How to Get a Cinematic Film Look with Bars in Premiere Pro

So lemme guess. You are here to learn how to get a Cinematic Film Look with Bars in Premiere Pro. I am assuming you have made a video and you want it to look cool like a movie with top and bottom cinematic bars, right? Something like this:

This tutorial intends to help you with that.

Okay, let’s make the world a cooler place!

How to Get a Cinematic Film Look with Bars in Premiere Pro

This tutorial assumes you have Premiere Pro installed on your system. Let’s learn a step by step process on how to get a cinematic film look with bars in Premiere Pro.

Let’s say you have already completed your movie, short film or video successfully. Polishing is the only thing left.

Adding an Adjustment Layer

Step 1: The first thing you gotta do is create a new adjustment layer. You could do so by clicking on the following button labeled as “New Item”:

This will create a new adjustment layer in your project.

Step 2: Create a new video track on top of all your video tracks in your timeline. Just right-click on the topmost Video track on your timeline and then on Add Track:

Doing so will create a similar track atop. We are going to use this track to place the adjustment layer.

Step 3: Just drag and drop the created adjustment layer in the newly created video track.

Step 4: Drag the adjustment layer across all your video frames where you wish to see the cinematic film look of widescreen bars.

Adding the Crop Effect

Step 5: Time to add the crop effect now. Go to Effects Panel which might be available where your project panel is.

Step 6: Click on the Search box and then type “Crop”. If you fail to find the option it will be located in Video Effects > Transform folder

Step 7:  Just drag and drop this crop effect on the Adjustment Layer you had just planted on the timeline.

Adjusting the Effect Controls

Once you are done dragging and dropping the crop video effect, it is time to start making some effect controls adjustment.

Step 8: Click on the adjustment layer and then on the Effect Controls panel which might be available in your source window.

Navigate to the part that says Crop. Underneath it, you will have Left, Top, Right and Bottom buttons. If you start providing values here it will begin to crop your video based on the values you provide. You can go ahead and experiment.

Step 9: Click on Top and enter 11, 12 or 13 whatever value you wish to add. Then click on Bottom and enter the same value you entered in Top textbox. You can refer the video screen in the right to observe the changes.

Step 10: Dance! That’s the most important step. You are done!

Okay, what if something important in your video gets cropped off?

Well, in that case just click on that video and adjust it by moving it towards the top or bottom.

That’s it. Don’t thank me! Oh wait! You can thank me in the comment box below. 🙂 I could use some gratitude.

Check out other Premiere Pro related tutorials as well.

If you are curious about what movie I was making in my Premiere Pro, you can check it out here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb7ZMR9AkBf4HJfP5YgQJjw