Flash Tutorials
The
first video in a graphic flash movie by a CBO! By cutting-edge, Junior Garcia!
Here is a Trojan ad that uses the same technologies (movie embedded in a graphic).
Mix images, video and rap to present a compelling message:
Check out the online video creations of the Ignite Project. These are regular iMovies that are then formatted as QuickTime movies than formatted to Flash Video format using Flash 8 Video Encoder (tutorial below).
Also, other SMART Youth NYC stays busy making great HIV prevention videos.
How do you do it? Prettiest way:
Well here is how to put format video for the web. (To put video inside another picture like the two above? You can either make a new layer in Flash that is much bigger than the movie, say 640 px x 480 px and make a graphic behind the video layer (the two examples above did this). Or, if you are more comfortable in HTML make a table in HTML (or better yet a stylesheet with CSS and XHTML), use the graphic as a background graphic and put the video in a cell by itself.)
(1) Make your video in any video editting program and save it as a .mov file. iMovie comes free with Macs and MovieMaker comes free with PCs; both are great to start with.
(2) Download the free 30-day trial copy of Macromedia's Flash Professional Version 8 (works on both platforms). Uncompress and install.
(3) Note, there are two programs here in two different folders, Flash 8 and Flash 8 Video Encoder. Start up Flash 8 Video Encoder.
(4) Go FILE --> NEW. You will set a blank window with no files. Click "Add" and browse to where you saved your .mov file and click "Open."
(5) Then it will show up on the list. Click "Settings." Now you need to think of your audience and select settings based on them. Choose "Flash 7-Medium" if they are not techie; "Flash 8- Medium" if they a quick download won't freak them out. (Don't click OK yet.) Then click on the button "Show Advanced Settings." If 30%+ have dial-up modems then choose "Low" for "Quality" and "80kbps" for Data Rate and check "Resize video" and make the width "300" (hit tab or click in another field and it will automatically calculate the height). If the overwhelming majority of your audience has dial-up modems, then choose "Flash 8" and under "Show Advanced Settings" put "Quality" at "Medium (more than 1 min.) or "High" (less than 1 minute); also check "resize video" and make the width "400" and "Data Rate" at 96 kbps."
(6) Play around with settings and having users test it. 30 - 45 second PSAs are best for dial-up users. You can always format the video for dial-up and broadband and give users a choice. Test, experiment and test again.
(7) Open up Dreamweaver 8. Choose INSERT --> MEDIA --> FLASH VIDEO. Browse to the .flv file you just created and click "OK." If this doesn't work because of an error message about the template being locked, just do step #7 on a blank page and then IN CODE VIEW copy and paste the different peices over to your desired page. Remember, there are peices of code in the header AND body sections.
How do you do it? Easiest way:
Now you can upload your .mov file to www.YouTube.com and they will:
1) automatically covert it to Flash Video Format
2) host it on their website for free! (it is ad-supported)
3) create a link that you can email to all your friends to watch it
4) generate the necessary code so you can embed the video in your website (but they wil still host -- yes, pay! -- for the web hosting)
For example, check out this animated HIV prevention video:
or, talk your favorite rapper/musician into doing a PSA with you: