Motion Tracking gives you the ability to automatically track moving objects in a project so you can add labels, thought bubbles, or other effects to the moving object. This exercise teaches you how to use this function.
1. | To load the project file containing the new content, click File > Open Project, and then navigate to the Lesson06 folder you copied to your hard drive.
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2. | Within the Lesson06 folder, select the file Motion_Tracking_Win.prel (Windows) or Motion_Tracking Mac.prel (Mac OS), and then click Open (Windows) or Choose (Mac OS). If a dialog appears asking for the location of rendered files, click the Skip Previews button.
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3. | Click to select the clip in the My Project panel, Alfie.mov.
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4. | Select the Motion Tracking icon (  ) at the upper left of the Timeline to turn on Motion Tracking mode. If the dialog opens, click Yes in the Motion Tracking window to enable Premiere Elements to track moving objects in the clip. The Auto Analyzer starts to run. |
5. | Drag the current-time indicator to 00;00;02 where a big yellow box enters the frame. Motion Tracking starts by tracking the largest object in the frame. You could jump to step 8 here and add the thought bubble, but I want to track Alfie’s head, which is more precise than tracking the entire body. So click the yellow box (which then turns blue), and then right-click and choose Delete Selected Object.
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6. | On the upper right of the Monitor panel, click the Add Object button (  ). Premiere Elements adds a scalable box to the Monitor panel. Drag the box over the object that you’d like to track (in this case Alfie’s head), and then drag the edges to fit the object.
Note
In addition to thought bubbles, you can use Motion Tracking with other clip art, titles, graphics, and Picture-in-Picture effects.
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7. | In the upper-right corner of the Monitor panel, click Track Object (  ). Premiere Elements analyzes the clip to track the moving object. |
8. | Click the Edit tab to enter the Edit workspace, and then click Clip Art (  ) to view that content. In the Filter By: list box, click and choose Thought and Speech Bubbles. Click SpeechBubble05-LEFT and drag it over the box that you just created.
Note
You can use the Add Object/Track Object procedure to add and track multiple objects in a single video.
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9. | In the Change Text dialog, type Feed me! Then click OK to close the dialog.
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10. | Drag the Position controls to finalize placement of the thought bubble over Alfie’s head.
Note
In my version of Premiere Elements, this exercise ran correctly only one time, which was the first time the application analyzed Alfie.mov. After that, the rectangle didn’t reappear. If you want to run the exercise again, go to the Elements Organizer and delete Alfie.mov. The next time you run the project, Premiere Elements will have to reanalyze the clip, and the exercise should work as detailed here.
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11. | Press the Home key to move to the start of your project, and then click the Play button to review your work. Watch how the thought bubble moves with Alfie.
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12. | Save your project as Lesson06_Alfie.prel.
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