For increased usefulness with the "Instant Movie" option, it would be great to allow the user to change the music for the intro/outro sections, or at least dovetail it into another music selection. This sequence shows the roughness of the "canned" music into a user selection in its current iteration. (Raw clips from "The Message" and music from Smartsound Quicktracks for Premiere Elements.)
Value
For $99, Premiere Elements 7 is an extremely good value for a basic video editor. (Additionally, if you want it teamed up with a basic graphic editor, you can get it with Photoshop Elements 7 for $149, so you save a bit of cash.) While PE7 can do many of the same tricks as Premiere Pro, including using Ppro plugins, its workflow is not as robust or streamlined. Additionally, if you want to edit different scenes in a film in a separate timeline, you'll actually have to create an entirely different project for each scene. As such, if you can afford to upgrade to Premiere Pro or the Production Premium package in the future, it would be a great idea to do so.
Smart Tagging allows you to get lots of information about your clips before you log them. While the information is a bit limited, it can be very useful.
Final Comments The new additions to Premiere Elements 7 make it a fairly logical buy for an upgrade. The ability to use Smartsound tracks is a huge improvement (even if it's strange that they didn't make a streamlined version of Soundbooth tracks), the SmartTagging feature can help you generally cull shots fairly easily, and the InstantMovie option could be of some use to filmmakers creating featurettes for DVDs. As such, I would definitely encourage folks who are interested in this program to download the demo and see if it could help them out with their micro-budget editing adventures!
Ease
of Use
8.8
Depth
of Options
9.2
Performance
8.4
Value
vs. Cost
9.5
Overall Score
9.0
The
director of two feature length films and half a dozen short films,
Jeremy Hanke
founded Microfilmmaker Magazine to help all no-budget filmmakers make
better films. His first book on low-budget special effects techniques, GreenScreen Made Easy, (which he co-wrote with Michele Yamazaki) was released by MWP to very favorable reviews. He's curently working on the sci-fi film franchise, World of Depleted through Depleted: Day 419 and the feature film, Depleted.
