​Want to make a movie? Have you heard of PowerPoint?

Recently I got back from our family cross country adventure from CA to TX and I wanted to create a short, shareable story our our trip. I love telling stories of my life “By The Numbers” and while on our trip I was using Google Keep to record different memories. Normally when I do one of these stories I create an infographic using Google Drawing. It's been a lot of fun making these and seeing others do the same for everything from Summer Vacation to Ancient Rome. Here is a previous blog post about making your own Numbers infographics. 
 
For this recent trip I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of the infographic, I thought I would make a video. The main reason was so I could use more of our photos from the trip instead of icons from The Noun Project. 
 
After collecting all of of my number experiences, I next had to decide HOW to make the video. I have used many different programs for videos with my “go to’s” being iMovie for quick and easy videos and Adobe Premiere Elements for more advanced ones. I thought about these two, but also looked at some easier apps like Google Photos and Quik (this is an app from Go Pro and it makes really engaging videos and it is free). These are SUPER easy and fun to use but I decided against them since they we too rigid in terms of how long images could be shown and the motion (Ken Burns) effect added to the photos. And then I thought “hey… how about PowerPoint?” Now most of us have all made a PowerPoints at one point or time. It's easy to add images, shapes and allows you to create visually appealing text. As I was making my video, I thought that this could be something that other teachers and student can easily do on their own, so I am sharing the steps in how to create making a PowerPoint video. 
 
Before we start, here is the finished video project

Now to the steps in how to create a video:

1) Add images, text and shapes on your slide. For most of my video I had one image on each slide. I made the photo fit on the entire screen, then added a rectangle and changed the color to gray with a 50% transparency. This was done so that the text can stand out better. Lastly, I added text in which include a shadowing effect to also make it “pop”.

​2) If you want your text to be even more dramatic you can use the WordArt feature as well which allows outlines, gradients as well as shadow effects.

​3) Continue adding all your images and text on different slides. Once done you will need to look to add some music. Before you start just adding any song you wish, you definitely need to think about copyright. I won’t go into all that here, but check out this post about finding music. 

4) Next you will need to add your music. This is one of the HUGE reasons why PowerPoint is still the Cadillac of presentation software and Google Slides is a Toyota Camry. Now, let me make this clear. I love Google Slides… I mean seriously… the Toyota Camry is a great vehicle but it does lack quite a few features and one of the biggest features missing in GSlides is the ability to add sounds. So, Google if you are reading… let's get some updates going to GSlides… call me if you need some advice.
 
Now back to adding music. 
 
To add music go to you first slide. For my video I wanted to have a “lead” or a slide with a title. It lets the user know what is coming and helps set the scene. Inserting music is simple, go to INSERT and choose AUDIO, then navigate to where your song is located on your computer and click Insert. 

5) Once it has been added you will need to do some edits in order to make the music PLAY automatically, LAST the duration of all your slides, and to HIDE the icon on the slide. You can find where to edit this properties in the Animation Pane as you can see in this screenshot.

6) In order for you images to move automatically from one to another you will go to TRANSITIONS and choose to ADVANCE SLIDE AUTOMATICALLY. You can choose the length of time each slide will stay on screen or have them all do the same time. Generally speaking 3 seconds is a good time if you only have an image and about 6 seconds is good if you have an image and text. A good rule of thumb is to play around with you timing by reading aloud all the text and see how long it takes you to read it, and then add one more second to be safe.

7) The final step is to EXPORT your video. This is different than saving. This is the turning of your slideshow into a video. Go to FILE and choose EXPORT and then pick “Create A Video”. I recommend doing the highest setting. You will see that it will ask you here about the duration of your slides; for mine I used my existing transition times. And when you’re ready “BAM” click on the Create button. It will take a few minutes to render (export) the video. ​

When you are done upload to YouTube or share it any other way you feel. The video will be a .mp4 which is a standard video file type.​

I hope you found this somewhat useful and if you end up making your own video in PowerPoint please share with me your video!