How to Turn a Slide Show Into a Video

If you have a winning slideshow and want to turn it into a video, how do you do it? Unfortunately, PowerPoint doesn’t inherently have an “export to video” feature. However, using PowerPoint’s built in slideshow construction features and third party software, you can easily turn your slideshow into a video work of art.

Before we get into the technical aspects of converting a slideshow into a video, here are a few tips to make sure your slides come out stellar once they’re converted to vide.

How To Make A Slideshow That Shines

1) Have a consistent design throughout the slides and video. It can be very jarring on the eyes if you’re constantly switching backgrounds, focal points and overall design scheme. This is even truer in a video presentation than a slideshow presentation. With a slideshow presentation, usually you’re the focal point and the slideshow is just an aid. When the slideshow video itself is the focal point, you need to put a lot more attention into making sure that the design is seamless from slide to slide.

2) If you’re narrating the slides, narrate slowly and enunciate each and every point. Don’t assume that people can follow you if you’re speaking quickly. Remember that speaking for a virtual audience looking at slides and speaking in front of a real live audience are completely different. In person audiences can infer your meaning from your body language and other visual cues. Online, all they have is your voice. Make sure your voice is coming through crystal clear.

3) Start by presenting your hypothesis, main point or overall lesson. Make sure that users know what you’re about to cover before jumping straight into your slideshow.

4) Consider adding a couple animations. Having an opening animation can help draw attention and make your video look more professional. Having animations inside your actual slideshow can help mix things up and give your viewer more of a sense of variety. That said, it’s possible to go overboard on the animations. Animations should be used to accentuate your main points, not overpower the overall presentation.

5) Use 2 or 3 shocking or well documented statistics. For example, if you’re doing a slideshow on preventing cancer, you might want to include some statistics from the World Health Organization or the Center for Disease Control. Statistics should either serve to reinforce your point, or serve to strike an emotional cord.

6) Try to add something lighthearted or humorous. Just like animations, these should be used in moderation. That said, having just a pinch of humor can change the whole vibe of the presentation.

7) Close with power. Research shows that people tend to remember the beginning and the end of a presentation more than any other part of the presentation. If you end your presentation with a strong closing statement, people are much more likely to think highly of the presentation you created.

Now that we’ve covered how to create a good slideshow presentation, let’s look into how to turn that powerpoint into an actual video.

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Creating online videos is both more complicated and simpler than most people imagine. It’s more complicated in that you do need to have a bit of set-up and planning in order to get it right. However, it’s much simpler than a lot of people think it is. It’s not rocket science and you don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars.

Here’s how to create top-notch online videos.

1. Handle the Audio First

Getting the audio correct is most of the game. Even if your video quality isn’t perfect, your audio quality really should be. If people can hear what you’re saying clearly and what you’re saying is compelling, your video can be mediocre quality and people will still love it. On the other hand, if you have stellar HD video but people can’t hear what you’re saying, your video quality won’t matter.

Invest in a microphone. If you can, purchase a clip-on lapel mic with a wireless transmitter that attaches to a wireless receiver on your camera. That way you can clip your mic to your shirt, move about freely and not have to worry about cable lengths. You can also usually hide the mic so your users don’t even see it on screen.

2. Getting Good Video

Camera quality does matter, but high quality cameras are much more affordable today than you’d expect. For just a few hundred dollars today you can capture video that used to cost tens of dollars just a few years ago.

When you’re filming, experiment with a few different angles. If you can, have two cameras going simultaneously so you can cut in and out of various angles. If you can’t there are some editing tricks you can use to make it look like you had more than one camera.

Try to have either two still cameras, or one camera that’s still and one that’s moving. If you must only have one camera, it’s probably better to have a still camera unless you also purchase expensive tripod equipment so the camera can be moved smoothly while filming.

3. Editing Top-Notch Videos For Online

While you can create basic videos in low-end editors that come with your operating system (Windows Video or iMovie) or free editors like YouTube offers, you’ll eventually need to get a professional grade editor if you really want to produce top-notch videos.

Look into editors like Pinnacle, Sony Vegas, Magix, Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere. Each have very loyal followings and have their own pros and cons. If you want to do special effects, you’ll also want to look into motion graphics software like Adobe After Effects.

To start with, you don’t need to invest in all these different programs. Nor should you, as they can have quite a steep learning curve. But if you want to create top-notch videos in the long run, you’ll at some point have to switch from basic editors to editors that can do more complicated things.

Those are the three most important aspects of creating great online videos: audio, video and editing everything together.