Merry Christmas Video! Learn to Make Video
By Internet Video Gal in Featured Video, Video Editing, Video Production Tips
Merry Christmas, HO, HO, HO!!!!
Enjoy this toe-tapping special holiday treat Christmas video.
Set to a jazzy version of Jingle Bells, this video was a breeze to make. First, I selected the music. I wanted something bouncy that made you smile. I got this cut from the Music Bakery for around $30. No doubt I could find some royalty free Christmas music for less than that, but getting it from Music Bakery was faster, so speed won over price.
Next, I selected a background. I use Final Cut, which comes bundled with Live Type, software that helps you easily create animated titles and graphics. The dancing snowflakes background was the most holiday-ish and festive.
Then, I selected video to go over the background. I used some still pictures off my hard drive. That cute little girl hugging the Micky Mouse is my daughter, who is now 21. No one said the pictures had to be current! A face that sweet never loses its appeal. And that’s not just the mommy in me talking!
I also used some video I shot years ago of our Christmas tree. Mostly close-ups of ornaments. At the time I videotaped the tree, I did not plan on using the video for anything other than home movies so I did not bother to set up lights. The video was shot at night, with only the Christmas lights on the tree for illumination. This means some of the shots are a little dark, a few shots I had to discard entirely, but most of them are OK. That’s another reason why I took a lot of close-ups. One tiny Christmas light is enough if you are focused on just the 2-3 inches right next to the light.
I also used a cute snowman ice skating animation I got from anistock.com. Anistock is a fantastic resource for video animations of all kinds. In my opinion, they beat the socks off iStock photo for animations. Anistock is exclusively animations, they have tons, and they are less expensive (considerably) than iStock.
I matted and/or shrunk each video clip so it will fill only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the frame; the snowflake background will fill in the rest of the frame.
The words on the screen were generated by Final Cut. Merry Christmas was done in outline letters with a very soft, very large red outline and green letters. Making your outline large and soft like that makes it appear to be more of a background for the letters and not just an outline. The “oh goody!” was made using standard text. I made the words grow using keyframe animation.
So Merry Christmas one and all. Or, Happy Holidays. Happy Hannuka, Happy Kawanza, WHATEVER! Let’s just all be happy, OK? Pass this video around and make someone smile!
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