How to Make Instagram Story Videos with Adobe Premiere Pro

I don’t do a whole lot of blogging about blogging, but today is an exception. Today I want to talk about Instagram stories.

I’ve started a YouTube Channel and sometimes work with brands who like video stories. However, I mostly shoot on my DSLR camera so it was important for me to learn how to make Instagram stories on Adobe Premiere Pro so I could edit the footage I have already shot. It took a LOT of trial and error…and error, and error, and cussing, and crying, and wine, and more errors, but I finally got it.

So to save you the trouble of the meltdowns, today I wanted to share what I have figured out in very basic steps. Nothing super fancy.

Y’all, I felt like a modern-day Einstein with boobs once I finally got it. But these steps help me create videos like this:

And this:

So today I thought I would break down how I do it.

First a few details about Instagram Stories:

Videos can only be 15 seconds long
Have to be on your phone
Have to be the same dimensions as your phone

So if you take videos on your DSLR camera, you need to edit the videos to trick your phone into thinking it was shot on the phone camera. It is possible, and easy once you know how to do it.

Let’s just start at the very beginning.

Step 1: Create a new sequence with the same dimensions as your phone. For example, I have the iPhone 6 so my dimensions are 414 x 736.

Step 2. Set a background color or keep it black. I keep it black because it matches my brand and it’s easy to add text and stickers on my stories. I like people to be able to read what I am saying. Plus it matches my brand, but just pick whatever you like.

Step 3. Place your video and audio clips on the timeline. Edit as usual–rotate, scale, speed up, whatever.

Step 4. Quadruple check that your video is less than 15 seconds. I have absolutely saved a video that was too long and wanting to kick myself.

Step 5. Export your video and make sure that the video preset is “Match Source – High bitrate.” It needs to be an MP4 video.

Step 6. Save the exported story video into a file sharing platform. I use Dropbox because they have an app and it’s very easy to get from your computer to your phone.

Step 7. Save to your photos and upload to your story like normal! Add fun texts, gifs, and swipe up links.

That’s it! Do you make videos in Adobe Premiere Pro?