How to Rotate Video in Adobe Premiere Pro

Rotating video is one of those basic things you will need to do at some point. Maybe you recorded something on your phone and the rotation data got lost, so the footage comes in sideways or upside down. Or maybe you just want a creative rotation for a specific shot. Either way, fixing this in Premiere Pro is really quick.

There are two parts to this. The first is rotating the footage itself. The second is adjusting your sequence settings so the frame size matches the new orientation. Let’s go through both.

How to Rotate the Footage

1. Click on the clip in your timeline to select it.
2. Go to the Effect Controls panel (Window > Effect Controls if you don’t see it).
3. Find the Motion section and look for the Rotation property.
4. Type in the value you need. 90 for a quarter turn clockwise, 180 to flip it upside down, or 270 for a quarter turn counter-clockwise.
5. The footage will rotate, but you will notice it doesn’t fill the frame properly yet.

How to Fix the Sequence Size

After rotating, you need to adjust your sequence so the frame matches the new orientation. For example, if your footage was 1920 x 1080 and you rotated it 90 degrees, the frame needs to become 1080 x 1920.

1. Make sure the timeline is selected by clicking on it.
2. Go to Sequence > Sequence Settings in the menu bar.
3. Find the Frame Size fields. Swap the horizontal and vertical values. So 1920 x 1080 becomes 1080 x 1920.
4. Click OK and your sequence will update to match the rotated footage.

Tips

• If the footage doesn’t quite fill the frame after rotating, you can scale it up slightly under Motion > Scale in Effect Controls.
• For small angle adjustments (like leveling out a slightly tilted horizon), just type in a custom degree value instead of 90 or 180.
• You can also keyframe the rotation property to animate the rotation over time if you want a spinning effect.

That’s it. Really simple once you know where the controls are. If you are working with footage that came in at the wrong orientation, this will fix it right up.