Adding Titles

Titles can be used for a variety of purposes in videos. The most obvious application of titles is at the beginning and end to show the name of your video and Web address. It's so easy to copy and post things on the Internet that videos can end up in several places on the Web. Put a Web address on any video you create, and people will be able to trace the origin of your amazing masterpiece and find its creator (Figure 5.28). Typically, videobloggers add Web addresses to the final three to five seconds of their videos. Some vloggers create a custom opening sequence with the name of the videoblog, its URL, and the video's title (Figure 5.29).

Figure 5.28. Jay Dedman ends each video by showing the Web address of his vlog.

Figure 5.29. Sara Weagel opens every video for Sara's Corner (http://human-dog.com/sara) with a shot of herself under the title of her videoblog.

Titles can also help add context to a story. Who, what, where, when, why? These questions can be easily and artfully answered with the help of titles such as those shown in Figures 5.30 and 5.31.

Figures 5.30 and 5.31. In "The Haberek, Pt.1," http://www.human-dog.com/lab/?p=163, Chris Weagel uses simple titles to unobtrusively answer questions about who, where, and when.

Many a vlogger has posted videos with noisy background sound that makes the recorded speech inaudible. Titles can be a great supplement to poor audio recordings as well (Figure 5.32).

Figure 5.32. In "Vaccuming," Tim Babarini captured amazing footage of his nephew vacuuming out of boredom. Fortunately for us, Tim used titles to supplement the roaring audio from the vacuum before he posted the video to his vlog, Reality Sandwich (http://realitysandwich.typepad.com/blog/2005/07/vacuuming.html).

Titles can also be used to express the thoughts of a videoblogger. Use them to pose questions or simply add comments along the way (Figure 5.33).

Figure 5.33. In "Hey, Let's Go To Harris Ranch!," http://schlomolog.blogspot.com/2005/08/hey-lets-go-to-harris-ranch.html, Schlomo of Echoplex Park allows us to peak inside his brain and listen to his innermost rants.

Adding titles to your video is easy. Most applications have a lot of preset title animations to choose from. Just type your text, pick a font and size, give it some color, and add it to a sequence (Figures 5.34, 5.35). Depending on the editing program you use, there may be options for animating text as well.

Figure 5.34. To create a title in iMovie, click on the Title option, type your title, choose your options, and drag and drop the title onto a clip in your movie. Titles will appear over video unless you select the Over black box for a black background.

Figure 5.35. There's no dragging and dropping titles with Windows Movie Maker. Instead, you select the location from a menu.