Motion Presets for Premiere Pro: Slide, Scale, and Fade In

The fastest way to add a slide, fade, or scale animation in Premiere Pro is to apply it as a preset instead of keyframing it by hand. EXpress, our click-to-apply animation plugin, puts a library of motion presets in a panel inside Premiere Pro: select a clip, right-click a card, and the In animation lands on it as keyframes you can edit like any others. Five of those presets are free.

Everything about it lives on the EXpress product page, and it installs through Filmit Studio, our free desktop app. Here is the manual way first, then the EXpress workflow from the demo, what it actually puts in Effect Controls, and where the Premiere Pro version stops.

How do you animate a clip by hand in Premiere Pro?

With keyframes in Effect Controls. For a simple slide in from the bottom, the native way looks like this:

• Park the playhead where the move should end and turn on the stopwatch for Position under Motion.
• Move the playhead back to the start of the clip and push the Position value down until the clip sits off screen.
• Right-click the keyframes and set the interpolation, so the move eases instead of starting and stopping dead.
• Add Opacity keyframes if it should fade as well, and repeat all of it at the other end for the Out.

None of that is hard. It is just the same steps on every title, logo, and photo, which is the part EXpress removes.

What is EXpress in Premiere Pro?

A panel of motion presets for clips and images. The library covers Fade, Slide, Scale, Rotate, and Combos, each with its own cards, plus Overshoot, Bounce, and Elastic cards and fast and slow versions. Across the library there are 45+ motion presets, and the same cards and timing styles work in After Effects too.

Every card plays its real animation on loop, so you see the move before you apply it rather than guessing from a name. Slides always start fully off screen, whatever the frame size, and they still clear the frame when the clip is tilted or scaled.

How do you open EXpress in Premiere Pro?

How do you apply a motion preset to a clip?

Select the clip on the timeline, find the card, and right-click it. Right-click applies the In animation straight away.

In the demo that is a slide from the bottom: one right-click on the card and the clip slides up into frame on playback. If it is not the move you wanted, undo it like any other edit and try the next card.

Browse Scale, Rotate, and the other families the same way. The presets work on still images too, which makes them handy for photos and logos.

How do you animate In and Out at the same time?

Left-click the card instead of right-clicking. That opens its options, where you choose In, Out, or Both.

Pick Both and the In and the Out each get their own direction. In the demo the clip comes in from the top and goes out to the bottom right, then Apply puts both on the clip in one go. The In starts at the clip's in point and the Out lands on its out point, so the animation fits the clip however long it is, and an In starts from nothing on its first frame while an Out ends on an empty frame, so your cuts stay clean.

On the free tier, presets use Smooth, Linear, Ease In, and Ease Out, in every direction and at any duration.

What does EXpress put in Effect Controls?

Nothing you have not seen before. There are two paths, and you choose between them with the motion blur setting.

Either way the setup is native to Premiere Pro, so the project opens and renders the same on a machine that does not have EXpress installed.

Can you change what right-click does?

Yes. Open Settings and look for the quick apply options. Click, right-click, Shift, Ctrl or Cmd, and Alt or Option clicks can each be set to open the options, apply In, apply Out, or apply both. If you mostly build In and Out together, map right-click to both and skip the options screen entirely.

What is free, and what needs a subscription?

Without a subscription, EXpress still works. In Premiere Pro five motion presets are free: Fade, Slide, Scale Up, Fade + Slide, and Fade + Scale Up, in the Smooth, Linear, Ease In, and Ease Out styles. Every other card still plays its preview with a lock on it, so you can see what a subscription adds before paying for anything.

A Filmit Studio subscription unlocks every card, plus Overshoot, Bounce, and Elastic, and it unlocks the moment your licence is active, without reopening the panel. It is $20/month with a 7-day free trial, and it includes every other Filmit tool, effect, transition, and course.

What are the honest limits?

• Premiere Pro gets motion presets only. The text presets (characters, words, and lines) and the expression library are After Effects features. If that is what you need, the After Effects guide covers them.
• Some conveniences are After Effects only. Saving presets as favorites, 3D presets like Flip 3D and Dolly In, and animations that follow a layer when you move it all live on the After Effects side. In Premiere Pro, if you reposition a clip afterwards, you adjust the keyframes.
• It is a library of moves, not a motion designer. The presets cover the everyday entrances and exits. Anything bespoke is still keyframes, although you can start from a preset and edit from there.
• The library is still growing. More presets are on the way, and requests from editors shape which ones come next.

How do you get EXpress?

Head to the EXpress page, install Filmit Studio (free), and add EXpress. The free presets work straight away with no subscription, and the 7-day trial opens up the full library. Try it on your next title or photo sequence, and tell us on Discord which move you want added next.

Key takeaways