For many families, the holidays are “Prime Time” for viewing family albums — including childhood videos.
Making a Holiday Movie
In addition to making new memories during the holidays, you should think about digitizing both past and present memories that are currently stored in “vintage” versions of photos and videos. This will allow you to protect the originals while also enabling you to share a family holiday video on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other social media. Here’s how to do it!
Where to Start ?
Start by organizing your images. Just as Santa has “naughty or nice” categories, you need to decide which pictures are favorites or discards before making final selections. With some corrections or editing, many potential discards might become your favorites — Photoshop Elements provides a photo tool kit to help you with any needed repairs.
You should also think about compression choices in advance. Converting with no compression at all is the best way to go if you want to minimize digital artifacts and preserve videos indefinitely — however, a “no compression” video decision will require more storage space.
How to Edit and Publish Your Video?
To create video from photos requires having the right software or app. For the simplest version of DIY videos, you should be able to use online video editing tools such as Windows Movie Makers. Windows Live Essentials — a free download — provides basic photo tools. Whichever video editing software tool you choose to create your video, here are the generic steps to follow:
- Open the video editing software
- Browse the folder in which you have saved your holiday pictures
- Add the selected pictures or drag and drop them into the editing frame
- Add transitions and animations in the sequence you desire
- Add music by choosing your respective audio file from your computer
- Preview and save the edited file in mp4 format
- Publish on YouTube and share it with your family and friends
Due to the increasing popularity of videos, new apps are appearing all the time. Because video technology is constantly changing, don’t overlook recent developments. In case you are feeling lost anywhere during the process, you may ask experts like Video Caddy who can help you make all the right moves without missing a beat.
Tell Your Story Well
Whether you are making YouTube holiday videos or blockbuster movie productions, editing is a critical part of your eventual success. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have shown how important editing is when telling a video story — unless you edit your video, you will miss a golden opportunity to include entertaining features such as special effects, themes and transitions. During the editing process, you will be able to drag and drop individual components — including still photos and video clips — into your video. Adding background music and narration is usually the final touch.
Add a Bit of Humor
When you create a family holiday video, you are the director! Keep your family clamoring for your sequels by giving everyone plenty of humor along the way. The popularity of the “gag reel” on successful movies provides a valuable clue about the importance of emphasizing funny holiday videos at every opportunity. Donald O’Connor provided the ultimate testament to video humor in “Singin’ in the Rain” — “Make ‘Em Laugh!” is always a winning strategy.
If you have anything to share from your own experience of creating holiday videos from pictures, we’d love to read your comments below. If you find this article interesting, please use our social button to share it with your friends.
– VideoCaddy
