DIY Video Creation

Chester Prynne's Guide for Absolute Beginners

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I was so impressed with the video that Chester Prynne produced for his edgy serial fiction project The Shame of Chester Prynne—it was so clever and captivating in its Church v. Queers imagery—that I asked him to produce a little tutorial.

Of course, I wanted to try it out for myself, because if Chester is a self-described “novice” in all things tech, I’m more of the “dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age” kinda gay.

Voi-effing-là—I did it too!

OK, so mine’s a little hokey/generic, and there are a few differences on the free plan—those pesky watermarks, and a more limited selection of videos, music and so forth—but still, it really did just take me a few minutes.

So here’s Chester’s tutorial for anyone who wants to give it a go for their own Substack. If I can do it, quite literally ANYONE can. Thanks Chester!

Creating a Trailer Video (for Dummies)

By Chester Prynne

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I should preface everything with an acknowledgement and admission to being a novice in all things social media and tech. I left all of my social media platforms over ten years ago and have never created a video online before a few days ago.

I recently joined Substack to share my The Shame of Chester Prynne that I hope will be of interest to others, but more importantly may spark conversation on tough questions. It may come as a surprise that my name is not Chester Prynne. The pseudonym is less to protect me than others caught up in my story.

I was ready to take the world by storm: I had done all my research on the various platforms and settled on Substack; came up with a name and persona for my new identity; created new social media profiles; storyboarded the whole damn thing; and even had a handful of chapters/posts ready to go.

I was ready to post that very first chapter and suddenly realized: I need to find people to actually read it.

I decided to make my pitch to prospective readers as sexy as possible, and what is sexier and more dramatic than a movie trailer?

Let’s Make a Video

I did a little googling and discovered that the iMovie app on my iPhone creates trailers. Unfortunately, it was a very rigid template, great for sending friends a collection of your photos or vacation videos to friends, but not much else. However, tinkering with it helped me to identify what I needed and what I didn’t need.

If you do even the most cursory search, you will immediately notice how ubiquitous AI is in the space of online video creation apps. After trying half a dozen other platforms, I landed on Invideo AI. You can try it for free and I created my whole video using the free version.

I was having so much fun, I knew that I would be making many more and decided to sign-up for a fairly reasonable membership package of $20/month. I’ve since created and downloaded a number of videos using their very extensive catalog of premium footage and audio.

AI Under Your Control

What I liked most about the platform was the ability to have complete control over script copy (using the prominently displayed option “Script to Video”), while having everything else (at least initially) done by AI, including splicing together stock video content, background music, and narration.

Your first pass will likely lead to both hearty laughter and pained grimaces. But mostly, it led to inspiration for new content ideas.

The feature I liked least, but soon realized how essential it is, was the AI conversion of the script into chapters and other sections that it would insert into my precious copy (with which I often expressed - out loud to this AI creature - my impassioned creative differences).

I quickly forgave Hal (this old man’s nickname for Invideo’s AI) when it became obvious that the only way for it (or me) to insert multiple images and splice together video footage is to divide up the copy into sections.

Most of the work in creating my trailer video was in changing these sections and inserting video footage that would fit within the newly adjusted timing.

Editing Your Video

No offense to Hal, but the feature I used least seems also to be the app’s most prominent: the AI instruction prompt.

In an attempt to make editing as user-friendly as possible, you are encouraged to use natural language to instruct the AI on what to change, but it won’t always get it right..

Instead, I used the Edit option which leads to three different sections:

1. Edit Media: The various video footage clips selected appear in sequence. When you click on each clip, you will see (but cannot alter) the specific copy that corresponds to the clip.
   
   You can replace the clip by searching from a library of content using keyword searches.
   
   You can make various modifications, including the length of time for the clip to play. “Zero” out the playtime to delete clips.
   
   You can also upload your own images and content. Timing of the clips, combined with the inability to simply delete clips the AI created (instead I would).

2. Edit Script: In addition to changing the actual words the AI voice speaks, this is where you would add or change “chapter” sections.
   
   You can also add multiple voiceover narrators with a seemingly infinite number of accents and styles. I shall not reveal mine because of how much I love him.
   
   Of all the features, I am most impressed by how spot-on the AI is in directing the narration to almost perfectly match the tone and cadence I wanted.

3. Edit Music: Background music is tied to the chapter sections. I found the music selected by the AI to be almost as impressive as the narration.
   
   The library is enormous and the keyword searching is efficient and accurate. You are able to customize volume and fade in and fade out timing. I would have enjoyed more seamless splicing options, which may very well exist yet escaped my notice.

Once you are feeling good about your video, it’s a breeze to download and share. I have very limited patience when it comes to technology (I am the person who throws the remote and phone across the room,) but I had a blast making this video.

More importantly, it’s a great way to feel even more connected to and invested in your writing.

I’ve started creating videos for a few of my upcoming posts and the process of making these videos helped me to better capture the emotion, the imagery, and the tone I always intended to articulate.

Have fun!

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