Video clips – and an easy way to make one
We often respond to visual images much better than pure words. On the high street, do you look for words or known shop logos? It’s the shape and color of ‘Subway’ or the ‘M’ of McDonalds we recognize, not the word itself. On our computer desktops, we look for the PowerPoint icon, not the word. Images say much more than words alone, and magnify their effectiveness. And moving images hold our attention. There is great potential for video clip outreach.
It may not be a coincidence that when James Choung, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, set out to help college students explain the gospel to their friends, he turned to the most beloved tool in an engineer’s arsenal: the napkin diagram. Choung, now serves as the divisional director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in San Diego. http://www.christianitytoday.com/outreach/articles/4lawsto4circles.html.
It takes considerable time and experience to create a good 2-minute video clip. However there is a service that will take your own still pictures and graphics, add your text, and create a moving presentation with music: Animoto. Obviously this does have some limitations – there is no spoken soundtrack or ‘real’ video – it just manipulates your still pictures and graphics. However, the results can be very effective. (It’s free for clips under 30 seconds, you pay for longer ones.) Check out some of their samples, or see the video that Lisa created for Rest Ministries. This support ministry for those with chronic pain is very accessible to those with no faith. Helping people with a felt need is a compassionate, effective and biblical area of ministry, and many people start their spiritual journeys because of a felt need, as this previous post How people become Christians demonstrates.
Please use the ‘comment’ link below to share any Animoto clip you have made, either to promote your ministry, or for some direct evangelistic context.
Here’s another resource worth a look: Fliggo – allows you to create your own video site.
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Many ‘videos’ on YouTube are created from slides using MS Windows Movie Maker (part of Windows) which gives surprisingly good results and has an editable sound track, yet I’ve never come across anyone using it in a church or Christian context.
I have just used Animoto Clip for the fist time showing our ministry in Guatemala. Please feel free to view it! Jeff mills
http://animoto.com/play/Xc5BAjxGFkBM0ARmGliunA
I’m a fan of Microsoft’s free PhotoStory3 (google it), which makes it a snap for Windows users to create excellent videos from still images. You can easily control the panning of your images to help bring them more alive. Adding text overlays is a snap. You can record narration for any or all photos. You can add in a music track or use its excellent built-in tool for creating a customized track (easy, and a lot of fun to use). And when you are done, you can choose from a variety of video formats. All of this and it requires very little technical skill.