Home Made Classroom Films

July 12, 2007 10:12 AM

Help an absolute beginner make short videos for use in a classroom setting. [Requirements Inside]

I am looking for video creation and editing software, or a suite of different programs, as necessary. I would like to make short (10-15 minute) instructional videos, mostly by splicing together static images, maps, video clips, etc. and with a voice over. I would especially like to be able to do the following:

1. Capture very short videos from DVD sources (decryption not a problem) and put them in
2. Static images overlayed with small animations. (Think, maps with moving arrows, etc.!)

Recommendations accepted from the humble to the most expensive welcome.

Bonus points to web sites, FAQs, etc. that might help me figure all this out as well.

posted by absalom to technology (11 comments total)

What platform? PC, Mac, other?
posted by mds35 at 10:20 AM on July 12, 2007

If you're on a mac, it truly has iMovie written all over it.
posted by charmston at 10:23 AM on July 12, 2007

If your one PC and want it pretty darn simple, go Vegas.
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 10:26 AM on July 12, 2007

on a mac, just use imovie. you may have bought a mac and chosen to include some final cut software on that as well, but for what you're talking about your best option is imovie just because it's all really easy.

on a pc, windows movie maker.

both have extensive turotials and intuitive interfaces, and both come free on their respective platforms.
posted by shmegegge at 10:26 AM on July 12, 2007

Ha! I am a moron. I would prefer to use my PC, but also have an iBook G4. Either is fine.
posted by absalom at 10:27 AM on July 12, 2007

Can I use iMovie to rip short clips from DVDs to insert?
posted by absalom at 11:10 AM on July 12, 2007

not that I'm aware of. for that, get mpegstreamclip.

mpegstreamclip is complicated, but once you know what to pay attention to and what to ignore you should be fine. the big thing to remember for what you're trying to do is to rip to quicktime movie, and to check the box that says "deinterlace." you might have to play with several different video codecs to see which one will work with imovie without sacrificing too much quality or using too much of your hard drive space up, but once you settle on something it's really easy to get clips from dvds that way without any trouble.

on a pc, i believe you can still get mpegstreamclip, but you'd want to rip to avi or wmv to use it with windows movie maker.

another option, if you have a home video camera, is to hook your dvd player up to the video camera, and record the clip you want onto a tape, then hook the video camera up to your computer and capture it via usb or firewire, whichever it uses. both windows movie maker and imovie will capture straight from a video camera via usb and firewire.
posted by shmegegge at 11:16 AM on July 12, 2007

I would encourage you to look into digital storytelling. There are a lot of great resources out there for creating just the types of videos you describe for the classroom. The windows equivalent of iMovie is MovieMaker.
posted by mattbucher at 11:17 AM on July 12, 2007

mpegstreamclip
posted by shmegegge at 11:18 AM on July 12, 2007

I think I have found how to do what I want, but I only have 10.3.9 and Fairview requires 10.4. How can I get around this?
posted by absalom at 5:17 PM on July 12, 2007

MacTheRipper
posted by mattbucher at 8:24 PM on July 12, 2007