If you’re a Mac (like me) and you’ve needed to make a presentation for something, chances are you used Keynote. (And if you’ve used it, you probably love it a lot more that a certain other presentation creator with the initials PP!)
Last week, I was chatting to a graphic designer friend who required a ‘motion graphic’ video for a project and was thinking about getting Adobe After Effects. It’s a very powerful program – but also comes with a chunky price tag!
Suddenly inspiration hit me – what about Keynote – turns out I was inspired!
Not only can you make amazing slideshow/presentations with Keynote, you can also use it to layout websites and also export slideshows (with auto or manual transitions) in the QuickTime movie format. So I had a quick Google and found some great tips on using Keynote to make videos.
I wanted to make a video to see just what could be done with Keynote, so I thought I’d make a promo video for the great ChurchMag (which I could then use as an example in this post!). After an evening of playing around, I was rather pleased and produced the following:
[tentblogger-vimeo 51060331]
Keynote comes with many great themes which lend themselves to different styles of videos. I made the following (very simple, no audio) ‘photo album’ video using the ‘Leather Book’ theme using a couple of photos that I took over the summer.
[tentblogger-vimeo 51072459]
[Vimeo]
As well as themes, the transitions, builds (ways of getting items to appear and disappear) and actions (doing things to items) are very powerful yet simple to use. On the ChurchMag promo video I used the ‘Pop’ builds to make the items appear/disappear and the ‘Convergence’, ‘Drop’ and ‘Anvil’ builds on the Text elements.
The weak part of making videos with Keynote is the audio side of things. You can add a track from your iTunes library (or MP3s or other audio files), but there’s no editing or setting a delayed start, etc. You can also record a narration for the video as the slideshow plays in Keynote.
If you need more complex audio options, you can export the movie(s) and import into something like iMovie/Final Cut, etc. and do further video/editing in that.
To make a Keynote file into a video – you need to export it! In the QuickTime export settings there’s a couple of items that need to be set. The playback needs to be on ‘Fixed Timings’ and then enter ‘1.0’ into both seconds boxes (the minimum you can – so that your own transitions work properly), make sure the Format is ‘Large’ and the audio boxes are ticked (if you’re using audio!). Here’s a screengrab with them all set.
Keynote doesn’t have all the Motion Graphic creation features of After Effects, but then Keynote costs $20 and After Effects costs $1,000 (50x the cost of Keynote)! For those savings, I can accept a few less features 🙂
So if you need a Graphic Motion style video presentation for your Church, Youth Group, School, Club, Business or even a personal one – give Keynote a try – you might be surprised just what it can do!
Krist Adams says
Very interesting, I may be using this today. If not today, then soon. Thank you very much for sharing.
James Cooper says
Hope you can find it useful! If you learn any cool tips, be sure to let us know 😉
Chandos says
I used to work at an Apple Store as a Creative, and I loved helping people come up with stuff like this! I have a degree in motion graphics, so people would ask how I made videos. When they heard the After Effects price tag they seemed less interested. Anyone can pick up Keynote pretty easily and cheaply, and it turned into “how complex of a keynote can we make…?” 🙂
I also have used it as a Flash replacement. In the inspector, if you set it to “Hyperlinks Only” as the presentation mode, and then export it to a QuickTime file with manual advance, it can fill in nicely on a website that works on any computer that has QuickTime installed 🙂
James Cooper says
Great stuff Chandos! I’ll have to give that a try 🙂
Kevin Gilbert says
Yep. I’ve used Keynote in this way several times. Amazingly powerful for such a low price. Another benefit of being in the Apple ecosystem. People forget how great their iLife/iWork apps actually are, especially for the price.
James Cooper says
Totally agree – people say Apple stuff is expensive but compared to MS Office – iWork is in a different league!
Ray Lofthouse says
His Hands Worship Media can customize any of our graphics to include you church name and logo.
http://www.hishandsworshipmedia.com/customize/
James Cooper says
Thanks Ray. It’s interesting that your customizations are $79 when Keynote costs less than $20 😉
Toni Wall says
Thanks for this article! It’s exactly what I needed for a series of marketing videos I’m working on!
demian says
Hi! i use http://wideo.co is an excellent free tool to create motion graphics. You can upload your videos to youtube