Boring seminars rely too heavily on PowerPoint presentations. Worse seminars rely on PowerPoint presentations overburdened with words. Too much text also weighs down videos. The goal of your company’s video might be to educate a target audience, but the video’s messages should resemble crisp headlines instead of Wikipedia entries. Videos should drive captivated viewers to separate, in-depth content. Our experience shows organizations too often want to splash screens with lengthy, dull graphics that wear down the senses. With on-screen text and graphics, less is more.
Choose an application. We edit video with Avid Media Composer software. It includes tools to create titles. But we used the tools to create basic titles such as lower thirds, text overlaid on video to often identify someone’s name, title, company and location. We still edit with Media Composer but moved onto NewBlueFX, a plug-in for for building graphics. NewBlueFX allowed us to create more sophisticated graphics and make them in less time. We built cooler transitions and effects. Presets prevented us from starting each title from scratch. Then we switched to Adobe After Effects CC. This allows us to create animated titles and transitions similar to those we see in movies. For us, After Effects provides us the most options for our creativity. After Effects includes Cineware to create 3D titles. After Effects and Cineware may seem daunting for beginners, but watching YouTube tutorials will help kick off your creativity.
Shorten the message. Too often, graphics and titles in video need a thorough trimming. They should provide information in the form of short headlines. Graphics should help visually reinforce more in-depth key messages that a narrator or someone on camera is relaying. But the text on screen should not echo what listeners hear word for word with sweeping swaths of information.
Play the match game. It feels disjointed when a narrator or someone on camera says one thing and the words in the title don’t match. I infer this is the result of someone trying to squeeze too much information into their allotted time. Don’t force viewers to hear and read different messages. Remember titles and graphics are to reinforce messages, not to create confusion with an infusion of information.
Go big. I like big, bold words, which is another reason to limit the number of words in graphics. This forces viewers to hyper-focus on a key message. Create titles as big as possible without stretching beyond the “title-safe area” to prevent monitors from cutting off letters or words around a screen’s edges. Bigger graphics are easier to read on mobile devices, which many if not most people use to watch videos.
Go bright. Titles should pop on screen and bright-colored backgrounds are in. Drop the drop shadows (so old school) and try creating big, bold flat words in white against colors you normally associate with South Beach neon. Of course, your company abides by its brand standards, so choose the brightest available option and go for it! See the example below.
Go beyond backgrounds. Graphics shouldn’t solely lay against colorful backgrounds. Titles should also float against corresponding video. Tight shots behind titles are best for mobile devices and help drive home a message. And while shooting video, think ahead. For example, shoot video of empty walls and in post-production, superimpose a graphic over the wall. Shoot video of a truck pulling a flatbed and use “tracking” effects in software such as After Effects to make it appear the words are sitting on the flatbed and moving along the screen as the truck pulls away. In the example below, I shot a bay door and then later superimposed a title over it. The title slid onto the screen in the same way someone would roll up the bay door.
Transition. Simply dissolving graphics on screen one by one is no longer sufficient to create interest. Try sliding titles on screen from the top and sliding them off screen to the side. Add effects to make the graphics blur like Superman as they swoop on and off screen. In the example below, each line slides on screen at slightly different times and with blur.
Add sound effects. When titles zip on screen like Flash, I often add a subtle sound effect. This adds some pizazz. However when you’ve added so many sound effects that even you feel annoyed, you’ve gone overboard.
Break the rules. Like many of you, I’m a linear thinker when creating titles. Traditionally I create a sense of order by building graphics with words all the same size and sentences perfectly aligned center, left or right. But strictly abiding by such ideology is why companies fall behind the times and competition. I forced myself to break the rules and experiment with graphics that include words of different font sizes. And, much to my initial horror, I didn’t force myself to perfectly align all lines. This approach is not for everyone, but for those of us willing to go crazy now and then, ignoring traditional rules of alignment and font size helps separate you from everyone else and create some funky-looking titles that spark attention. See the example below.
