Step 4: Finishing and releasing your media content

With your videos scripted, prepared, and recorded, it’s time to finish and release them.

We’ve put together a series of tips to help get your projects delivered, including advice on editing software, technical standards, and video hosting.

Once you’ve finished this step, feel free to head back to producing your own media content to review any areas of interest, take a look at our digital magazine about content creation B-Roll for more advanced tips, or get in touch if you’d like to work with our creative team on one of your projects.

Video editing

Once you’ve filmed your video, you’ll have to think about editing. If a simple ‘top and tail’ is all that is required, you should be able to do this using the software on your phone. But for more complicated edit jobs, you’ll want to offload the footage to your computer.

Software

There are lots of video editing packages available. For a simple, free, open-source option take a look at OpenShot Video Editor for Mac, PC and Linux computers.

We have compiled a list of more fully featured solutions that are in use around the University.

Basic checklist

• Check your project settings.
• Include a range of ‘assets’. Video, stills, music, voice-over.
• Try to tell a story with your assets.
• Choose the best takes – good audio & vision.
• Export with your delivery platform in mind – for Kaltura, aim for a frame size of 1280x720 or 1920x1080, and export your video using a MPEG4 or h264 preset.

Know your software options: personal capture

It is possible to record, upload, trim and deliver a narrated slideshow or a webcam presentation using a single, centrally supported software application, although you might find the editing options a bit limited. Your two main options are Kaltura Desktop Capture and Echo Universal Capture. Both applications can record a screencast of your desktop (for example to capture a slideshow presentation), a webcam feed (for example to show your face while you present from a script or notes) or both a desktop feed and a webcam feed simultaneously for a picture-in-picture effect. Once you’ve recorded, the video will automatically begin to upload over the internet, and you can the access your recording directly from within Canvas.

Both Kaltura and Echo also allow for limited cloud-based trim and edit functions, as well as enhancements like machine generated transcription and captioning. From the student’s perspective, Echo might be more familiar and has the added benefit of a mobile app for students that allows for offline viewing of videos. From a teacher’s perspective, Kaltura has more options for enhancing videos once they’ve been recorded. In particular, Kaltura allows you to record a presentation using your webcam and then attach your slide deck as a separate presentation track. You can also add chapter markers to longer recordings.

• Check out the University’s Echo Universal Capture guide
• Check out the University’s Kaltura guide
• Watch this Kaltura video to learn how to add chapters and slides using the timeline tab.

Know your software options: desktop recording

If you want to try your hand at a more professional edit, you’ll need to record your footage using an alternative software option. For narrated slideshows, the most popular option that is free for staff and students is to use PowerPoint to record your voice directly over your presentation. If you’re able to spend on software purchases, Camtasia is the most popular dedicated screen recording package.

• Watch this video from Academic Skills to learn how to create a narrated slideshow video using PowerPoint.

If you are working on a Mac, the free bundled application QuickTime can record audio, or a webcam video, or your desktop – and you can even record a screencast from an iPad or iPhone attached via USB if you want to annotate over slides or images with an Apple pencil.

• Visit this guide from Apple to learn more about recording videos using QuickTime.

If you just want to capture audio, Audacity is a free audio recording and editing package that works on all platforms.

• The University of Melbourne podcast team has assembled a comprehensive set of recording and editing options for audio-only productions.

Know your software options: editing

If you are recording using Echo or Kaltura, there are basic trimming features available once you’ve uploaded your personal capture recording. But to take your mobile phone or desktop recordings to the next level, you might want to do some editing on your computer. Apple iMovie has long been known as the easiest desktop editor to learn, and if you have a Mac you can use this free software to easily trim, add titles, overlay photographs or slides, balance your audio or combine different video clips together to tell a story. If you’re on PC or Linux, OpenShot is is the easiest free alternative we’ve been able to find.

If you want an industry standard desktop editing package, you can request an Adobe Creative Suite subscription from the IT help desk. Adobe Premiere has a steeper learning curve, but the newer Adobe Rush is much quicker to learn and also includes phone applications to make recording and editing mobile footage more streamlined.

• Purchase and installation guide for Adobe Creative Suite.

Know your software options: video conferencing

Finally, if you are producing an interview or discussion video with one or more guests, you can use the built-in recording functions in Zoom. These work best if planned with the final recorded interview video in mind, rather than simply as a recording of a live tutorial, webinar or teleconference chat.

• Record an interview or discussion using Zoom.

Video hosting

What platform to host your content depends on the type of video, we've outlined some options for video hosting at the University of Melbourne. Also consider the shelf-life of your video, will it need to be online in six months, two years or five years time?