Think you need special equipment, expensive software, and special skills to create a video about your work? Well, if you already have an iPad 2, for just an additional $4.99 for a movie editing app for the iPad, you can shoot and create a professional-looking video. To help you along, I’ve also done a tutorial, linked below, showing how to use Avid Studio.
Previously, I did a tutorial series on the iMovie app for the iPad. In this post, I talk about another excellent movie editing app for the iPad that you can use. Avid Studio has more bells and whistles than iMovie, but is a bit more challenging to master and use. But with this tutorial, you should be able to begin using Avid Studio immediately to edit your science videos.
Take a look at Part 1 (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):
This is the second part of the Adobe Photoshop (CS5) tutorial in which I show how to remove the background from an image when that background is not a solid color but is instead a more complex image. I provide several examples of images with different types of backgrounds and then show different techniques for handling these situations.
Once you master these very easy techniques, you will then be poised to create more professional looking montages in your videos or even to begin creating some simple animations.
Here is the video tutorial (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):
In this post, I introduce a tutorial I created to show how to use Adobe Photoshop (CS5) to remove the background from an image.
Have you ever wondered how people superimpose graphs, isolated images, clip art, and other graphics onto another image so that they both have the same background? You might wish to layer a series of images of plants or animals, for example, onto a map or a diagram so that they all share a common background. To do this, you will have to delete the background of the original photographs (left-hand image below) so that when you layer the images onto a base photograph, they all have the same background (right-hand image below):
How is this done? In the following tutorial, I show how easy it is to remove the background from this type of image in Photoshop. This technique is a precursor to developing animations and montages of images in a video….so that the result looks professional.
Take a look (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):
What if you would like to make a video about a topic but you don’t have a lot of footage? Or perhaps you would like to describe a new technique, but have only still shots of your equipment and procedures. Maybe you would like to describe a science concept, but have only audio of someone explaining their work? Can you still make a video? Of course. In fact, there is an editing technique called “montage”, in which the videographer creates a narrative using a sequence of still images to tell a story. This approach can be very effective, as this video illustrates:
You’ll note that in this video, “Congo River: Artery of the Forest”, the creators not only used montage, but also some other ideas I’ve discussed in previous posts. Like many scientists, they had taken lots of pictures of various scenes and people, known a B-roll, which were the basis for this video. As I described earlier, it’s important to shoot lots of still images and video footage in addition to your primary footage (e.g., interviews with key subjects), which can be used for opening and closing credit sequences, for transitions between video segments, and especially to break up long interviews (“talking heads”).
In addition to B-roll, the video also asks (and answers) a dramatic question: “Will the scientists get their samples despite all the logistical challenges?” In a previous post, I explained the purpose of the dramatic question and why we should try to identify and incorporate the dramatic question into science videos. The basic idea is to grab the viewer’s attention and keep them watching to see how things turn out.
Finally, it’s possible to mesh film clips with still images very effectively to create a more interesting video than one that is composed entirely of video clips. In fact, by using a Ken Burns effect on still images, you can create the impression of movement, which blends well with film clips; the viewer often does not notice that the video contains a montage of still images. Here is one of my videos in which I used a combination of footage and still images (as well as animations) to explain sea-level rise and impacts on coastal wetlands (see minute 6:50 to 7:22 for one sequence):
In addition, you can also incorporate sound effects and voiceover to enhance a montage of still images. The “Congo River: Artery of the Forest” video does this very effectively (sounds of stamping along with passport images, for example). In my video, I added sounds of water movement and frogs chirping to give life to still images.
So if you have an idea for a video, don’t be deterred by the lack of film clips. If you have still images of your research and a good dramatic question, you still can develop a compelling video. In upcoming tutorials, I’ll show in greater detail how to incorporate the montage technique into your movie editing repertoire.
This is the second part of the tutorial on using PowerPoint to create simple effective animations for your movie projects. In part one, I covered how to set up your slides in sequence to create the animation. In part two, I finish up by showing how to export your project as a movie and then import it into your movie-editing program (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window).
Animations can greatly enhance your videos, providing a way to better visualize concepts or techniques. In future tutorials, I’ll show how to use more sophisticated applications to create animations that will make your videos look more professional.
