Alex Welgraven, video producer for Radiant Church in Surprise, Arizona, emailed me about a cool thing they’re doing to promote church events using Instagram videos:
“…we just started using Instagram in a new way to promote upcoming events. We’re essentially editing 15 second versions of our promos in Final Cut Pro at 640×640 resolution, sending them to our iPhone, importing them into Instagram, and publishing them.”
#BAM!
This is awesome.
Here’s a few they’ve done:
Pretty awesome, right?
What an awesome way for Radiant Church to use their Instagram!
Like Alex pointed out, this is a great way to promote an event or sermon series in a concise, professional way.
Thanks Alex!
[If your church has a cool, creative idea that you would like to share on ChurchMag, email me: eric[at]churchm.ag — we would love to hear about it!]
Alex Welgraven says
Thanks for sharing this. Appreciate it!
Chip Dizard says
Alex, you must be using FCP 7. In FCPX there is no way to get 640 x 640 square video. I tried and tried to no avail. I was only able to dig up an After Effects Tutorial on how to do this. http://www.josephtorino.com/instagram-video-how-to-upload-edited-videos-to-instagram/
Any help would be appreciated. Great videos by the way and I will be showing churches your samples and help them get 15 second gems up! I have the workflow already! I just need to know if you are using FCPX or 7.
Alex Welgraven says
Hey Chip,
I am using FCP 7 still… not a fan of FCPX.
Keep in mind, you can send 16×9 videos to Instagram, just like you can send non-square photos to Instagram. It will just crop them to be a square.
Another method if you have Motion 5 to go along with FCPX (It’s only 49.99): Edit your video in FCPX at 1920×1080, making sure to keep all your elements in the center of the frame. Export that 15 second video out, import it into a Motion 5 project, and set the project size to be 640×640 (Motion lets you set a custom project size). Then scale your 1920×1080 video to about 60% and make sure it’s centered. It’s a little round about, but it should work.
Also, I believe there are apps like “Squaready for Video” that will add a border to the top and bottom of 16×9 video to make it a letterboxed square, if that makes sense.
And here’s a final solution that might be the easiest: http://www.larryjordan.biz/fcpx-custom-project-sizes/
Find a 640×640 clip at 23.98 or 29.97 frame a second and start Option 1 from the above article.
Hopefully that helps!
Chip Dizard says
Alex,
Thanks, I found a solution for what I need to do. I am recording a video tutorial today to show people how to do this. I will most likely post on ChurchMag and link to this blog post. Thanks again. I used Adobe Premiere CS 6 or CC and then sent to my phone to upload to my camera roll via an App.
http://instagram.com/p/erZnnrROYT is 15 second sample video from my wedding videography work.
Cheers!
Alex Welgraven says
Dropbox is a handy way to get the video file onto your phone. Send your final video to dropbox, open dropbox on your phone and find the video file. Star/Favorite the video file to save it to your phone, then save it to your camera roll.
Stephen says
Alex,
What kind of camera do you use to shoot your videos?
Alex Welgraven says
Hey Stephen,
I used a Panasonic GH2, running the FlowMotion 2 hack, with vintage Nikon prime lenses via an Nikon F to M4/3 Adaptor.
Eric Dye says
Well, we tend to like awesome things on ChurchMag. 😛
Chip Dizárd says
I just posted my workflow for doing this.
https://churchm.ag/how-to-edit-and-upload-edited-videos-to-instagram/
Thanks again.
Bobby Shirley says
I love this. Looking to implement at my church. We have been thinking this direction for a while, now a practical way to get started.
Eric Dye says
Seriously. Such an awesome idea. I am so glad Alex emailed me about it!
Caleb Warren says
I love it! We are also starting to use Instagram for video promos as well. Here is one that we just did promoting our upcoming series, “The Theory of Everything.”
http://instagram.com/p/fDtwJENLx9/
Eric Dye says
Awesome!