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Question

Fix Clips Rotated 90 Degrees

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
August 2, 2023
6 replies
7892 views

Hey all,

Hoping someone has a suggestion - I received a bunch of footage from an event, and it looks like about 15-20% of the time the camera op hit record while the camera was sidways, and I've got about 30 clips that are turned 90 degrees.

I know how to use Master Clips to rotate, and if they were 180 degrees / upside down, no problem, but when I apply Transform to these and rotate 90 degrees, it rotates the image itself, but the clip retains the 9:16 aspect ratio, so now all I've got is a letterboxed vertical clip. Not helpful.

Is there a workaround for this within Premiere? Preferably without having to pull each clip into its own timeline?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Stan Jones

Community Expert

@Kenton5CB3 and all,

I've followed several of these threads, with curiosity but little sympathy. Get 'em into the timeline and get 'em done. Who cares if the preview looks right? Well, obviously we all pick our workflows, and everything being easy, I would also rather see them correctly.

In any event, my curiosity has always led me to believe that there's a flag that PR should be looking at, and all that is needed is to change the flag.

And over time, I collected a few phone/go pro videos that I have examined for such a flag with MediaInfo. But any time I test them, PR gets it right. I have now learned that I just had not collected my best example of this problem. July 4 Ducky race, my phone is pointed at the ground in portrait orientation when I start recording, then I quickly switch to landscape. The recording, of course, is portrait. And PR gets it wrong. MediaInfo shows it is landscape pixels (3840x2160) with a Rotation: 90 degrees. PR gets it wrong because my phone was actually landscape but the flag said it was portrait.

Superuser.com suggested using exiftool. (Too much disagreement and distraction on complicated methods to post the link.) The magic is simply to reset the rotation flag to nothing:

exiftool -rotation=0 "C:\Users\[username]\Videos\[Filename].mp4"

exiftool is here:

https://exiftool.org/

Running that code creates a backup with an extension [filename].mp4_original. MediaInfo confirms there is no longer a rotation flag.

Open in PR, the video is landscape.

I do not know if this works with regular cameras.

Stan

K

Kenton5CB3Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks Stan, that was the next question, I guess - is there an easy way to fix the original footage without having to re-wrap, re-render, etc. Sounds like this may be the ticket. I will check it out, thank you!

S

Scott.C.

Inspiring

I think your only options are to nest every clip or to render them out somehow with rotation applied. Unfortunately there are no interpret footage settings for rotation or orientation that I am aware of.

K

Kenton5CB3Author

Participating Frequently

I was afraid of that, thanks. Let the workarounds commence!

K

Kenton5CB3Author

Participating Frequently

No, I want to rotate them prior to pulling into a timeline. I'd like them to appear horizontal in the media panels.

I could easily pull them into a timeline with all the other footage and just rotate them 90 degrees and they'd fit perfectly. I was just hoping to rotate them first so that their thumnails would be 16:9, and I could scrub through them in the source monitor without tilting my head.

Ann Bens

Community Expert

No, I want to rotate them prior to pulling into a timeline. I'd like them to appear horizontal in the media panels.

By @Kenton5CB3

I mistakenly took the source monitor for the program monitor.

But anyway:

You cannot do this with Premiere, you need to change the orientation of the clips before bringing them into the program.

K

Kenton5CB3Author

Participating Frequently

Adding these screenshots here as the first one was from AFTER I'd tried using "Transform" to rotate it (notice the black letterboxing on top/bottom).

The videos are all meant to be horizontal/16:9. Again, the camera op just hit record while holding the camera sideways.

A

Ali Jaber

Community Expert

As you said, the transform effect is causing the problem as a Master Clip effect, so I wonder why you still using it there? I personally wouldn't care if the thumbnail is vertical in the project panel, after all I will use the clip in the right direction in the timeline.

K

Kenton5CB3Author

Participating Frequently

It's not causing the problem, it's just not fixing it the way I'd like.

I'm not "still" using it there. I used it once, it didn't work the way I wanted, so I came here to post and if there's another solutiion.

Again, I'm well aware that I could pull them all into a timeline and rotate them there.

For the reasons I've outlined, it would be nice to be able to rotate the clip properly to view horizontally in the media / source panels.

I'm assuing you don't have any suggestions on how to accomplish this?

SwindlerCave

Inspiring

A "trick" to hide this problem that is used in many productions (e.g. when a news program wants to show smartphone footage filmed in portrait) is to add a layer behind your main footage and create a copy of the "bad" media there. Right-click the top media and "Set to Frame Size" then scale up the bottom (copy) media so it fills the frame and add a Gaussian Blur effect to it with the Blurriness set very high (say 100). This will "fill" the letterboxed (or pillarboxed in your case) black areas of the frame with diffuse color that roughly matches your footage so it won't appear as distracting.

K

Kenton5CB3Author

Participating Frequently

Re-iterating, these aren't "vertical" videos. They are horizontal videos where the camera op accidentally hit record while holding the camera by his side, prior to lifting it up to get his frame.

So, again, I'm looking for a way to rotate them 90 (270) degrees.

I can pull them into a timeline, rotate, and they look fine. I was just hoping to have the clips themselves (and their thumbnails) rotated in the media panels.

Ann Bens

Community Expert

You cannot change the content just the orientation.

If the camera is used in the wrong way that is just bad luck.

The car is filmed in landscape, but camera is held portrait, there is nothing you can do to make the content portrait.

Especially in a portrait sequence. If sequence was landscape you would not have any trouble.

If both landscape and portrait is used in the same sequence, somewhere along the line you will have black bars or super zoomed-in.

All you can do is zoom in to get rid of the black top and bottom but that will make the car super zoomed in.

K

Kenton5CB3Author

Participating Frequently

That screenshot is what the footage looks like after I apply a Mast Clip affect Transform, and rotate. The footage rotates within the 9:16 frame, but the 9:16 frame doesn't change to 16:9.

These are not portrait shots. He just hit record before turning the camera upright and getting his frame.

So again, I'm looking for a way to rotate the footage. I know I can pull it into a timeline and do it there, but I want the clips and thumbnail to reflect the change, so I'd rather do it prior to importing into a sequence.

K

Kenton5CB3Author

Participating Frequently

Screenshot_2023-08-03_07-49-06.png

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