Ok, you used Premiere before, you're familiar with the New Project settings I assume? They're pretty self explanatory. Things that tripped me up at first was making sure I chose the right Pixel Aspect Ratio (any downloaded footage is going to be Square Pixels). Also make sure to pick the frame rate of your footage. Anything downloaded will also be "No Fields (Progressive Scan)" under the Fields menu.
Now you have all the windows. :) The project window, also pretty easy to understand. It's where all the footage, stills, audio, etc. you import will show up. It also contains the tab up at the top for the Effects window where all of the effects and transitions are located. Anything in the Project window can be dragged down onto the timeline.
Timeline window. Not too different from WMM, other than you can a bazillion different video and audio tracks. And zoom into it to look at the clips on a frame by frame basis if you'd like. The little gray bar at the top of the current Sequence can be dragged to look over the timeline quickly, or the white ends of it can be dragged to zoom in or out. You can also do both of those things with the mountain looking icons at the bottom of the window and the regular scrollbar down there.
You can scroll/play through your clips by dragging the little blue triangle/current frame indicator. You can also make each video or audio track "taller" by hovering your mouse over the line that separates each one over where it says "Video 1", "Video 2", etc. This will make your clip thumbnails bigger, or, as I always do, make your audio waveform bigger and easier to see. Then you can actuall "see" a lot of the beats. You can also expand and compress the tracks by clicking the little blue down-pointing arrow. The other little buttons on those headings open up little menus to look at and choose from.
To the left of the Timeline is the Toolbox. The arrow at the top is for moving clips around in the timline window, as well as for lengthening and shortening them. Just hold it over the end of the clip and the cursor will change to a little bracket. Then drag to make it longer or shorter. It won't change the clip speed, just the length. The one that will let you change your clip speed (and length as a result is the 5th one from the top with a wavy two headed arrow and line. Again, just hold it over the end and drag.
You can also change clip speed by right-clicking on a clip in the timeline and choosing "Speed/Duration". That's also where you would go to make a clip play backwards.
There are a number of little icons in that Toolbox, but I'm just going to go over the basic ones that I use. Some of them just haven't been useful to me yet.
Below the wavy arrow is a razor blade (Razor Tool). That will let you slice your clips into smaller pieces.
The Hand tool down towards the bottom will let you move your timeline by grabbing anywhere on it and dragging. The Magnifying glass zooms in.
The little buttons under your timestamp in the timeline (upper left corner) will turn on/off snapping (the ends of the clips snap to each other and to markers on the timeline) and the second one will add an unnumbered marker to the top of your timeline. They're handy for marking beats, etc, where you know you want a clip or action to start or end.
Premiere Part 1
Now you have all the windows. :) The project window, also pretty easy to understand. It's where all the footage, stills, audio, etc. you import will show up. It also contains the tab up at the top for the Effects window where all of the effects and transitions are located. Anything in the Project window can be dragged down onto the timeline.
Timeline window. Not too different from WMM, other than you can a bazillion different video and audio tracks. And zoom into it to look at the clips on a frame by frame basis if you'd like. The little gray bar at the top of the current Sequence can be dragged to look over the timeline quickly, or the white ends of it can be dragged to zoom in or out. You can also do both of those things with the mountain looking icons at the bottom of the window and the regular scrollbar down there.
You can scroll/play through your clips by dragging the little blue triangle/current frame indicator. You can also make each video or audio track "taller" by hovering your mouse over the line that separates each one over where it says "Video 1", "Video 2", etc. This will make your clip thumbnails bigger, or, as I always do, make your audio waveform bigger and easier to see. Then you can actuall "see" a lot of the beats. You can also expand and compress the tracks by clicking the little blue down-pointing arrow. The other little buttons on those headings open up little menus to look at and choose from.
To the left of the Timeline is the Toolbox. The arrow at the top is for moving clips around in the timline window, as well as for lengthening and shortening them. Just hold it over the end of the clip and the cursor will change to a little bracket. Then drag to make it longer or shorter. It won't change the clip speed, just the length. The one that will let you change your clip speed (and length as a result is the 5th one from the top with a wavy two headed arrow and line. Again, just hold it over the end and drag.
You can also change clip speed by right-clicking on a clip in the timeline and choosing "Speed/Duration". That's also where you would go to make a clip play backwards.
There are a number of little icons in that Toolbox, but I'm just going to go over the basic ones that I use. Some of them just haven't been useful to me yet.
Below the wavy arrow is a razor blade (Razor Tool). That will let you slice your clips into smaller pieces.
The Hand tool down towards the bottom will let you move your timeline by grabbing anywhere on it and dragging. The Magnifying glass zooms in.
The little buttons under your timestamp in the timeline (upper left corner) will turn on/off snapping (the ends of the clips snap to each other and to markers on the timeline) and the second one will add an unnumbered marker to the top of your timeline. They're handy for marking beats, etc, where you know you want a clip or action to start or end.