5 Tricks using MASKS in Premiere Pro

Published on February 23, 2022

Video Effects

What Are Masks?

Mask are a very simple yet versatile tool in video editing. Masking basically comes down to cutting away a piece in your video and filling that empty spot back in with another clip. Usually people use it to create visual effects or transitions, but it can be used in many other ways.

Color Grading

The first masking trick we show is for color grading. When you want to highlight or even take away the attention of a certain part of your shot you can do that with a mask. Basically you have same clip on top of each other. On the top clip you mask the part you want to change and use the lumetri effect to alter it.

Transitions

The most common type of transition where you use a mask is the wipe transition. Here we generally use a person or object to hide the mask line. Basically when the person or object goes by the screen we use the backside of it to draw a mask, making it so that they reveal the new scene.

Visual Effects

Again, there are a million ways to use masks for visual effect but I’ll give one example we did in this video. If you want to make an object float you can simply attach a string to this object. And when it needs to start floating another person can pull it up. In post production you can use an empty shot of your scene on the bottom and on top the acting clip. On the acting clip you can mask away the string and other person, revealing the empty bottom layer.

If you want to see 2 more ways on how to use masks and/or more in depth check out our video.

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