Tools for recording and editing presentational videos

There are many powerful tools you can use for creating a presentational video as a creative assignment, capstone project, or when delivering research findings. These tools vary widely in terms of functionality, complexity, cost, and cross-platform availability (i.e., whether it exists on PC and/or Mac), so knowing what you hope to achieve in your video can help you decide what tools to employ.

Before deciding on your production and editing tools, though, you'll actually want to do a bit of brainstorming to decide how you want the video to look and feel (i.e., what the video's structural elements will consist of). Once you have a good understanding of the end-result that you're hoping to produce, you can then target the recording and editing programs to match your desired outcome.

Here are some initial questions you may want to consider when thinking about the potential components of your video:

Now that you've made some decisions from these questions, let's take a look at some of the options for recording your presentation, along with some key features and pros and cons.

RECORDING

Zoom

For many of us, Zoom is a platform we are all pretty comfortable with by now, and recording yourself in Zoom is fairly easy to do. As well, if you are sharing your screen during your presentation, and want to capture a discreet, full-screen recording of whatever you are sharing, Zoom provides that functionality as well. Here is a resource that shows you how you set up your Zoom recording preferences to optimize your settings for your specific needs.

Panopto

If you are producing a presentational video that incorporates Keynote or Powerpoint, and you're in a class that uses Canvas as its course site, then Panopto could be a wonderful option for you.

iPhone/Smartphone

Even if you don't know how to capture yourself in any other manner, chances are that you're familiar with recording video on your smartphone!

Screen capture software

Using screen capture software is a great and stripped down way to capture yourself with your computer's camera. Here are a couple options:

Powerpoint & Keynote

If you are using Powerpoint or Keynote to create slides for your presentational video, you can also use these programs to record a narration to your slides as you scroll through them, and then export a video that marries your slides with your audio narration.

EDITING

QuickTime

Quicktime allows for very simple editing (e.g., trimming off the ends of clips; cutting out a section of the video; etc.), so if you don't need to perform a lot of editing moves in your video, QuickTime might be a great option for you.

Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is a great tool for creating videos from scratch, or with pre-made design templates, and it's great for those who don't have much video editing experience.

iMovie

iMovie is very quick to learn, and offers many of the functionalities of the more pro-level applications listed below (FCPX; Premiere Pro; DaVinci). iMovie may be the sweet spot for those who want greater customization and control over their edits, but don't have the extra time for learning the pro-level applications.

Final Cut Pro X (FCPX)

Final Cut is one of the three most popular pro-level non-linear editing programs out there today.

Adobe Premiere Pro

Premiere is incredibly powerful! It can do pretty much anything you would want to do in the world of video editing

DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve has evolved impressively over the last few years, and has now become at least an equal competitor to FCPX and Premiere

Good luck! Please contact learninglab@fas.harvard.edu if you have questions about using these programs - we are happy to help.