Once you have opened Premiere Pro and created your sequence, the first step is to create a Black Color Matte (or whichever color you’d like to make your film matte). You can do so by clicking the New Item button in your project bin, then selecting Color Matte.
This will open a new window where you will set the resolution and frame rate of your color matte; set the resolution to double your sequence settings so we have some extra room to reposition this Matte layer in this process. In this case, my sequence is 1920x1080 so I will set the resolution of the color matte to 3840x2160.
Once you click OK, the Color Picker window will open. Set this to the desired color of your film matte then click OK again.
Finally, rename your Matte to whatever you’d like. In this case, I will rename this to FILM MATTE. Once you click OK, the Matte will appear in your Project Bin.
Now that the Matte has been created, drag it into your timeline. To precisely mask out the shape of Film Matte that we are creating, we need reference points to trace. To do this, click the Settings Icon located at the bottom of the Program Window and turn on the Safe Margins if you don’t have this on already.
With the FILM MATTE clip selected in the timeline, go to the effect controls window and select the Free Draw Mask tool under Opacity. Using the Mask tool, add a point in each corner on the outer Safe Margin. Zoom in to get a more precise outcome. Check the Inverted box within the mask settings to now have the basic outline of the mask created.
Once you have the basic outline of the Film Matte created, it is now time to resize and reshape the Matte, starting with rounding out the edges using the Mask Expansion setting within the Mask Settings. Setting this value simply just comes down to personal preference and the specific look you are trying to achieve, but I usually like to set this to around 65.
This will not only round out the edges but also expand the mask, so what we will do is scale the FILM MATTE layer down to 95 or to your preferred size/positioning of the Film Matte relative to the height of your video.
You’ll notice that the left & right edges of the Film Matte are thicker than the top & bottom edges, so what we will do is uncheck the Uniform Scale box within the Motion Settings and scale the Width of the FILM MATTE up to where the thickness of the film matte is consistent across all edges of the frame. In this case, the sweet spot is right around 101.
If this is the desired look you are trying to achieve, you can leave your Film Matte as is. However, to add a stylistic touch to this Film Matte, what I like to do is add the Roughen Edges effect inside Premiere Pro to create some imperfections within the mask to really sell the “Film” look.
In order to do this, we will first need to nest the FILM MATTE Layer. Then go up to the Effects bin and search for the effect Roughen Edges. Drag and drop this onto your nested FILM MATTE layer. Once you first apply this effect, you will want to tweak the effect to achieve the desired look you are going for. Again, this is all personal preference, but I will provide the settings I use below:
Edge Type: Spiky
Border: 8.00
Edge Sharpness: 0.05
Fractal Influence: 1.00
Scale: 252
Stretch Width or Height: 2.10
Offset (Turbulence): 199 | 0.0
Complexity: 10
Evolution: 307
At this point your Film Matte is now complete – all you have to do is overlay this layer on top of your footage and you are done. Feel Free to get experimental with this technique to create different Film Mattes of all shapes and sizes, as well as combining multiple Mattes to create Split Mattes.
Like I mentioned earlier, if you want to save the hassle of creating this effect yourself, we have created a Film Matte Collection pack that includes 25+ unique drag & drop Film Matte overlays in 16:9, 2.39:1, and 9:16 aspect ratios – live on our site here!
