update the Text Placeholder

The outro clip that I've cut our video down to has just a few elements. Premiere projects typically have many layers that come together for a cohesive video.

In Premiere, you need to double click through the layers until you find the specifics that you want to adjust. To update the text placeholders, I'll double-click through the Title 22 layer.

Update text in Adobe — Double-click on layers until you find the specifics that you want to adjust.

After you find the editable text, click in the placeholder and type over it to replace you. Adding your text takes just a few clicks.

There's one more layer to update. Drill through the Title 23 layer to update the website URL.

When you're ready to preview your text, return to the main composition. In our case, I'll jump back to the Final sequence tab. Press the Spacebar to play a preview with our updated text.

4. Update the Logo

The placeholder logo uses the Envato symbol, and we need to replace it with our own.

Again, there's a layer labeled Logo 01 that we need to update. On the main composition, double-click through the layers, and you'll see a black canvas with just the logo.

Drag-and-drop your logo into the Project panel on the lower-left corner. Then, click and drag it on the timeline. You'll need to use the Effect Controls to position and resize it (upper-left corner in the screenshot below.)

Add your logo to the timeline, then use the Effect Controls to position and scale it similarly to the placeholder.

I typically leave any placeholder logos until I have my own added. This helps you determine sizing and positioning.

In the specific template we're using, a color effect transforms the canvas to black-and-white, so don't worry too much about color. Just delete the placeholder logo, and you're ready to proceed.

5. Replace the Placeholder Image

One important step is left: replace the background image. This sits on the Shot 29 layer. A patterned background image works well for this. I followed the same steps: adding it to the Project panel, then dragging it onto the timeline.

Add background image — Add your image to the **Shot 29** layer to replace it.

Remember, you can always jump back to the main composition ("Final Sequence") and press the Spacebar to play the preview.

6. Render Your Finished Video

Now, we need to finish our video by rendering it. Use the File > Export > Media menu to choose your settings and create a finished flat video file. For details on how, check out this tutorial:

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The Best Source for Opener YouTube Templates (With Unlimited Downloads)

As you saw in this tutorial, a pre-built template is a huge head start. In just a few steps, we created a YouTube intro using a template.

That template, along with hundreds of others for Premiere, is unlocked with a single subscription to Envato Elements.

For YouTubers, I think that Envato Elements is a powerful value. You can continually source the video projects and assets that help your channel stand out from the crowd.

No matter how many videos you need to produce, you know that your costs on Elements are flat-rate. Sign up, download templates, and create your video in less time than ever before.