In case you missed it, see Part 1 here about benefits of using video for youth group announcements and how to utilize it to it’s full potential.

Here are my two latest youth group video episodes to serve as finished examples of what I’m about to explain.

• AlexandriaYouth.com News for October 16, 2008.
• AlexandriaYouth.com News for October 22, 2008.

This post is not intended to teach you how to use whatever video editing software is available to you, but rather to give you resources and directions for how I created my youth group video episodes in case it’s helpful for your ministry’s communication.

How much time will it take to create videos?

The first one took me about 8 hours to put together just because I had to search for video clips, figure out what transitions I liked, choose fonts, and everything else. Now that the basic framework is put together for each episode, every consecutive video takes about 1 to 2 hours. It’s just a matter of shooting a new video of myself, L.T., and inserting different video clips from YouTube and such.

Video editing software

I used iMovie for pretty much everything except for one or two scenarios, which are indicated below. Fortunately, iMovie comes free on every Mac computer.

If you’re on a PC, the Microsoft’s free Windows Movie Maker may be sufficient for your needs as you begin to experiment with video editing.

1. Intro video

It looks cool, but I’m not that good. I actually purchased it royalty-free from the video section at iStockPhoto.com for about $20 (15 credits on their site). It came without a sound track, so I purchased a royalty-free audio track to go along with it from TheMusicCase.com , which cost me almost $38 (€30.00 EUR).

NOTE: Royalty-free means you are free to publish and use the material over and over again without paying royalties to the creator. ["Royalty Free" on Wikipedia.]

In iMovie, I simply laid the audio track over the video, made the final frame of the video last for about 10 seconds longer (called a “still frame”), and threw the “AlexandriaYouth.com News” text on top.

2. Recording myself

This is probably the easiest part of making the video: I just record myself talking to my Mac’s built-in iSight camera using iMovie’s “Import from camera” option. When I click “Done” it automatically imports the video to the iMovie project where it’s ready to click and drag to the video timeline.

Again, if you don’t have a Mac, almost any webcam will do. Although a webcam’s video quality isn’t as high as using an actual video camera, it certainly is a lot easier and a lot fewer steps to get the video to your computer. And, as you can see from my videos linked above (and every youth ministry training video on this site), my Mac’s iSight camera is completely sufficient.

3. Adding lower-thirds

Lower-thirds are the little text banners that display at the bottom of the screen while L.T. or myself talk. I’m just using one of the default lower-thirds available in iMovie. Click and drag it to wherever you want it in the video, type in your text, and drag the ends of the text section in the timeline for whatever duration you want the lower-third to appear.

4. The short transition clips

Again, it’s just a still-frame from the end of the intro movie I purchased. I put some text over it and used a quick static audio clip from iMovie’s extensive sound effect library.

5. Using L.T.

This is actually just as simple as recording yourself in the step above, although it requires some extra software. Fortunately, L.T. works on Windows, Mac or Linux and best of all, he’s FREE! Download him from the free section of CrowdControlGames.com.

Read my tutorial from last year about how to make fun video announcements in 3 easy steps with L.T. (Check the comments there for a link to free Windows software to use in place of the Mac program I recommend.)

Green screen option with L.T.
In the first AlexandriaYouth.com video epsidoe I actually put myself on the screen with L.T. and talked with him through the announcements (although, I obviously messed up my script a bit in the beginning lol). This is thanks to the green screen background that comes with L.T.. Unfortunately, you’ll need a more advanced video editing program to filter out the green screen so the background video/image can show through. I used Final Cut Express and learned how to do it by following this tutorial on YouTube.

6. YouthBytes devo (jr. high preview)

You can get the 1 minute versions for free from YouthByte’s YouTube channel. Or, if you purchase their DVD series, you can rip the high quality versions straight from the disk. (Don’t worry, I’ve talked with Chad Daniel from YouthBytes about it and he thinks it’s a great idea.)

DVD ripping software for Mac
On Mac, I look at the DVD’s file contents in Finder, find the VOB file of the video I want, copy it to my computer and use ffmpegX (free) to convert it to MOV file for iMovie. Another (and easier) option for Mac is to use Handbrake (also free) to scan the DVD, find the video you want, and export it to the format of your choosing.

DVD ripping software for Windows
For Windows, you can also browse to the DVD’s contents through My Computer, find the VOB video you want and use a program like SUPER (free) to convert it to WMV or whatever video format your video editing software wants. (If you have a better recommendation for Windows, please post it in the comments below — I’m not as familiar with Windows as I used to be.)

7. YouTube video of the week

There are a lot of different services available for downloading videos from YouTube and other video sites. Two easy web-based tool are MediaConverter.org and KeepVid.com. Just copy and paste the YouTube URL to it and click through the steps.

Personally, I use a free program called TubeTV (Mac only) just because it’s fast and seems to encode the video at a higher quality than web-based services. Another good Mac program is called VideoBox, free to try for 5 days (thereafter, $15 to buy).

Once your clip is ripped from a DVD or downloaded from YouTube, import it into your iMovie project and place it wherever you want in the video’s timeline.

Let the questions commence! Post them in the comments below.

We all use backgrounds images for PowerPoint and MediaShout, but unfortunately a lot of people don’t know anything better than to use an image with plain text titles. Not only is this sometimes difficult to read, but it almost annoying to look at. Here’s an example of how you can easily turn a digital photo into a slick background image.

For our example, we’ll use a picture my wife randomly took of some markers. Right-click here and “Save File As/Save Target As” if you want to play around with the original image. I’m using PhotoShop CS2 in the screenshots below, but these tools are also available in the slimmed down PhotoShop Elements (available for Windows and Mac) and other image editing applications.

Screen shot #1 and #2. Open the image you want to use as a PowerPoint or MediaShout background and change the image size to the screen resolution you’ll use with the projector. In my case, I’ll use the typical 1024×768, which is probably sufficient for 95% of the cases. (This helps keep your PowerPoint file size smaller so you’re not embedding an 8.0 megapixel image into your slide show.)

Screen shot #3. The text should stand out from the background image, not blend into it, so let’s lighten the image a little. There are various ways to do this, but in the example below I create a new layer, use the Paint Bucket tool to paint it white and then change the layer’s Opacity to 66% so the background layer beneath shows through a little.

Screen shot #4. Next, create another new layer, select the Type Tool and type your title on the image. Change the text color to be something that easily stands out. In my case, I’ll use black. You can change the font and size in the toolbar at the top.

Screen shot #5 and #6. To make the title stand out a bit from the rest of the text that will be displayed in PowerPoint, l’ll add a new layer style to the text layer. First I zoom in to 100% under the View menu so I can see the title at it’s full resolution as I manipulate it. Now let’s try Bevel and Emboss. (Play around with the other layer styles in the left column sometime, too.) In this image I’m using the Inner Bevel style with the Chisel Hard technique to add a bit of 2D perception to the title. Click OK when you’re finished setting the layer style the way you like it. (Hint: Simple is better. Don’t use too many styles together.)

Screen shot #7. Now save the image as a JPEG. In PhotoShop, go to File, Save As, and change the drop-down format menu to JPEG. Give the image a name, save it and use it as your new PowerPoint or MediaShout background!

Here’s my final image if you’d like to see it full-screen or even use it for an upcoming presentation.

The other advantage to this is that you don’t lose your special fonts styles when you transfer the presentation to a computer that doesn’t have the same fonts installed. Everything stays in-tact perfectly.