How to create a video from your essay

This is a simplified, step-by-step process so you can create a video from your powerful message.

Here are the items you’ll need to get started: an essay / story / message, computer, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, Windows Live Movie Maker, and a YouTube account.

1. Create your essay / story / message – this is important. It is essential to write your message first or at least have an outline of the message.

2. Choosing music can be a bit more difficult. It is not necessary to have music, but it makes the video much more powerful. The most important thing to remember; Music is generally protected by copyright, and unless you have permission, you cannot use it for your video. It doesn’t matter that you’re not making money out of it. There are some websites that sell royalty-free music and some websites that have copyright-free music. When you have the music you want to use, download it to your computer making a note of where it is stored

3. Open your PowerPoint presentation – you can be as creative as you want, but know that what you really want is to configure each slide to transfer to Windows Live Movie Maker. None of the animations or music can be transferred. You will add them later in Windows Live Movie Maker. On the other hand, in WLMM you will work with images of the slides, you will not be able to adjust any word, image or background.

To create more slides: Highlight a slide by selecting it, and then press Enter.

The important tabs you will use: Home, Layout, and Slide Show.

Decide on color, artwork, clip art, photos, and word placement. Of course, do not use any copyrighted material. Don’t worry about time at this stage, but it is advisable not to put too many words per page. You can use the slideshow feature to get an idea of ​​how things are flowing, but really, don’t worry about time.

4. When you have finished creating all the slides you want: Go to Save As, click Other Formats, click the Save as type arrow, select – PNG Portable Network Graphics Format, name it as desired, and select Keep. You will create a folder with each slide saved separately. Pay attention to where that folder is so you can find it. Also, a pop-up box will appear asking if you want to save just the current slide or all the slides. You want to save all the slides.

5. Now open Windows Live Movie Maker. On the Home tab, you will see “Add Videos and Photos”, select and go to the folder with your slides. I suggest viewing them as medium in size and controlling it by selecting the small icon at the top right. You will be able to see a slide page in image format. Now select, starting with the first slide, to begin inserting them. They must be in order. A bit tedious, but not much left to do.

After you’ve added all the slides, click the first slide, click the Home tab, click Add Music. Then, on the Home tab, click AutoMovie. It will set up your movie with music, add animation, etc. You are not quite finished. Watch the movie with the automatic times and make sure you can read and watch everything comfortably. If you can’t, click on each slide individually that you would like to adjust. From the animations tab you can change the way the slide fades and moves as you watch. In the Edit tab you can adjust the time.

If you think your movie needs more time than your song is long (no more than 15 minutes for YouTube), after you have changed the time on all the slides you want to change:

Select the slide where you need the music to continue.

Re-add the song by creating a loop, from the Home tab, selecting Add Music or add a second song.

Listen while watching from one or two slides before the insertion point. ‘

If there is a long fade from the end, you can click and zoom in on the second insert, crossing over to create a smoother transition.

When you have it just the way you want it, proceed to the final step.
6. After you have gone to YouTube and created an account, select the YouTube icon on the Home tab, log in and upload your movie.

Have fun creating your videos.