5 Tips to Help Students Make Better Videos

So you’re going to have your students create a video. But how can you help students who are struggling to create a video they can be proud of? We’ve put together a list of 5 tips that you can share with your students to help them create great videos.

1. Select the right images

One of the keys to a great video is great images. Help your students find images that will make a dramatic video by pointing them towards our Getty Images library of stock photos and video clips.

While our Getty Images stock covers a lot of ground, if you need special content, consider public domain sources for their projects. Many government websites, like NASA’s for example, offer public domain images that will give students stunning images and even video clips to work with.

2. Have images that are the right size

Sometimes student projects have images that seem blurry. In those cases, image resolution is usually the culprit. If students have the choice, images around 2048 pixels on the long side will look best in their videos and avoid any blurriness. Animoto has a collection of stock images and video clips in our Getty Images library that will all be the right size for videos.

3. Choose the right music

Music lets students add emotion and excitement to their images and video clips, but remind them to match the music to the mood and content of their video (e.g. they shouldn’t choose an upbeat hip hop song to score their Trail of Tears video). Students can narrow down their choices by using the tools in our music selector to sort songs by length, genre, or other features.

4. Control pacing

Are your students images flying by too fast or moving at a glacial pace? Show them how to use Animoto’s timing tools to help them get the right tempo. Animoto videos are broken up into blocks. Each block will have a photo, video clips, collages, or just text. And the timing of each block can be adjusted.

Students will see a number in the lower-left-hand corner of each block. They can click it to increase or decrease the length of time the block appears on screen.

 

5. Mix things up with photos, videos, and text

While good images often speak for themselves, students can clarify their video’s purpose with a few well-placed text slides, and a video clip or two can add cinematic flair. Finally, a well-chosen video template or video style can help bring all of a project’s elements together to create a finished product your students can be proud of.

Do you have any great tips for helping students create their videos? Let us know in our private Facebook group, the Animoto Social Video Marketing Community, or reach out on Facebook or Twitter by tagging @Animoto.