The past couple of weeks at KF have been intense, ever since Pres Obama's announcement and the request to address must-answer loaded questions.
Let's unwind a bit, today, from loaded- for- bear issues.
A few days back, I had to fix up a video clip for a church presentation that had to be ready in time for the weekend. (There just was nothing else out there that filled the bill, and there were some questionable visuals inappropriate for a general church audience.)
I ended up downloading and trying to edit and embed a Flash vid (that had to be converted to a more compatible dot-wmv format) into my old PowerPoint '97. Yes, '97. (My main Office software is Open Office, Libre Office fork. But I was going to use the church computer and projection system. As in Windows 7 and MS's dreaded Ribbon interface. [BTW, if you struggle with your "Personal Confuser," cf. the Key Links and Refs gadget in the RH column here at KF, which leads with computer help stuff.])
It turned out that the easiest way to edit the WMV, was to go to Windows Movie Maker (now, Windows Live Movie Maker).
Yes, I know, I know, the vid pros are laughing.
This post is not for you.
It is for those of us who, first time up probably, are trying to put a useful video clip together and put it into a slide presentation.
(BTW, a key trick was to put the vid in the same folder with the presentation. A PDF of the presentation, is a useful backup -- one can also use the slide notes feature to put in what to say stuff, just in case. [I then put the folder on a USB memory stick, then passed it over to the church's laptop for projection. I had my NIV Study Bible and Netbook on the pulpit, and signaled the projectionist. Worked pretty well.])
(BTW, a key trick was to put the vid in the same folder with the presentation. A PDF of the presentation, is a useful backup -- one can also use the slide notes feature to put in what to say stuff, just in case. [I then put the folder on a USB memory stick, then passed it over to the church's laptop for projection. I had my NIV Study Bible and Netbook on the pulpit, and signaled the projectionist. Worked pretty well.])
In church, in youth group, in the classroom, in the work presentation, maybe for a Board.
Somewhere, where we have to win and hold attention in a visual age, inform, persuade or guide, and help move to action.
I did it, and with a bit of experimenting, it worked. The folks at church loved it, too.
Afterwards, I thought, is there an easy 101 guide out there?
So, after a bit of searching, here is a Vimeo video, from a founder of that video hosting site:
Of course, he is interested in short vids for his site, in his 5 x 5 x 5 format. (And yes, the back-ways N's are annoying rather than "cute," but still.)
We would normally use clip lengths that work for us (here's where those smart phone clips or vid cam clips can go to work); the whole though should be reasonably short -- 3 - 5 mins is plenty, and 7 - 10 is stretching it; but that is about as long as a major news or magazine show feature. Stills (with animation effects?) can be used as clips, and we can put in voice-overs not just music.
So, in a nutshell, we have here a quickie on making your own vid clip -- or editing an existing one for your use.
Just, be very careful about copyright concerns! (Though short clips for a class or sermon under fair use should be okay. Or, a song shared on Youtube, or the like.)
Hope this helps. END
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PS: For presentation basics, cf. here. Scroll down a bit to the "showtime" sub-head.
PPPS: Real Media's Real Player has a useful convert capacity that was very helpful next time around to go from YouTube Flash to editable WMV. Also, look at the WinX video Converter Flash to WMV (etc.) conversion utility.
