One of my very favourite things to do on a computer is to make videos. I find it a really fun and creative way to use technology. We’ll start with a simple video featuring a theme of your choice!

Before you do anything else:

1. Make sure OneDrive is running on your computer

2. Make a NEW FOLDER for your video project! At the top of the File Explorer window, you’ll see a New folder button. Click it!

Give your folder a name that tells you what it’s for.

eg:

EVERYTHING FOR YOUR PROJECT GOES IN THAT FOLDER!

You’ll need two things before you can start putting together the video: music and pictures. You can choose which to find first, whether to try to find music to fit the pictures or pictures to fit the music.

Music: Sadly, we are not going to be using your favourite song. We’ll hopefully be posting some of these on YouTube, so we are going to respect copyright and use music that you are legally allowed to use in your projects. Some creators post their music online and do not require payment for the rights to use it. There are two sites that I really like:

Bensound – This one is really quick and easy, and there’s a lot of great stuff available. You can choose a genre/sound from the tabs at the top, or use the search bar to look for a particular instrument or feel (eg: rock guitar). You can also see what is most popular.

Once you find a song that looks interesting, you can preview it with the green play button:

Make sure you are looking at a song that has a DOWNLOAD button:

The ones with a PURCHASE button cost money! Don’t choose one of those!

You can see what is allowed and what you have to do to give credit:

Most creators like to get credit for their work. Bensound makes it really easy. In the credits for your movie, you can include:

Music: https://www.bensound.com

 

I also often use a site called ccmixter

Click that link and you’ll come to a page where you can preview and download instrumental music to use in your project

You can also search for different genres, instruments, and moods at THIS LINK using the Tag Search

You can preview the songs with the play button and download with the other button

For this site, you need to include more information in your credits. I recommend opening a Word document and pasting the creator info into the document for future reference. You can click Copy to Clipboard and then paste that into your Word document. Press Download to, uh, download.

 

PHOTOS: The absolute best site for photos for this project is Unsplash. It will make your job really easy.

You will need to pick a theme. You can pick an item, like a car, dog, or guitar (for example) or choose a colour or even a mood. These are REAL PHOTOS taken by real people. They are usually not photos of famous people or fictional characters. Sorry, but your favourite Anime character isn’t going to work here. Pick something else. Ask me if you’re having trouble or not sure your idea is good. Put your theme idea into the search box.

You will need 25-30 photos MINIMUM. When you find a photo you like, click on the ARROW in the bottom right corner. DO NOT CLICK ON THE PHOTO.

Your photos need to ALL BE IN THE FOLDER FOR YOUR PROJECT. I find that Firefox makes this easiest. I recommend using Firefox. If you use Chrome, you will have to MOVE YOUR PHOTOS INTO THE FOLDER LATER.

Firefox will allow you to save your photos directly into the correct folder:

If you want to make your video extra impressive, you can save the creator information for each photo in a Word document. This is really nice, and much appreciated, but NOT NECESSARY.

ex: