Are you ready to continue on in our Video Series classes? In my previous articles (you can go back via that link), I have mentioned that it is not required that you use video editing software before you post a video. For instance, you could record a single continuous clip and post it - simple. However, video editing lets you take your videos a notch higher and as you will see a few basic tasks are really not at all that difficult.
So let's take the case of a home tour video. You have gone out and recorded clips of you touring the house. As a lead-in to help give a more comprehensive overview of the house, let's add a map view and a satellite view. This adds valuable content as people aren't just buying a house, they are buying into a neighborhood too. In my "Graphics For Bloggers #5 - Snapshot/Crop", you got to see how to take snapshots of the map and the satellite views. When you compose a video, your clips can come from a dual composition of full motion video files AND from static image files such as JPG photos from your camera or from screenshots like we did. Another example might be a photo from your client of the house as a summertime exterior view (when you are listing the house in the middle of winter).
Even though you drag in some still shots, they don't have to stay still! In most cases you will want to add motion to your photos to make it more dynamic like the rest of the video. Specifically you have options to zoom in or zoom out, or pan across, or some combination of both zoom and pan. This videography effect (adding motion to still photos) is also known as the "Ken Burns" effect. In iMovie, you will see it called such. In Windows Live Movie Maker, it falls under the animations tab in the Pan/Zoom palette.
Windows Live Movie Maker gives you a palette of preset Pans and Zooms. It is not comprehensive to every possible option, but it gives a good variety (it is a free app after all if that is an excuse). You can see in the diagram below how you would select a still clip and add motion effect to it. In this case, I chose the zoom and rotate option as it was a little more interesting for the maps.
If you are on a Mac and using iMovie, you would select the clip to edit and the pick the crop tool from the toolbar. From there you select, the "Ken Burns" button at the top of the editing area and then adjust the green and red rectangles to mark your start and end frames. It will calculate the zoom and/or pan for you based on those frames. This is the illustration from the iMovie guide.
The short video below is one that I created using Windows Live Movie Maker. It shows the difference between stills that hold still and stills that have more dynamic motion. I think you'll agree the latter is more interesting!
As you will see on this sample video, I applied the Google Attribution requirements from the maps.google.com images. You will find the specific use requirements via following that link. In order to do that the way I did you will need to learn about captions (stay tuned).
Well, that's it for this video class on Craig's Classroom. I hope you learned something new and interesting that you will be able to apply.
If you are ready to get serious about using video in your marketing plan, consider coming to my premium online class called "Video Essentials for Business." That link will take you to the page to tell you more about the class. The class is a set of pre-recorded training videos to teach you what you will need to know to produce quality videos for your YouTube channel. I hope to see you in class! :)
To read more posts about video editing, check out my list of posts in this video series
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