Some individuals are rather good at writing content. They produce new articles at the rate of one per day. But let us assume that you can manage only one per week. That is still acceptable, since you can use submission software and plaster it all over the Internet. I go one step further and post it on my blogs, Scribd and Hubpages. Once you’re on a roll it does not take long.
Now wouldn’t it be nice if you could take that same article and turn it into a video as well? After all, you have already done all the hard work! Some people don’t find this a difficult task at all; they just whip out a Flip camera and shoot a little video of themselves. However, what do you do if you don’t like appearing in front of a video camera?
Well, let’s turn that article into a video without using a camera! The simplest approach is to use custom-made software for this job. Software products that I have experimented with include MemoriesOnWeb and Online Video Story. However, if you really want control over the process, then I suggest you use a proper video editing suite such as AVS Video Editor, Pinnacle Studio, Corel MovieMaker or Sony Vegas. Or even Microsoft Movie Maker if you can get it to work! I use Pinnacle; eighty dollars or so is a good investment as you will use it for years to come, even for your vacation videos.
Here’s how you go about it.
- Edit your article down to about one sentence per paragraph. I prefer no fewer than 5-8 sentences, but no more than 15 sentences in total. Limit your sentences to a few words each. The shorter, the better.
- Create a PowerPoint slideshow. Copy and paste your sentences, in sequence, onto plain backgrounds. I use white lettering (Arial 44pt) on black because it is easy to read. Don’t forget to put a URL and a call to action on the last slide. When done, click ‘Save As’, select JPEG format, and ask for each slide to be stored as a separate file when prompted. You will end up with slide1.jpg, slide2.jpg, etc.
- Now you need some JPG pictures to place between the text slides. Use your own, or check out MorgueFile or Stock.xchng for royalty-free pictures. You can also use Google to search for pictures, just watch out for copyright issues. Save your pictures as picture1.jpg, picture2.jpg and so on in the same folder as the text files.
- Run your video editor, then drag and drop (and alternate) your text and pictures on the story line. Adjust the clip lengths to taste. Play the video to see if you like it, and adjust the duration of each clip time-wise. We are almost done!
- Pick a nice transition effect and drag it on to each junction between text and image. Don’t waste time here, any transition will do.
- Now it is time to add the music. My video editor (Pinnacle Studio Plus 12) has a music library built-in. You could also do an online search for royalty-free music. Start with Jamendo. Do not ‘rip’ tracks off CDs as you will run into copyright issues. You need to copy and past, or drag, the music clip onto the sound track, then cut off any surplus, and add fade-in and fade-out at the ends. It should not take you more than a minute to do this.
Done!
Only one more hurdle needs to be crossed. You still have to render the video, i.e. produce the ‘output’. I just select Flash (FLV format) and make some coffee while Pinnacle churns out the video for me. And that is it!
