OpenShot- Let's Make a Community

Event Commercial

Objective

Students will be able to create a video

advertisement/commercial based on a previously

made informational poster (refer to Photopea

guide) for digital distribution by following a step-

by-step guide. A still shot from the sample video made

Abstract

This guide is perfect for tackling the difficult objective

of getting the word out about an important fundraiser or

community event— especially when trying to make it in

video form using completely free software. But fear no longer!

Guide for Windows computers

Ensure that OpenShot is installed on the school computer. If not, the school

technician, system administrator, or the teacher needs to install the program. There is

nothing nefarious about this software as it is open-source, free of any price tag, and free of

any viruses. Download OpenShot here.

Upon first start up, click Hide Tutorial. Before proceeding, make sure that you

download this zip file named resources.zip from Google Drive. You must extract this
file once you download it. You can do so by locating it in File Explorer, right clicking it,

and clicking Extract All... and then going through the on-screen process (click Extract).

Students have the option of using other resources, such as ones they have previously

made through other tutorials. Creativity is encouraged as long as it is appropriate and

as long as the objectives are fulfilled, which are creating an infomercial that tells What,

Where, and When.

Let’s return to OpenShot. Click File in the top left and then Import Files. Then, locate

the files that you just extracted (should be in a “resources” folder), select everything

either through Ctrl + A (A stands for All) or by clicking and dragging over every file. Then

click Open. (Or the student can import other appropriate files that they made, as

mentioned before.)
 We have the visuals, but now we need some good music. Let’s go to YouTube’s free

Audio Library by clicking this link and signing into a Google account. Take your pick of

any song made available, but keep in mind that it should fit the aesthetic and mood of

your commercial/event. Once you find a good one, mouse over it and click Download

all the way to the right.

Note whether or not attribution is required— you can find out whether it is by

mousing over the YouTube play button logo under License type. If attribution is

required, just put the name of the artist and the song title wherever you upload this

video (it can be in the description of your YouTube video, for example).
 In OpenShot, click File, Import, and import the song you just downloaded. It should

show in your Project Files panel in the top left. Click and drag the music track on Track

4 (make sure it is all the way to the left). Click on the timeline and test out using your

Spacebar to Pause/Play your assembled footage. The Current Time Indicator, or CTI,

will play wherever it is currently positioned.

Now, click Title in the top left and scroll through the presets that are made

available to you. Choose an appropriate one to introduce your video (Sunset is a nice

one). Click on the wanted preset and then change Line 1 to a nice hook to get viewers

interested in your event or fundraiser (I wrote, “Craving French pastries?” because my

event is a French bake sale). Then click Save— the title should show up in your Project

Files. Drag and drop your title on Track 5 (make sure it is positioned at the beginning of

your timeline since it is your intro). Now let’s give the clip a fade-in by right-clicking on

it and then going to Fade, Start of Clip, and Fade In (it can be fast or slow, whichever

you prefer).

Note the timecode panel (it says 00:00:06:23 in the image above). It shows the time

where the CTI is currently positioned. It is in this format:

hours:minutes:seconds:frames. There are 30 frames per second in our project.

dragging. You will know that you are resizing

when the mouse turns into a horizontal

double-sided arrow. If your title is three words

long, for example, five seconds is a suitable

time for your title clip.

Add another title by clicking Title in the top left and Title again. You can choose any

template/preset as long as it fits the aesthetic of your fundraiser/event. Standard 3 is a

nice basic template which multiple lines that lets you dive deeper into what your event

is about. You can leave lines empty if you don’t need them.

Drop in the new title from your Project Files— you can move it right next to your

previous title so it snaps magnetically. If your words are too small, you can right click

on your clip and click Transform. Then you are able to

use the blue boxed corners in the Video Preview panel to

resize. Keep in mind that this will add a keyframe to

wherever your CTI is on the clip. If it is halfway through the clip, then it will add a zoom

effect until that point. If you do it at the very beginning, there will be no zoom.
 If you still have the blue corners and would like to no longer see them, press Ctrl +

R (which is the keyboard shortcut for Transform).

After your initial text comes some actual graphics. Drop in a picture next to your

title (we use the finn dabbing picture in the tutorial).

You can fade in your graphic by clicking and

dragging your picture so that it slightly overlaps the

preceding clip: this adds a blue crossfade effect. Crossfade transition

Now, add a new video track on top of Track 5. You

can do this by right clicking the space around the

text “Track 5” and clicking Add Track Above.

You can add a title in this new Track 6— just Right click here

make sure that the text is to the side, or in a corner

of the frame so that it does not impede on

your picture. Gray box 1 is an ideal

template for this. Add text that is relevant

to your fundraiser or event (I wrote “BAKE SALE!”).

Adding the title to Track 6 overlays the text on top of

your picture, as long as it is appropriately positioned

on top of the picture in the timeline. You can fade in

the title by right clicking and going to Fade.

If you are following the sample video, add the “campus_building_r.jpg” photo after

the “finn dabbing.jpg” and add another title to give information about the place this
bake sale will be at. I wrote “AT KENDALL MDC” in my title. If you are using your own

graphics, you can go in a different direction as long as you give information relevant to

your event.

What should come afterwards is summarizing information about the event

(remember: What, When, and Where). The sample tutorial video uses a poster created

in Photopea from a previous tutorial. The poster graphic is inserted after the picture of

the school. Animate this informational graphic by right clicking it, going to Animate,

and choosing Zoom (Zoom In 50% to 100%). You can choose a different animating

transition if you want to get creative.

If the instructor wishes to give extra credit, the student can use Transform to

further zoom into the words (the student must appraise and figure out where exactly

to position the CTI when using Transform in order to leave the initial animated zoom

untouched). Further zooming into the words is ideal for viewer convenience.

Fade out the last graphic with summarizing information by right clicking and going

to Fade and choosing the appropriate option. Cut your music using the Razor Tool

(looks like scissors to the left of the OpenShot window) and click on where you want

the clip cut. Right click the second half (the unwanted portion) of the music clip and

click Remove Clip.

Fading out music (which should not be mandatory for the purposes of this

beginner introduction) can only be done by right clicking the clip, clicking Properties,

and scrolling down to Volume. Keyframes in OpenShot are finnicky and must be done

by positioning the CTI. I positioned the CTI to where I wanted the fade out to begin, set
the volume to 0.99 (just for the purposes of creating a keyframe), positioning the CTI at

the end, and setting volume to 0.

We are done. Click the red button in the top left of the screen that says Export

Video. Name your project, choose where to save it, and choose the Video Profile

“1080p 30 fps” and then click Export Video.

Done! Submit your masterpiece to your instructor.

Grading Criteria

Videos will be graded based on whether or not they followed the objectives of the

video, which is to provide this information: “What, Where, and When.” Extra credit can

be given for completing optional objectives such as fading out the music, picking the

right music which fits the aesthetic/mood, or similarly going above and beyond by

further exploring the software’s capacities.