Hello, teachers!
As promised, here is a video tutorial about how I edited my students’ videos for our most recent virtual recital project, Countdown to the New Year. In particular, this video tutorial focuses on how to use Canva.com to design animated opening/ending screens and then how to use Adobe Premiere Rush to complete the video editing. I hope you’ll pick up some useful tips, no matter what video editing software you prefer!
This tutorial video ended up being 35 minutes long — much longer than I expected. But I hope you’ll find the tutorial thorough and complete, and the pacing of the video to feel just right.
- 0:30 An example of an edited student video with an animated and ending screen.
- 1:08 Browsing the templates at Canva.com and saving them to your “Likes” folder.
- 3:20 Selecting a template and using it as a starting point.
- 4:22 Getting the right dimensions for your video project (e.g., 1920×1080, 1080×1920 or 1080×1350). This step is the magic that allows you to use ANY template you find in Canva as a starting point for your project!
- 7:10 Opening a new custom project in Canva using your project’s dimensions.
- 8:30 Copying the template’s elements into your project.
- 10:57 Editing the template to suit your needs.
- 11:30 My Handdrawn Music Notes & Symbols set, used for my ending screen.
- 12:45 Resizing, recoloring, rotating, centering, adding text, etc.
- 17:00 Adding animation.
- 19:00 Downloading from Canva.
- 20:15 Keeping your files organized for your project.
- 22:30 Starting a new project in Adobe Premiere Rush.
- 23:50 Editing your video: moving things around on the timeline, trimming, layering the opening/ending screens, adding transitions, timing the applause track (I got mine from FreeSoundEffects.com), etc.
- 30:40 Downloading your finished video.
- 32:05 A peek at some of the different opening screens I designed for my student videos.
Questions? Any steps I should clarify? Or do you have additional tips to share? Leave a comment and let me know!
Thanks for watching, and I hope this helps with your future virtual recitals or other video projects!
Related: If you are getting ready to do a virtual recital project with your students for the first time, you may want to also read this blog post: My Students’ 2020 Virtual Recital: How-To Steps and How It Turned Out.
I would like to work through this in advance of an event. What are your copyright concerns if any for the chosen pieces? I struggle with how to handle this. Do you write each publisher for permission to post?
Great question, Marlene. I don’t think copyright laws have kept up with technology very well, but nevertheless it’s a good idea to know what they say and stay in the right.
Here is a Q&A quoted from MTNA’s website (https://www.mtna.org/MTNA/Learn/Copyright_FAQs.aspx):
“Do I need a music license from ASCAP or BMI to hold a piano recital for my students?
One of the rights held by a copyright owner of a musical work is the exclusive right to perform the work in public. If music is performed in a public place or if music is transmitted to the public via radio, television, music on hold, or by the Internet, it may only be done with the permission of the copyright holder. That permission is typically obtained by purchasing a music license from the three primary music licensing organizations of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Please note that a music license from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC is only required for public performance of music. Music performed in a private residence, during an educational lesson in a private studio, or as part of a private recital involving a selected group of students does not constitute a public performance. Therefore, recitals by a music instructor’s students for a select group of family and friends would not constitute a public performance and would not require a music license.”
So, it seems a private recital does not constitute a public performance. It’s probably a gray area since I don’t think the law addresses it directly, but I figure that posting an “unlisted” YouTube playlist of student videos is a similar situation. (The “unlisted” privacy setting means you must have the URL to be able to view the video. The videos cannot be searched or found publicly on YouTube’s site. )
That said, if you wish to make your YouTube videos posted publicly, I think you could definitely reach out to the publishers for permission. I did reach out to composer Carol Matz for permission for my students’ Christmas videos.
I’m certainly not a lawyer — just passing along some info I think is relevant! 🙂
Thank you. This has been a concern for me give the current Covid situation.