Video Edit Magic 4.47

Adding Titles and Credits to Your Movies

You want to make your movies look professional.  Nothing says "real movie" like having the movie's title at the beginning, and nothing shows how proud you are of your masterpiece like having your name in the credits at the end!  With DeskShare's Video Edit Magic, it's easy to add slick, high-quality title and credit sequences to your movies.

In this article you'll learn how to use the Text effect, and how to combine this with other Video Edit Magic capabilities to create impressive title sequences.

Before adding titles and/or credits, it would be good if you are familiar with basic editing operations like removing unnecessary footage, using effects, and using transitions.

Adding Text (The Text Effect)

Before you can add text to the Video Edit Magic Timeline, either a still picture or some video must be added to one of the video tracks.  For this example, I'm going to create a simple title over a blank, black background.  To do that, I'll use the special Add Text As command on the Edit menu and select Opening Title.  The Add Text Properties window opens.  This lets you create and position your text on the picture or video.  I'll call the movie "Steppe House".  I'll use the Format menu to make the text Arial Black 36 and yellow, and place it in the top-center position in the picture.
Video Edit Magic - Titles - Text Properties

To add the Title to the Timeline, click the File menu and choose Save and Close.

Looking at the Timeline, you'll see that Video Edit Magic automatically added a Video Color Clip, a blank piece of video with just a black background, to impose the text over.  You can change the color by double-clicking the Video Color Clip.

To add credits at the end of your movie, you would use the same technique, but choose Add Text as -> Closing Credit from the Edit menu.

Combining transitions with the Text/Title Effect can produce some impressive results.  I'm going to Cross Fade from my title into the movie.  To do that, I need to move my Video Color Clip and its associated Text/Title Effect to Video Track 2.  Just right-click on the clip and select Move to Video 2, then drag the Text/Title effect down to the Video 2 Effect track.  You have to click the plus sign next to Video 2 to make the Effect track visible.  Make sure you drag it against the left edge of the track to keep it synchronized with the clip.

In order to use a transition, the two video clips must overlap.  We'll move the audio and video clips each back two seconds.  I'll click on the track in Video 1 (but not drag it) and then hold down the Ctrl key and click on the track in Audio 1.  I now have both selected.  I can use the left arrow key to move them both to the left at the same time, and watch the Selected Clip Start number. I press the Left key until they both start at 00:03:00. You must move both the video and the audio clip in this manner to ensure that the video clip and its audio start at the same time and there is no synchronization problem.

Video Edit Magic - Clip Start
Now, I find the Cross-Fade transition in the Transitions tab of the Collections window, right-click on it, and choose Add Transition to Timeline.

The default behavior for a transition is to start with what's in Video Track 1, and replace it with what's in Track 2.  We want to start with the title (which is in Track 2), so I check "Swap video tracks for this transition"  and press OK.

Video Edit Magic - Crossfade Prperties

Now the titles will gradually fade out and be replaced by the movie.

You can use combinations of Text/Title Effects and transitions like Wipes and Stretch to produce very eye-catching sequences.

Adding titles and credits to your work can change it from just "a video file" into a real movie.  Video Edit Magic's Text/Title Effect and transitions let you create professional, dramatic title and credit sequences easily and quickly.


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