Here's a ready-to-use script, graphics, and example of how to quickly create a great introduction to your video

Starting out on the right foot

Often, creating the first 45 seconds of video footage for your video or DVD is the most difficult part. It is within these first few moments of your video that you include important graphics, audio, text and titles, and in doing so, set the initial impression and tone for the rest of the video.

Get this right, and you're off to a good start. Get it wrong, and you make a bad first impression.

Here's an example of a Introduction Title sequence I've created for a DVD I'm working on, along with a description of how I created the sequence.

To view the sequence, click here.

The title sequence script

The above title sequence is 44 seconds in length, and was created entirely using Visual Communicator Pro.

Here is the script I used:

(Fade from black)

(Show FBI Warning)

(Fade to black)

(Bring in audio)

(Tumble in production graphic)

(Dissolve in second line of production graphic)

(Dissolve in the word 'Presents' on production graphic)

(Fly in DVD title graphic)

(Fade title graphic to black)

(Bring in 'distributed by' graphic)

(Fade graphic, fade music)

(End)

Each element above had an action associated with it - in Visual Communicator, you drag the action next to the script text, and it automatically sequences it for you.

I first placed the audio track on the script, and then placed the title elements where I wanted them to appear.

I created all the titles using the title editor built into Visual Communicator (a program called Alpha CG). The most time consuming (and frustrating) part of the entire process was in learning to use Alpha CG. It is quite powerful, but not well documented.

Keep it simple

When creating title sequences, the temptation is to include elaborate animations, lots of different transitions, and multiple screens of information. But, in going for a more elaborate production, you often end up spending hours trying to create something 'flashy', and unless you are a graphics artist and animation pro, you usually end up with less than professional results - and in the end do much more harm than good.

For that reason, keeping it simple is usually a good idea.

You want to start the DVD on a positive note, keep things moving quickly, and get into the subject matter as quickly as possibly - and adding a long intro sequence doesn't really fit into the plan.

Title sequence strategy

One of the things you may have noticed in my title sequence was the 'distributed by' information screen. Most videos don't include this screen, but mine do - and there's an important reason.

See, in many cases my videos and DVDs are distributed by companies who may have licensed the resell rights to the video or DVDs from me. And in most cases, those companies want to 'brand' the video or DVD with their company information.

To do that, I use the 'distributed by' screen to show who the video is distributed by. (And at the end of the video or DVD I include a similar screen which includes information on other videos or DVDs the distributor might offer.) This gives the distributor a chance to get repeat orders from customers who liked the video, and want to order others in the series. (I almost always create a series of videos which focus on different aspects of the same general topic.)

Since I create the title sequence within my computer, it is quite easy to modify the titles to create custom master copies of the DVD for different distributors.

The video quality

The video linked to above has been greatly compressed for web viewing. The original DVD version of the above 44 second video has a file size of almost 23 megabytes, and when seen on a TV monitor it really sparkles. The web version is just under 1 meg in size, which means mores than 90% of the video quality has been removed for web viewing.

With the right tools, you could be producing material like this - probably even better. In future articles, I'll show you how to quickly create TV commericals using the same tools and a similar template.