What you’ll find on this get started page
On this get started page you will make a very simple video with your smartphone. You will learn:
- How to download it into your Mac.
- How to start editing it with a program called ScreenFlow.
- How to use a free program called Keynote to make clips fade and add interesting title movement.
- How to add text to small portions of your video for times when the audio quality may not be good enough for some viewers.
If you click on the various links, you sometimes will go to very short tutorials discussing the concept in the link.
Get started with this page. Making several videos until you thoroughly understand what you have learned. Then go to the Home page and click on various titles to learn much more about how to create videos.
Summary of title creation process
Watch this short video showing how to create an animated title for your video.
Get started with your own smartphone video
To get started learning how to make videos, make a short video with your smartphone about anything you want. Click on one of these 2 links to learn how to download that video into your Mac computer: Android or iPhone. Download the video now. Then drag it to your desktop.
Add special features to your video
Similar to what you see in this animated GIF, drag the video from the computer desktop into your ScreenFlow timeline. (If you don’t have a copy of ScreenFlow, you can buy it or else download a free trial copy. Click on that link to automatically get a free copy downloaded into your Downloads folder. Note that it will take a few minutes for the extension to change into DMG.
That must happen before you can use it. Then double-click on the name and drag it into your applications folder.)- Add some text to your page.
- Add a title in the style of the title in the video below.
Adding this specialized title
In the video below you will see how the faded introduction section seemlessly blends into the rest of the video. It takes a lot of work to create that little 8 second clip. We’ll show you how to do it in 32 steps.
-
-
- Select the first 8 or so seconds of the video.
- Cmd C to copy it into your clipboard.
- Click File > New and then New Document.
- Click the page icon in the bottom middle. (See the instructional video above.)
- Cmd V to paste the first 8 or so seconds into the Timeline.
- Right-click on the video clip and click Detach Audio.
- Click File > Save As and save as any simple name. (You will use this clip for only a short period of time. So, do not bother using a descriptive name.)
- Right-click on the video clip again and click on Reverse Clip.
- Click File > Export and this time give it a descriptive name for the MP4 file.
- Drag your new MP4 file on a new Keynote slide.
- Make the MP4 file smaller like you see in the video above. Then drag it so that it fits perfectly into a 960 x 540 pixel Keynote slide.
- With the MP4 file still selected, click on Animate > Action > Add an Effect > Opacity.
- Reduce the opacity to 30%.
- Start recording with ScreenFlow and then click the Keynote Play button.
- Move the cursor over to the right & click to start the video.
- After about 2 seconds, click again to make the image start to fade.
After movement in the video has stopped, click the ScreenFlow movie camera icon to stop recording.- Save your video. (File > Save As)
- Reverse your video.
- File > Export and save as an MP4 file.
- Drag your new MP4 file into a new Keynote slide.
- Click Text in the middle of the slide near the top.
- Add a title for your video.
Click Format to change font size, bolding & colour. Note that after you change the font size, you have to press the Tab key to save it.- Animate > Build In > Add an Effect. Select one of the Effects given.
- Build Out > Add an Effect > Disappear to make the title disappear before the faded image gets too dark.
- Record with ScreenFlow.
- Click to make the title show up.
- As the video gets dark, click to make the title disappear.
- After movement has stopped, click the ScreenFlow icon to stop the video.
- Size the video and then Save As.
- Insert this new short video in front of your entire video production.
-
Adding text to ScreenFlow timeline
Use the animated GIF above as instructions as to how to add text to a ScreenFlow timeline. Note that the text clip must appear ABOVE video clip in the timeline.
Get started example
Here is an example of what the first part of your video could look like.
The video you are making in this lesson is quite amateurish compared to what you will be making in a few weeks. The video above is designed to show you the kind of video you will make in this lesson.
Note that before the video above will have been finished, some free music will be added to various portions that otherwise would be quiet. Read more information on adding music.